After our last blog we spent another 4 weeks in the boat yard before being launched on the 22^nd of September.  Since then we have had two weeks on the water in the marina, and have generally got on well with our jobs.

 

Phil completed the installation of the Hydrovane self steering, with a cats cradle of rope to support it while he attached the 3 brackets to the stern

The Hydrovane fully installed.  The rudder (black) and windvane (red) are removable and only go on when we are expecting to use it.  It steers the boat without the use of electrical systems, so is useful if you need to conserve power.

The swimming platform at the back of the boat needed to be altered to fit round the hydrovane, and we also wanted to make it smaller as it made lifting the dinghy on the davits difficult.  We both worked to cut it down by about a third and make a cutout for the self steering's post

We continued with repairing the woodwork inside.  The rotten floorboard has been replaced with a plywood board and just needs a veneer finish applied.  We picked up a piece that someone else had thrown away in Langkawi.  The stripes don't quite match up with the existing boards but will do for now. Phil made and fitted teak pads to go inside at the stern of the boat to support the hydrovane brackets.  We have been buying our wood from the wonderful Sim Lee Sawmill, a few miles from the marina, where we are so well known now that Phil is greeted by name.  They supplied us with some veneer which is a bit lighter than the existing teak, but we have cut it to cover boards in some places where it is not too obvious.  In other places, like the back of cupboards, we have replaced damaged wood with white painted boards which give a clean, bright finish.  In addition we have made shelves to make better use of some large lockers and dividers to stop things moving around when sailing.

Our battery woes continued, with the system failing to operate as expected. Eventually some of the problems were traced to our electric kettle which was drawing far more power than it should have and making the system fall over.  In the process of investigating this some other faults in the installation were identified and corrected, so we are grateful to the kettle for keeping the contractor's looking.  What we hope will be the final glitch was fixed last week.  We still have some work to do as we have been told the wiring to all the electrical sockets is not of marine standard, so we will have to replace it all.

On launch day we were lifted on to the trailer in the morning so we could antifoul the patches where the boat had been supported.  Looking where the keel had been sitting on blocks of wood Phil saw a layer of badly cracked epoxy filler that was flaking off.  Someone had previously done a repair but had put the filler on over the top of an old layer of antifouling paint, so it hadn't stuck.  We thought we were going to have to delay the launch but Islam, who does paintwork and fibreglass repairs in the yard, came to our rescue and his team did a rapid repair job for us so we were launched just slightly late.

Once back on the water we fitted the canvas covers that Sarah made, and these have been great at keeping the rain out.  The Southwest monsoon is over now and the inter monsoon period over the next couple of months will bring afternoon thunderstorms, so we will be glad of them.  We are having the fridge and freezer looked at as they are not working efficiently and are using more power than we can afford and, last week, we ordered new a new chart plotter (like a satnav for a boat but with lots of extra features) and radar as the existing ones are very old. We thought the people we bought it from were just going to deliver it to the boat that day but before we knew it, they were stuck into installing it with lockers needing emptying to fit the wiring.  As the installation was free of charge we didn't think we could say it wasn't convenient!

We have been working pretty solidly since we came back from our trip to Thailand, with only weekly shopping trips to take us away from the boat, but last week we took time off to walk along the waterfront in Lumut.  Every other shop on the high street offered 'Hasil Laut' or sea produce.  This actually meant piles of dried fish - all a bit smelly

On another outing to Lumut we had a nice meal at the Italian restaurant with Maria and Allen from Jamala, our neighbours on the pontoon.

There is always more to do but we are getting to the point of being ready to leave the marina, however this is unlikely to be before the end of the month.  We both recently had our eyes tested for new glasses and the process identified a problem for Sarah.  The optometrist referred her to the Ophthalmologist at the local hospital who told her she had cataracts which were exacerbating another problem that put her at risk of a sudden glaucoma attack.  As a result, she is having surgery to remove the cataracts, and this will keep us here a bit longer than expected.  The hospital and medical care have all been excellent and the first operation seems to have gone really well with great results.