Splash

I admit to some blog negligence. It is a week since the last entry. 

This has been partly due to a strange thing that seems to have happened to time.

 Sometimes the day seems to go on for ever with nothing happening, and the minutes and hours slowly tick by. And then you realise that several days have gone into the past, with almost no memory of them.

The dreary, dusty days drag on and on. I am led to believe that the perception of time relates to the laying down of new memories. So the journey to a new place seems longer than the journey back. Anyway just logging the day of the week becomes difficult.

Anyway things have now occurred.

Finally the day arrived to get the keel put back on. The first attempt failed when it was realised that one of the new studs was too short. An emergency call was made to the engineers and a new rod was threaded overnight. Impressive and an indication of intent.

At the allotted time the next day things suddenly started to happen. The keel was dressed in polythene wrap to prevent the Sikaflex getting onto it. The surface of the keel was treated with phosphoric acid and primed. And the studs all inserted and torqued down. There were no torque settings available so they seemed to be adopting the Turkish grunt standard. Tighten down until you emit a grunt.

The travel lift arrived and the hull was lifted off its cradle and the lift rolled forward over the keel. Suddenly there was pandemonium as a cascade of water ran down the sides and the guys started fervently wipng to avoid it getting onto the precious surface where the Sikaflex would go.

The water was coming from the tank overflow pipe.

The Boss turned to me “Did you fill the tanks?” he accused. There was not a lot of point in denying it so I was immediately ostracised from the rest of the proceedings.

The temperature was 35 degrees and within 10 minutes there was no sign of the water, and I was excused my indiscretion.

The work force involved included the guys who work for the engineering firm, the guys from the travel lift company, and then a bunch of others who just seemed to appear. I think this was because something unusual was going down, a bit like what used to happen in the school yard when there was going to be a fight.

It struck me there were quite different physiognomies. The Travel Lift guys were all 6ft plus and 16 stone plus. They lift large logs and hammer them into place on the hulls of boats all day so have a pretty heavy duty job and are built appropriately. 

The guys who do boat work are quite different. They need to be able to get into small spaces in boats and then do complex tasks, a skill set known as boat yoga. Crucially they also need to work underneath a boat without bending and/or bumping their heads. So they are all about 5ft 2inches, but with good balance and strength.

The travel lift moved forwards and back, and side to side to get the holes in the hull lined up with the studs in the keel. This was an incredibly delicate bit of maneuvering of a huge vehicle. 

They not only had to line up fore and aft, and side to side, but also to get the long axis bang on. Given that the studs only just fitted into the holes, and indeed some holes had needed widening to take the studs cleanly, this was a huge ask.

Tricky

Then the wind picked up and the hull swayed in the cradle, and twelve pairs of hands tried to stabilise it against the breeze.

 I was just giving up hope that this was indeed possible when a loud call was given by the foreman and the lift operator lowered the hull, directly and cleanly onto all 15 studs!

Mind you fingers

Huge celebration occurred.

The next phase was to put on the Sikaflex. The deal here is that you have to get it applied and the joint made before the Sikaflex starts to harden, or 'skin'. And the skin time is 30-40 minutes depending on the temperature. Sikaflex cures on contact with the moisture in the air. I am sure you remember that warm air holds more moisture than cold air, so at 35 degrees, you have to get your skates on.

I think at maximum effort there were six guys with tube guns squeezing away for all they were worth to get the 20 tubes of Sikaflex applied. And it had to be evenly applied, and coating all the studs up to the thickness of the hull (6 cms).

Royal icing

It looked a bit like a Royal Icing party, but this was a deadly serious race against the clock. It was a bit like a Vietnam move. There was one guy preparing the tubes and handing out the ammo. The squirter would load his gun, cock it, tap it on his helmet, and into the fray.

Soon the job was complete and the hull was slowly lowered onto the keel, at which point most of the carefully applied white goo squidged out of the sides. This was then rapidly removed before it set. There were a variety of views as the most artistic way to do this but eventually the job was done.

Different sizes 

The spanner guys then went inside with the torque wrench and tightened down the nuts to the specified setting. I had previously researched this aspect of the job and passed the specifications to the Boss. I was assured this was equivalent to tightening as hard as you could without inducing a hernia, but he acquiesced to use a proper torque wrench just to keep me happy.

At this point I was dispatched for refreshments and came back with a dozen cans of pop and a dozen chocolate ice lollies. This seemed to go down well with the assembled throng.

