Return to Malaysia

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Wed 4 Mar 2020 10:34
Three months back in the UK was a much needed opportunity to catch up with family and friends. Annie and I dabbled with proper grand parenting with a couple of sleepovers, one of which included our niece, a pantomime, trip to the zoo and so on. All the old cliches apply and having young children to stay made the perils and exertions of sailing around the world seem like “child’s play”.
After becoming disenchanted with so much time away from home we have both been uncertain about how to continue our sailing journey. We had firm and tempting quotes to ship Vega into the Mediterranean or even back to the UK. Annie had planned a passage across the Indian Ocean that included flights back to the UK from the Seychelles and Cape Town to break up the time away but, in a surprising turnaround, it was me less keen to continue than Annie. At Annie’s suggestion we deferred the decision by planning a relatively short sailing trip in Malaysia and Thailand, overland travel to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and then, from mid May to spend the rest of the year back in the UK whilst deciding on the next legs.
Back in Malaysia we are taking quite a while to get over jet lag. We had an overnight flight from Heathrow that involved little sleep and then, desperate to get into bed at 2000 local time found that our bodies were still on UK time 8 hours behind which ensured a second sleepless night! We put back re-floating Vega by a couple of days, slept in the mornings and sorted Vega in the afternoons.
Apart from the new anchor chain and Rocna anchor, the most significant maintenance issue has been the Coppercoat antifouling - an epoxy resin mixed with copper powder - that had been blistering and coming away in patches right down to the original hull surface. We had first come across this in Australia where I had made patch repairs. By Malaysia the problem was extensive and calls to the Coppercoat company suggested the problem was the hull preparation before the original application. It seems strange that it should have taken eight years to manifest itself and after a re-coat in New Zealand but nevertheless we were supplied with enough Coppercoat at cost for a complete reapplication. After careful preparation and application by the yard (B&V Marine) Vega is looking resplendent. Furthermore the yard has cleaned the teak deck, restoring its pale brown “as new” look.
Getting Vega back onto the water proved to be stressful for the yard but, on reflection, informative for me. The travel lift is relatively small, it being a small yard, and to accommodate Vega it had been necessary to detach the forestay. Being a fractional rig the spreaders angle backwards and tension in the shrouds (the supporting wire on each side) bends the mast forward into a curve. There is therefore greater shroud tension than on a rig where the spreaders are at right angles to the mast. Also the triangle of support formed by the base of the mast and the two shroud attachment points behind together with the two lower shrouds on either side of the mast prevent movement in the lower part of the mast. Mast bend or flex in the upper part of the mast is therefore controlled by the shroud tension as well as backstay tension (the wire from the top of the mast to the back of the boat). What none of us appreciated was the extent to which the shrouds would need to be slackened as well as the backstay before the fixed length forestay could be re-attached to the bow. In the choppy conditions beneath the travel lift with the boat bouncing around, the mast had to be supported using halyards while the shrouds and backstay were slackened right off. Stressful for the yard but useful for me as I could visualise for the first time how the various tensions affect the support and shape of the rig. Now that all the rigging tension has been reapplied the backstay has more tension than previously. This has reduced sag in the forestay when sailing with the genoa that I recall would be good if Vega was a sailing dinghy but now concerns me in case it is too much tension putting too much strain on the boat and/or rigging fittings. I will loosen things a tad.
Another concern that came back was that of the skin lesions on my forehead (such skin damage is commonplace among more elderly yachties and a testimony to all of us of the need to use high protection sun cream throughout life) and one in particular had formed a scab that seemed to be very slow in healing. As soon as we mentioned this to other yachties at the yard a business card was produced for a recommended specialist in Penang to whom there seemed to be a regular pilgrimage of Caucasian yachties. So, after three nights at Rebak Marina, on a small island resort where we caught up with some yachty friends on She San and So What that we hadn’t seen since Fiji, we moved over to the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club Marina from where we could get a ferry down to Penang where we went to see Dr. Nagreh who has given a thorough examination and pronounced the problem lesion to be no more than a symptom of the Actinic Keratosis affecting most of my forehead. This has all been zapped with liquid nitrogen and I now look red and blotchy to a far greater degree than before but hopefully only for a short period. It seems likely there will be a need for repeat treatments over the coming years. Whilst there we were also able to arrange visas for our sail up to Thailand.
Penang has been an interesting trip in other ways too. We have had some insights into the Malaysian and Chinese Malaysian communities and the economy that I can share in a later post. Now, back on board in the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club Marina, Annie has just cut her foot and is planning to suture it herself. She is a rather demanding doctor/patient so I had better pay attention and abandon this post for while. I will report back........

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