Seagull Dreaming

May you live in interesting times, the old Chinese curse goes, and events lately have certainly proved to be very interesting. As I write this, the world is going mad over the new President Elect of the USA, a Mr Donald Trump.  Well Facebook is certainly going crazy.  I have never seen a time where people seem to be so polarised over their particular brand of ideology.  Never has the gap between the left and the right been so big.  I won’t stoop to using the left’s renaming of the two opposing ideologies, “progressive” and “conservative” because the left certainly isn’t progressive and although the right could be considered old fashioned or set in their ways with a desire to retain their old values, I certainly wouldn’t call them conservative.  In truth, both sides are conservative and want a return to those values that belong to a period of the twentieth century from the 1930’s through to the 1960’s.  And yes, I have purposely spelt left and right with lower case!  This was when good old “Stalinist communism” was at its peak, along with the Gulag camps in Siberia and mass graves in forests.  This is progressive?  The right want a return to the same period where the nuclear family of Dad, Mum and 2.5 kids and the white picket fence life style of post war America.  It was a boom time of lots of jobs and opportunities – a golden age if you like, but certainly not a traditional lifestyle as it only lasted for a few decades – the eras before and after were quite different.  However, the world has shifted far too much in past few decades for these times to ever make a return.  The nostalgia from the music and films and automobiles is about all we can ever hope to achieve – the fashion certainly hasn’t made a comeback, apart from a few sub-cultures that wear the clothes of the 1950’s and dance to swing or jive music.  Do we ever really want to return to the past?

La Mouette was built in the golden age of Australian GRP boat building – the variety of brands from the 1960’s and 1970’s is quite amazing considering that Australia doesn’t really have a yacht manufacturing industry anymore. There are still lots of power boats being built locally but hardly any sailing yachts.  Things changed a lot in the 1980’s and a lot of the yacht builders went out of business.  When we bought La Mouette it was essentially a typical 1970’s family cruising yacht – designed for sheltered waterways and overnight trips.  Sometimes, when I look at the to-do list, the amount of “modernising” that we have to do is quite daunting (and expensive).  The temptation, is there to keep La Mouette rigged as a 1970’s boat.  Hank on sails, ice box, sail rigging etc all done at the mast and not in the cockpit.  I guess that we will eventually have roller furling but will the boat sail any better for it?  It will be easier to sail, that’s for sure.  It already has UHF and VHF radios, an EPIRB, dual batteries (but no solar charging) and an electric head (but no header tank).  However, the EPIRB, radios and batteries all need replacing.  Suffice to say, the boat really needs a jolly good refit plus some improvements along the way.

Our long term plans, apart from the refit, is to sacrifice the port quarter berth with a chart table, along with a station for all the electronics, ie radios, switch panel, music player etc.  Set the boat up for blue water cruising with the usual goodies, arch/solar panels, dodger, self steering etc etc.  plus a few luxuries such as a small fridge and one of those stern mounted BBQs.  We already have a new mast and rigging, plus the engine re-build currently in progress.  Of course, we know that by the time that all of this has been done, we will be a lot poorer, the boat will be a lot richer, but not worth the money we will have pumped into it.  But that’s the way of boats.

Hopefully, we will have “our” boat, not a 1970’s icon, nor a modern plastique French weekender, but something that we can be comfortable in and be able to take places. So when the world has it’s meltdown, we can sit anchored in a snug bay sipping out gin and tonics, with no Facebook and enjoy life.  When the grandkids ask us “what did you do in the great meme war of 2016 Grandad?”  We can truthfully, say that we spent more time watching sunsets than we did on Facebook.  That’s really something to aspire to!

As you may have gathered by now, the prospect of Donald Trump in the Whitehouse isn’t that scary a prospect for us. Unfortunately, for Australia, we don’t really have anyone for the populace to protest with – Pauline Hanson is too much of a minority to actually get anywhere and on the equally nutty left side of politics are the Greens.  I think most people have seen through their deceptions and realise how utterly incompetent they will be – so they won’t gain any power.  Instead, it’s the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the More of the Same Parties, representing no change whatsoever.

Can’t wait for the boat to be made shipshape and loaded up with gin and tonics ready for those sunsets in some far off foreign bay, away from everything. Just can’t wait.

Every Boatie has a to-do List – I think I mentioned in a prior blog that mine is on an Excel spreadsheet, colour coded and ranked in priority. There are big jobs and lots of little jobs, ranging from removing  the old antifoul to hanging pictures.  We will get there, it’s just a matter of time!

When we first bought La Mouette, it was pretty much a blank canvas, basically a 1970’s family cruising yacht which hadn’t been updated. The only concessions to modernity were the EPIRB (out of date!), a solar panel which used to sit on top of the coach house with the wires coming out of the gaps in the washboards, and wired to a controller that sat on top of the quarter berth cushion.  The other end had the spring loaded clamps around the battery terminals.  A previous owner had installed dual batteries and there was an electric bilge pump and an electric muncher thing connected to the head.  Oh, and a VHF and UHF Radios, both of which were once white and now in that yellowed tint – funny how white doesn’t fade, it gets darker!  That was it!  Everything else was 1970’s pure and simple.  Hank on sails, everything controlled from the mast, original analogue depth sounder, analogue sum log for the speed (actual gauge missing from the cockpit bulkhead).

