Things are looking up! We can just about see the finish line, although there are still a few things to do so we are staying in the shipyard for a few more days.

Painting and more painting

It was a big week for the 143 Boat Building team who worked solidly, including right through the weekend, to get some of the weather dependent jobs done before the big thunderstorms. It involved re-installing the mast base, one of the two winches and the fittings (the electric winch will come later), taping the area around the mast step in preparation for spray painting, antifouling, painting Propspeed on the two propellers, getting the re-entry hatch back on. Wade pitched in with Tony for the sanding of the cockpit and sugar scoops on the Monday before the storms. Also on Wade’s list was the polishing of the hulls, a huge job which took him a couple of days. The sugar scoops got painted, leaving just the cockpit for later.

Despite the heat and wind late on Monday afternoon, it was a mad dash to get the mast step spray painted before the forecast rain the next day and the mast going back on. Jules at Gateway Marine was on duty, with screens set up on deck to protect the other boats from any overspray. We had to hang on to them as the gusts were bad and threatening to blow them over. What a nightmare!

In the end this paint job was all for nothing. It looked awful with odd patterns from the way the area had been prepped and different shades of white between old and new paint. Ryan realised he had not given Jules the right paint! Oops… the whole area had to be redone. More sanding, more prepping, more painting. Then the top of the step needed some non skid applied so we don’t break our neck when working around the mast to raise the mainsail or put reefs in. This job will take a bit longer to finish off!

Another job that did not go well was the clean up of the hatches. Our doing this time! All our hatches are covered with One Way Vision, a perforated vinyl film that keeps the heat out of the cabin and gives privacy. You can see out but people outside can’t see in. Well actually of late it was No Way Vision, we could not see anything through them at all because salt and grime had built up in the perforations and it just was not cleaning up.

Someone who shall remain nameless did not want to «waste » fresh water rinsing the hatches regularly! Another member of the Anui crew had enough and decided she would peel off the old film, clean up the windows and have new film put on, but the Captain suggested we instead power wash the hatches to clean the perforations! We did clean up years of encrusted salt but also managed to spray thousands of little plastic dots all over the deck and the clears! It turns out every perforation is a single layer of vinyl whereas everything else is double layered! The clears in particular were a mess with a mass of little plastics dots stuck on them. It is taking for ever to scratch the tiny dots off! Aargh! It is reminiscent of the mind numbing process of removing backscatter from underwater photos! The moral of the story: don’t be stingy with fresh water and clean the hatches regularly. And ignore Mr Stingy – replace the One Way Vision films when they get too bad!

The rig is back up!

It was a big day Tuesday as the standing rig was craned up, providing plenty of excitement in the yard! The SK Yacht Rigging crew slotted the mast back on, re-connected the boom and the furlers, fastened all the stays and adjusted the tension with the turnbuckles to get the whole rig straight and balanced. The halyards and lines were fed back on. It was an interesting process to watch. A few hours later, the job was completed, albeit finished in the rain. Scott will do a quick check of the rig in a couple of months before we head offshore and we are good for another 10 years. A big ✔ on this huge job!

Anui is nearly looking like a proper sailing catamaran again! Now we need to put all the sails back up, set up the lazy jacks and reconnect all the electrical wires coming down from the mast.

We all hate the heat!

We have been living in a mess, putting in 12 hour days in 36^oC heat for three weeks. It has not been pleasant. It is very physical work. Everything hurts in our poor old bodies. Haulouts in February at The Boat Works are the pits! Even our ship’s cat thinks so and has been suffering from heat stress.

Despite the discomfort, Bengie has continued to enjoy her early morning outings, deck patrols, locker inspections and snoozes in various places inside the cabin during the day. She did get a bit put off when we were blocking her from going down the ladder at the port hull. She thought she’d be clever and go to the other hull but found there was no ladder on that side! “Someone has taken my ladder; I can’t get off! Where is my ladder?” We suspect we will have to try to take her to the beach regularly once we get away from here. She demands her walks before we have even had breakfast!

Friday morning was supposed to be splash down day but we have now rescheduled that till Tuesday next week. There are still a few things to complete: the mast step and the cockpit floor painting, the installation of the electric winch which is expected to arrive on Monday, sorting out a few electrical gremlins and then a final clean up inside and out.

We can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully our next post will show us back in the water, ready for our next adventure.