A Catch Up

OK so it’s been ages since I last posted in the blog. It’s not because I have forgotten about it but I suppose that I have dropped the habit or something like that.

Since mooring “Morgane” at the Canache in Stanley, in March, this is brief chronology of what I have been up to:

• a few weeks running a hydro-graphic survey boat surveying in and around Port William
• cut six floor access panels to access the saloon bilges for storage and maintenance
• fit several lourvers to ventilate various lockers and spaces.
• catch a rat that managed to get aboard
• building a new galley
• building a new nav-station/desk including DC switch panel and built in boat computer
• flew to South Africa
• refit “Pelagic Australis” including; a new engine, new electronics, new radar arch, dry dock, DNV survey
• sail back to Stanley from Cape Town – 21 days.
• back to working on”Morgane”
• painting white work in saloon
• Saloon upholstery
• re-wiring main DC distribution, switch panel, and lighting including red-lighting circuit
• re-install  Refleks heater in stainless steel tray and create a drying locker space.
• new anchor and chain
• build a tender

That just about takes us up to Christmas. In amongst all of that I have sold my big old house and a new smaller more practical house for me is taking shape and should be complete in a couple of weeks time.

“Morgane” is now on the beach. She was quite a sight when she came out with a complete ecosystem attached to her bottom. I don’t actually know when she was last out of the water but probably about six years ago; therefore there was no anti-fouling paint left on her. Sitting on a pontoon in the Canache in Stanley since March with it’s high currents had been a perfect breeding place for all the critters that like to live on the bottom of boats.  After a thorough high pressure wash down her bottom was revealed and there were no nasty surprises lurking; the anodes have done their job well and the few small areas of exposed steel were in good condition.

I have now cleaned up her bottom and fixed some paint defects that were mostly small blisters caused by scratches. I have pulled the propeller shaft and have ordered a replacement cutlass bearing, bushes for the drive coupling and a new rubber boot for the PSS shaft seal, all of that should be in my hands next Monday DHL permitting.

I have also cut a hole for a new transducer for a furuno sonar/fishfinder that I am installing, and tomorrow we will be welding up an old unused transducer hole that I considered to be in a poor location for the new sonar transducer.

I have painted the starboard side underwater sections with a Vinyl chloride resin paint that will be the base for the new anti-fouling; the port side will be painted tomorrow after the welding is completed.

The new tender takes shape.

The new upholstery

The Nav station, comms, and DC switch panel.

After hauling; a forest of tunicates with a few mussels and barnacles thrown in.

“Mogane” in the cradle after pressure washing.