-
01/01/17 Sun. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL FAMILY, FRIENDS AND READERS!
The new year starts the same way as the old finished......raining! With a day of grey skies and cool temperatures (it's 27oC......yes, I know that's high summer in UK, but here it's cold!) we were not able to do much. The rain continued into the night.
02/01/17 Mon. A holiday in the yard, so no workers in today - which is just as well because it's still raining! Not continuous today but intermittent heavy showers until around 4pm.
03/01/17 Tues. Great.....a mostly dry day and Jeff doesn't turn up for work! We need to start laying the fibre glass and because we need three people to do it, today was lost! Ana and I cycled out to Kim Chok hardware and bought a new grease gun, then cycled into town in search of a second 14" Stilson but were unsuccessful in that. Maybe tomorrow at different hardware shops.
04/01/17 Weds. Back to the rain!! Continual rain from about 3am until 3pm today, so once again nothing was done.
05/01/17 Thurs. OK, was up from 2am until 4am being sick! I have no idea what caused it - hadn't drunk anything, not eaten anything suspicious, very strange. Sunny today and Jeff turned in for work, so we made a small start on the fibre glassing, but it's not easy to get it right and I just hope we get better as we go along!
06/01/16 Fri. Back to the rain......started at midnight last night and rained all day so once again nothing was done. Going to be here next month too at this rate! For some time I have been trying to find an audible alarm for the engine coolant temperature but the trusted 'mechanical' alarmed gauges all come with a temp. sender that has 1/2" NPT thread, and the existing sender on my cylinder head has a M14 X 1.5 thread. Apparently there are no adaptors available, so it looks as if I will have to go the electronic route, which I don't really want to do. All this is to avoid another engine overheat scenario, I cannot watch the temperature gauge all of the time when motoring!
08/01/17 Sun. Two good weather days and progress made on the laying up of fibre matting. The only thing that stopped us today was running out of resin around 2pm and as it's Sunday, the workshop and all the hardware stores in town are closed.
09/01/17 Mon. Another good day, 4 more 30" sections of hull glassed over, just give us two more days like this and I'll be happy, we can then restart the sanding!! My new seacocks are, as is usual with Malaysian workers, held up in Kuala Lumpur - it has taken 36 hours to get from UK to KL via Germany and China, and has now sat there in KL for over three days! Cycled into town after work for some dinner instead of cooking, then did a bit of supermarket shopping.
10/01/17 Tues. More fibre glassing done - maybe one more day and it will all be complete! My new seacocks arrived late afternoon, had to pay the GST on them of course, but that was expected. Rob from Jolie Brise returned from Australia today, so it was nice to see him again and catch up.
11/01/17 Weds. Sunny again today so most of the fibre glassing done and would have been complete had we not lost a couple of hours waiting for the sun to go over the boat and allow us to work in the shade! That's 32Kg of glass matting and just over 40Kg of epoxy resin applied.......minus the weight of material ground off before we started.
12/01/17 Thurs. ALL the glass matting is now on the hull and all covered with epoxy resin and micro-balloons. So now it will be several days of sanding, filling and fairing! Now it is 9pm and the rain has started, but that's OK at night, helps keep the boat interior cool.
14/01/17 Sat. Second day of sanding the underwater area, and maybe halfway down the length of the boat - more filling will be required on completion. Today........it's the fridge's turn again!! Ana told me it wasn't as cold as normal and on investigation, the compressor is running continually but the condenser isn't getting warm and the fridge isn't cooling, so I am thinking it needs re-gassing. Nothing I can do about it until Monday! The heads outlet pipe is no longer flexible enough to fit the new seacock, (and I had to cut it off the old one!) so I bought a new 2 metre length today and replaced the old pipe - is connected to the pump now but still not fitted the new seacock, but the holes have been cut in the new fibre glass.
15/01/17 Sun. Last night I found out that Eric (from another boat with a Japanese name I can neither spell nor pronounce) had the connectors, gauges and a canister of R134a refrigerant.......so today I borrowed it and put some gas into my fridge. Now we have gone full circle, the fridge now cools when connected to the boat batteries but refuses to run when connected to shore power via either the 24v rectifier or the 12v transformer! I just cannot figure it out.......the compressor draws 3.6amps when running, the 12v transformer supplies 6amps, the rectifier gives out 4amps at 24v, so that would be 8amps at 12v. So, why will it only run on direct battery power?
17/01/17 Tues. Rain all day yesterday and all last night, then on and off all day, so no hull work done. Helped Rob with his mast removal and associated parts. My batteries are holding their own against the fridge consumption, aided by a small car battery charger which I have left switched on.
19/01/17 Thurs. Still raining - hasn't stopped since Sunday and work is at a standstill, cannot sand, paint, install engine or anything else. Furthermore, the forecast is showing same for the next week or so!!
20/01/17 Fri. No change in the weather.....really threw it down this morning at 3am, and then the power went off until 7.40am! We had to go into town this afternoon, but bike riding was out of the question, so we called a cab. Went to the bank and joined a very long queue at the middle ATM, got almost to the front and the ATM ran out of cash! Queue again at the next one!
21/01/17 Sat. Still raining! Into town again to immigration, to extend Ana's visa - the girl in there told us yesterday to come today and when I asked if they were open on Saturday, she said "yes". Guess she must have forgotten what day it was - have to go again on Monday now!
22/01/17 Sun. The eighth day of continuous rain, and the power went off at 8am this morning! Not feeling too good today, got the shivers and sweats, so spent most of the day and night in bed. Just astern of the boat was a big tree, think it was one of the Buddleia family, and it was a source of entertainment with all the butterflies and yellow breasted sunbirds, and now the fish factory management have chopped it down!!
23/01/17 Mon. No rain this morning!! Electricity supply came back on at 7.30am, so that was 23 hours with no power. I am still feeling rough, but had to go into town with Ana to sort out her visa extension. We went to immigration, and they told us we had to go to the post office and buy a stamp, then go to the income tax office and get it stamped before returning to the immigration office and a long wait. Finally, all was sorted and Ana now has another 30 days in Malaysia - me next, mine runs out on the 14th of Feb!
24/01/17 Tues. Dry spell was short lived..........we are back to heavy rain! This is getting ridiculous now, I cannot do any jobs and my stay here is being prolonged. Of course, with the rain comes the power outage, so once more we have no power in the yard. Fed up with power shortage, tracked down the main switch panel and re-set the circuit breaker - only for it to trip again. Turned every outlet off and re-set the breaker again before turning on individual outlets........and it's the one to Bob's boat that is tripping out the whole yard, because water is getting into his plug.
29/01/17 Sun. I'm very saddened today to learn that my good friend Bob has passed away at his home in Australia. John, Ana and I recently went down to Labuan and helped him to bring his boat Dulce here to Kudat. Such a great guy, always a smile on his face despite recent adversities, one of life's gents and characters. He will be sadly missed by all he came into contact with and our thoughts are with Maree and her family at this sad time. R.I.P. Bob.
30/01/17 Mon. More sanding of the hull today by Jeff while I finished off some minor work on the engine, and varnishing of the access door. Everywhere in town is still closed for Chinese New Year, but I think they are all back at work tomorrow.
Did you enjoy your visit onboard? Please sign my Guestbook
For previous logs, click Here
.JPG)