Therefore, the to-do list is a list of requirements to drag to boat into the 21^st century and turn it into a blue water cruiser.  Having said all of the above, it sounds like we bought a project boat – we haven’t really.  It’s quite a solid unit – yes there are a few blisters on the hull that need grounding out – the engine is old but has seen a few rebuilds.  Ground tackle is ground zero – meaning it needs replacing and there are dings, divots, stress cracks and gouges galore in the fibreglass that need sorting also.  No leaks!  When it rains, the water doesn’t come in – stern gland has new packing so it’s pretty good.  Although the hatch seals should be replaced, they are still doing their job.  La Mouette still looks good.  From the end of the wharf you can’t see the imperfections in the gelcoat – only up close.  Interior is good and we have replaced a few cushions and oiled the woodwork.  Exterior timber needs doing as it’s starting to go grey in places and that’s another job for summer.

So it’s no project boat, but one that still needs lots of cash to be thrown at it to bring it up to spec for what we want to do with it. Another $20,000 Aussie dollars will get us a lot of the big ticket items  we need, such as a dodger, arch for solar panels,  wind vane, porta bote dinghy, a rebuild on the bow roller, and a Jordon series drogue.  A new engine is inevitable (another $12 to 15 thousand).  Lots of things need rebuilding or restoring and by the end we will have a very nice boat indeed, one ready to sail out of the heads into parts unknown.

Our philosophy tends to the simple side of things, so the price won’t be as high as it could be. Plus the fact that at 28 feet, we don’t have a lot of room for luxuries and that can only be a good thing,  More gadgets = more breakdowns = more things to replace or repair.  We might go down the route of buying a small fridge unit to keep the milk cold but no big freezers or anything like that.  Navigation will be paper charts, hand held GPS, and I-pad based chart plotters.  We are really keen to learn the old fashioned way of doing this stuff.  I don’t believe in watermakers.  We are going to keep the old metho stove, but might go for a newer Origo, however, we will definitely not being putting in a gas cooker in the saloon.  Getting a Magma bolted to the pushpit rail will do as a an oven and additional cooker – yes, it’s LPG driven but that’s all outside and fairly simple.  I originally wanted lots of gauges all linked into together but apart from the depth sounder, what else do you really need?  You mobile phone/hand held GPS unit will tell you your speed.  Oh, and we need to buy a compass!  That will fill the hole in the bulkhead left by the removal of the sum log very nicely.  It sounds like a more labour intensive life style, and in some ways it is, but then we won’t be wasting time tuned in/out with a television set. Theoretically, there should be more time to get things done, and once we are live-aboards , we should save commuting time also.  This lifestyle really is swings and roundabouts.

Unfortunately, we can’t give up our day jobs just yet as the above has to be paid for. I have often heard/read that it’s better to buy a more upmarket boat where all these things have already been done, rather than to buy a boat where you have to pay for it, and never see a return on your investment.  I reckon the return on your investment is the experience you gain and the satisfaction you get.  Plus you don’t have to go through and fix up someone else’s mistakes.  I don’t really believe that buying a turn-key boat or no more to pay/sail away boat is really ever that.  There is always something to fix.

So I had better leave my keyboard and go and start crossing off items from the to-do list.

Entropy is one of the laws of the universe and it most certainly applies to boats – the more you don’t use them, the more they fall to bits. The reverse doesn’t apply however, if you do take them out and use them, then they wear out!  There is no escape.  The only part of your boat that these immutable laws don’t apply to, is of course, the “to-do list”.  If your boat sits out on the mooring, or in its berth for weeks on end, the to-do list just gets longer, and if you boat gets out to your favourite anchorages on a regular basis, the to-do list also gets longer.

Only two things can change the length of your to-do list. Time and money.  Throw enough time and money at your boat and it not only gets cleaner and shinier, the to-do list shrinks somewhat.  Money, of course is a finite resource.  There is only so much of it left after all the bills and living expenses have been paid to go toward boat maintenance and boat enjoyment.  Paradoxically, the more we work to earn the dollars to fix the boat, or to improve it, the less time we have to actually spend aboard fixing things, or enjoying the boat.

I have reached the stage of life where money isn’t the big issue that it used to be. The credit card is still a bit of a thorn in my side, but it’s not the mill stone that it once was.  The cruising kitty is steadily getting fatter and the bigger projects on the to-do list such as a spray dodger or solar panel arch will be definitely be achievable when the time comes.  It’s funny that you when you have the money, you don’t have the time, or you have the time but don’t have the money.  At the present time, I don’t have the time and I am sitting here scratching my head wondering why.

