Two in the cave

And there's room for two in the cave

The plastic cave

Now that Belinda has finished with making the plastic cover at the helm I stay warm and dry when it's raining and windy.  Difficult to sail with it all up because the winch handle hits the plastic on the way round but usually if the weather is that bad we need to charge the batteries anyway.

Leaving Newcastle

These guys are a lot bigger up close.  This is in the channel leaving Newcastle harbour.

Heading North again

Driving with no hands and talking on his phone, what am I  to do with him. Any way we are back in Port Stephens, heading in the right direction again. We will stay here until Sunday for the weather to clear.

Tough day.

Finished work and now it's time for cheese and bickies.

New Batteries

Out with the old and in with the new.

The old batteries were just truck batteries (wet cell, lead acid) that are not deep cycle.  At three and a half years they had done all the work they were going to do.  Lots of research led me to Peter at www.batteryvalue.com.au and we ordered and paid for 3 x 125AH deep cycle AGM batteries on Tuesday and had them delivered to Newcastle marina by lunch time on Thursday.

The new batteries are smaller, lighter and more efficient. Oh yeah, cheapest price I could find anywhere as well.  I toyed with the idea of putting in lithium ion batteries but although they are great technically there were just not cost effective yet.  Next time.

Engine fixed?

So this is the timing case cover that caused the oil leak.  The previous owner (or the ratbag that sold us the engine) had severe corrosion and bogged over the holes and then painted it 'Volvo' green.  First picture doesn't look too bad apart from the bolt hole does it?

How about this then?

All that stuff that I'm touching is bog and the two bolt holes have been completely corroded.  In one spot there is a whole about 3mm in diameter that went straight through.

Rain proofing - Part 1

This is the first and most important part of making the boat rain proof.

And we have the money shot

The beauty of digital photography. We have about a dozen shots around this one that were not quite right.

Hauling out

1st of April we hauled the boat out for some much needed maintenance.

I have a bunch of photos so I'll work out how to create an album and then link to that.

 

In addition to the clean and anti foul we needed some fibreglass work at the front, and down the back. While we were cleaning I looked at one of the propellers and noticed that it definitely wasn't working as it should.  

And we have also had a slow (but getting worse) oil leak on the second hand engine that we had fitted last year.

2014 Haulout album