The plan was that the next day we would launch. Initially in the morning, but the plan extended into late afternoon. The first sign that release was near was the welding team arrived with their angle grinders to remove the metal cage. I kept my head down. I did not fancy falling foul of these guys fully armed.

The rigger/ Professor arrived and took the mast round to the launching bay for his careful attention. I had added a few extras such as flag pennants, a new cleat and re-structured the lazy jack system. It was clearly going to be given a throrough inspection.

The crane was booked for 5.30 pm and all was good to go.

My anxiety levels were rising however. I exposed all the points where water ingress was possible. I did a trial start of the engine – good to go. 

When we had arrived I had gone round all the seacocks to check they were working. Seacocks are the entry and exit points through the hull for water for the engine, sinks, heads etc.

 On our boat they consist of a brass through hull fitting attached to a bronze valve. The worry is that if a valve sticks in the open position and a hose leaks you could have a serious problem. When I had checked them before they were all fine and I had lubed them. However better check them again. 

Engine -fine, forward heads -fine but a little stiff. Aft heads – the main exit, the big one, was really stiff. But it was moving. I worked it back a forwards a bit and as I gave it a last tweak to shut it – bang- the lever came off in my hand!

Oh b*'&£#@

Calamity. However if it was shut it would be a lesser problem in that at least it was safe and we could do without it.

 I decided to fill the toilet bowl and flush it through to see if the valve was truly shut. Strangely when I lifted the seat, the bowl had a thick layer of yellow dust in the bottom of it. When we left the boat we had stuffed all the through hulls with rags, but having removed them, a months worth of dust had blown up their chuffs!

I filled it with water from the sink and pumped. The valve was not completly shut and some water was making it out. We could not launch like this.

I legged it round to the engineers office. When the Boss saw me standing in the doorway clutching what he recognised as a seacock handle, his face drained and an expression of disbelief came across him.

Without uttering a word to me he grabbed his phone and quick as a flash contacted the technical team.

We then had a discussion. He said they could probably just replace the valve and not the through hull, but it would be tight time wise with just 2 hours to the launch window.

I hurried back to Summertime and bumped into a few acquaintances en route who heard the tale. By the time I got there the technical guy was there. 

He took one look st the situation, including the very limited access, and shot off back down the ladder.

 Within a few minutes there was the sound of an angle grinder outside and the through hull fitting was removed, quick as a flash. I have to say he did a brilliant job in very difficult circumstances, and without cutting corners on preparing the surfaces. Within an hour we had a new fitting and valve installed. Brilliant, now why could the rest of the work not have been done like that!

There's a hole in my bucket ...

It was decided that, despite the brilliant response to a crisis, it would be best to leave the launch until the morning.

Fine, so M and I repaired to the bar. We met there with the Spanish captain of a superyacht owned by a Russian billionaire. There are a lot of these in Turkey at the moment.

He was recovering from an argument he had with his crew and was in the bar alone. The argument was about how they had managed to discharge black water overboard in the marina, and I think competence and parentage were questioned.

So we had a game of pool and a few Rakis, and mutually commiserated. An entertaining evening.

In the morning, things swung into action quite quickly. We were transported to the launching pool and splashed with no problems. The engine started and there were no water leaks anywhere Pheew.

Splash

The crane turned up and the rigger/Professor and his side kick with the shades did a splendid job of getting the mast back in place. The only issue was that the crane was obstructing the work of lifting a superyacht from the large pool next to ours. Of course this turned out to be the yacht of the Iberian skipper we had met the night before. He was fine with it and gave us a friendly wave.

Summertime and Supernova

So we were escorted to our berth and settled into life afloat.

Sunset afloat at last.

It is difficult to describe the difference between being in a boat afloat and on land. The feeling is just completely different. The noises are different, the slap of the water, the clank of a halyard, the slight movement of the boat as you move about, the reflections of light on the water dappling the inner surfaces of the boat. Suddenly it is a joy being on the boat whereas living aboard in a dust bowl is thoroughly unpleasant after a while. 

Radar cable, soldered, crimped and about to be amalgamated. 

Anyway we spent a couple of days putting on the sails, sorting out all the ropes, cleaning, chucking out clutter, reconecting the mast electrics.  provisioning, paying all the bills and getting ready for the sea.

And giving radar!

We are off tomorrow.