Remaining tasks to complete

Western Port Marina

Friday 24 January 2020

Tomorrow we plan to set sail for New Zealand.  Yesterday the boat looked like a construction site.  And today, with six of us – the full crew – aboard we are frantically tackling the urgent and important remaining tasks.

Only three days ago, Chimere was returned to the water after two weeks up on the hard-stand, where I sanded and painted the hull.  In addition we replaced two sea cocks and serviced the engine and generator, with an additional high-capacity bilge pump also being installed.   And yesterday morning, despite the torrential rain and howling wind, we returned to the slipway (from our marina pen), to have a crane re-install the mast.  

The mast … for the past two weeks … has been lying on its side in the rigger’s factory, not far from Hastings.  It’s here that all the old cable (standing rigging) was replaced with shiny new wire and turnbuckles and all other fittings checked and replaced.  This included an aluminium reinforcement thingy, custom made by boat-partner Barry. This very strong little unit was inserted into the mast, where it supports a big stainless steel (tang) bolt that runs through the mast, just under the first spreader bars.  No more will the force of the downward strain be able to bend the tang bolt and affect the integrity of the mast. 

Having the mast down was also a great opportunity to replace all the wiring that snakes its way up to the navigation lights.    In addition, wind instruments were added, which was truly a big advancement because for the past 14 years we’ve been relying on lengths of red wool tied to the side shrouds to tell us wind direction.  Spreader lights, which I’d bought 7 years ago but never got around to fitting, were also attached and of course there was the sanding back and painting of the small patches of corrosion that had lifted the original paint here and there.  Oh, there was also the reconditioning of the three furling units that attach to the forestays and which allow the jibs to be rolled in and out depending on the conditions.  Plus, we shouldn’t forget the cut and polish which helped to bring the mast up to a near-new look.

Having the boat in the water, re-united with the mast, was a great feeling.  It was then a case of tightening, or tuning, the rigging to the correct tension.  As for the many wires that emanated from the base of the mast, these needed to be re-poked back through the deck and reconnected correctly.  These included … radar and chartplotter, the new wind instruments, a new white navigation light, the existing tri-colour navigation light, new spreader lights, VHF radio aerial and … I’m sure there was one more??!

The good thing is, we had local professionals doing the wiring and the rigging for us – Dale from Clow Marine Electronics and Craig from Superior Spars and Rigging.  Great guys who have worked on Chimere over the past seven years or so.  All I can say is a massive thank you to Craig and Dale for making time for the work at hand and completing it as promised with literally hours to spare.

Another massive thank you goes to our regular all-things-boat-guy Steve, from Professional Marine Management.  Steve serviced the engines, fitted the bilge pumps, installed the toilet holding tank and pump-out system, monitors all systems onboard and basically checks to make sure future problems are either eliminated before they occur, or at the least, minimised.  Thanks again Steve.

Departure is just one sleep away.  All crew are now on board; including me.. And in the early evening, with all the big jobs complete, or at least under control, (including re-attaching the three headsails to the forestays, not to mention the boom to the mast) our attention turned to food.  Not the evening meal, but specifically, what are we all going to each for the next 10 days or so?!

Fortunately, Jorge and Jodi’s super-powers included, amongst other things … provisioning, stowing, preparing and cooking FOOD.

Naturally, a list was compiled, with input from everyone – no alternate days of tinned beans and spag aboard this vessel,  No sir-ree.   We had things like carrots, spring onions, cabbage, flaked dried chillies, cuss cuss and bananas.  Of course, there was a lot more besides, and looking back, even though the local Coles supermarket closed at 11:00pm, we should have arrived earlier than 9:30pm.  To buy everything in one and a half hours was really ambitious, or as Sir Humphrey would have said … “A courageous move Prime Minister…”.  So it was that with three mountainously-piled trolleys, we gingerly approached the checkout at 10:59pm.  

“Are you all together?” inquired the nice young lady  at the register.  “Ah, yes, sorry about this, but we have left things to the last minute haven’t we…”   given there had been two friendly “store closing” announcements in the past 15 minutes.  Announcements that had merely spurred us on to go faster in filling the trolleys, rather than making our way to the register to “finalise your purchases”.

Along with another staff member, (or was that “team” member), the goods were zapped through in record time, with Jorge, Jodi and I – plus the extra assistant – stuffing each into bags just as son as  they left her hand.

“Wow, that was quicker than I thought it would take”, said the young lady, “thanks for helping with the packing “.

“Have you had a purchase this big?” I asked.  “No I don’t think I have.  The docket’s as tall as me”, she said, holding it up beside her.  “Oh wait, I sold $10,000 worth of cigarettes to someone once, but I don’t count that” … the mind boggles!

It was around 11:20pm that the two young girls at the checkout finally saw the back of us.  After which we loaded the car to capacity and headed back to the marina to start the daunting task of transporting, then stowing everything aboard.

With the saloon awash with bags of food and my credit card suffering from its $1,100 beating I staggered off to bed around 1:00am for a good 6 hours sleep before getting up for the final sprint to the line.

Smooth seas fair breeze and food glorious food

Rob Latimer

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