For those who want to track our voyage from Cape Town to Stanley; you can view the boat’s tracker via the Pelagic Expeditions website via this direct link.
Estimated departure is the morning of Wednesday 3rd August.
Blog Archives
Cape Town to Stanley
A screenshot from TZ Navigator V3 showing some of our past trips (in red) and a couple of sketched in options (in blue). The forecast is long range one paused on 12 August and the little blue boat icon shows our forecast position as if we were following the lower blue track. The coloured blobs show rain and I often include that layer as it shows up the fronts well. Read more ›
Time out in Cape Town
Cape Town from Blouberg Strand
A couple of pleasant but busy weeks in Tahiti saw Morgane cleaned, maintained, and prepared to be left alone on the hard at the Tahiti Nautic Center . Morgane was very professionally hauled out and parked up by Yvan and his crew. Read more ›
Tahiti – paradise, not; and expensive to boot.
17:43.94S 149:19.65W
Tahiti-iti at dawn
Hao was a very pleasant stop but soon it was time to get moving again. We had been continuously watching the weather forecasts looking for a good window to move on to the next destination but as previously mentioned the forecasts in this part of the world seem as much use as a chocolate fireguard (especially in these temperatures). Read more ›
Winter in Cape Town
“Pelagic Australis” snuggled into the East Quay Boat Yard
While Paula has been beavering away in the rain of Valdivia (or Valluvia as she calls it) I have been busy working with Pelagic Expeditions on the annual refit of “Pelagic Australis” in Cape Town, South Africa.
I flew over in late June and have been busy since working as technical director with the team to prepare a very different style of yacht to “Morgane” for her forthcoming Antarctic season. Read more ›
Post Brazil catch-up
So what have I been up to since the “Dodgy” update?Well we finished the dodger in early June, apart from the windows as we didn’t have any acrylic, before I headed of to Rio de Janeiro and Paula headed to Cambridge in the UK where she had a short term fellowship with the British Antarctic Survey. Read more ›
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. Read more ›
The painters beat the weather
The weather hasn’t been an easy obstacle to overcome but with some good timing and working a public holiday and a weekend we managed to finish the painting job on Pelagic Australis. The photo shows all the masking still in place after the final coat of grey was sprayed.
While the painters were busy on deck Gcobani and I were busy down below putting the heating system back together after a complete overhaul. I have all the below deck electronics updated and ready to go.
We now just have to fit the new satellite antenna and it’s radome for the Sailor Fleet Broadband 500 system. I have also installed an Iridium Openport system, and removed some obsolete equipment.
We have also been going through the accumulation of spare parts and things that have been kept just in case they come in useful for something one day. Some of the spares in the lockers are for obsolete systems etc., the same for the big box of instrument manuals.
One day I sorted out the odd bits of spectra and rope covers (that we use to cover working parts of ropes as chafe protection) and assorted bits of cordage, string, bungee etc.. I got rid of about half of what had accumulated. On Friday we emptied the forepeak onto the foredeck and sorted out all the odds and ends stored in there – see the photo, left – There wasn’t much in the forepeak that I could bring myself to throw away but a good selection was earmarked to be stored in our storage container in Stanley. Missing from the photo are a couple of anchors, some dive tanks, and two Bombard C4 inflatable tenders that also normally live in the forepeak.
On Wednesday I visited the Quantum sail-loft to check out the new sails for ‘Morgane’, they look very nice and were copied directly from the old ones with just a few small modifications so hopefully they’ll fit just fine – fingers crossed.
This coming week we’ll get “Pelagic Australis'” genoa (a foresail) back from the loft and by Tuesday or Wednesday should be ready for some sea trials. The weather looks pretty grey for the first few days of the week but from Wednesday on-wards looks nice and clear on the long-range forecast.
Red spray at midday
A week of more or less good winter sunshine has helped the painters progress well with the work on “Pelagic Australis'” pilot house. The saloon and pilot house have been redecorated and all sorts of odd jobs ranging through all of the systems on the boat have been knocked off by Gcobani, Matt and myself. The photo at right shows Gamje and his gang spraying the red part of the pilot house. Gamje is the guy in the in the red cloud; I think that he has spent so long in a cloud of paint that his lungs only function in a rich paint/air mix!
I have been hunting down a few supplies for “Morgane” and had a session with my friend Manuel Mendes this morning going through my shopping list. He gave me lots of pointers about where to go to get the best deals on a lot of things and then gave me access to his junk bins where I found a few blocks and some jammers that will work nicely after a little TLC.
The Sun nicely lights Devil’s peak behind the house in the mornings. Unfortunately the weather forecast for tomorrow, Sunday, and the early part of next week doesn’t look so good.
I work as a marine electronics troubleshooter.
Please visit my website www.tweedsmarine.nz for more information or to contact me regarding work.
- No job too small -
You can also support us by ordering one of Morgane's Little Wanderers. A little traveller made aboard "Morgane" sent to you from wherever we happen to be at the time.
Visit the Facebook page to find out more.
Recent Comments