The big project at the moment is to get my gearbox fixed. The old Yanmar YSE8 is 40 years old, and whilst it starts first go, everytime, the gearbox isn’t so good.  A few months ago, we took it out for a weekend on Brisbane Water and on the way home going up Paddy’ s Channel, we started losing weigh, despite the engine thumping away.  Increasing the revs made no difference and La Mouette just ended up drifting along with the tide.  Central Coast Marine Rescue ended up towing us back to the marina, and subsequent investigations revealed that the clutch cones were slipping.  The telling factor was that the propeller wouldn’t go in forwards but everything worked ok in reverse.

I made the big decision to pull the engine out of the boat to get the gearbox sorted. Whilst it was out, the engine bay could be cleaned up as it is quite grungy at the moment with mould, oil and dirt everywhere.  It is also time to clean up the engine bay wiring as it was a mess also, just barely held together with poor crimping.  A coat of paint in the engine bay, replace anything that resembles a hose, a coat of paint on the engine plus a service and we would have a near new looking engine bay.  That was the plan.  Somehow, just trying to find a few weekends in which to get this done is near impossible.  So far, I have got a lot of the removable bits on the engine out, such as the starter motor, exhaust elbow etc and it really just needs the prop shaft to be disconnected and lifted out.  The gearbox may have to come off to lighten it a bit to get it out of the boat and up onto the dock but that won’t be a big issue.

If we get a free weekend, the weather is so bad that nothing can be done. Did I mention a free weekend, whatever that is.  Somehow, the Gods, or Goddesses are amusing themselves by stealing my diary and loading up the weekends.  You look ahead to the next month and it looks clear but by the first week of the month all the weekends have been booked out with stuff.   It’s time to get ruthless and learn to say no.  it’s the only way that the boat is going to get the attention it deserves.  Either that or give up work so that I can spend all this glorious time with La Mouette, but then I won’t have any money to get that pesky to-do list shorter.  Reminds me of those scams that was going around a few years ago, send $50 for a fool proof method of cutting your electricity bill in half.  You send off your fifty bucks and they send you back a pair of scissors!

There’s no doubt about it, if you are a first time boat buyer, especially a boat that lives in the water permanently, then the learning curve is steep. We bought La Mouette in March 2015 and sometimes I can’t believe how far I have come in the last 12 months in relation to boats and boat systems. When we were looking around at buying a boat and going aboard various boats with brokers, we looked at all the usual stuff – condition, sail inventory, engine, electronics, rigging etc etc. But somehow, now that we actually own the boat, we had no idea about how much knowledge we would have to acquire to maintain the said boat – and that’s before you leave the marina!

It starts off with simple things like tidying up the wiring for the bilge pump – replacing the manual bilge pump. By that stage you have your “to-do” list up and running. Mine is an Excel spreadsheet, colour coded and everything and as I work my way through the list, I keep adding things to it. But as I work my way through the list, I keep on learning more and more. Stuff I had never even dreamed about before, such as Sikaflex-ing holes when screwing things to the fibreglass – now I know I could even use butyl tape. Wiring should be tinned and you seal it all up with heat shrinking or even heat shrink your connectors, if you use crimped connecters – some people say you should solder everything. When you buy your new electrical thingy, you look at the packaging to see how many amps it draws to put into your power usage equation.

A forty year old boat is going to have a few battle scars and so you start learning about fibreglass and gelcoat, polyester resins as opposed to epoxy resins. How to deal with those pesky blisters and so on. A limited budget means that because you can’t afford to pay someone to fix your boat, you have to do it yourself, and so you spend hours reading books and doing internet research. I have lost count of the number of Youtube videos that I have watched showing me how to bleed a diesel engine, fibreglass stress cracks, service a winch, and how to calculate your power usage.

I suppose that I am more fortunate than a lot of people as I have always had motorbikes and was a bit of a petrol head in my youth, so working on engines and mechanical things comes fairly naturally to me as I have had a lot of practice.

When you climb aboard a prospective boat, the Broker is quite happy to explain how the survey process works, or the process for obtaining a mooring.   But what he doesn’t tell you is that you have to become a diesel mechanic, a carpenter, painter, rigger, electrician, fibreglass expert, plumber. I even know about Sailrite sewing machines!

One of the Youtube channels I have been following and enjoying is Sailing Nervous. Vin and Amy have decided that they want to live aboard and go cruising. The early episodes were learning about what sort of boat they wanted – then they went looking for a boat and finally ended up with a 30ish year old Moody 34. Having been twelve months down the track from them, I could see what was in store for them, and now they are on the same learning curve. It is fun seeing them following in my footsteps. But as most of us know, we can buy pretty much any boat and it’s the same – the never ending to-do list, even on a boat a couple of years old.

Currently I am learning about clutch cones and how to get the engine out of my boat – once it’s out I will clean out the engine bay, replace a lot of hoses and rewire the engine compartment. Then it’s get the engine back in and get it going again – after learning how to get it, and the prop shaft into perfect alignment.

I am just beginning to realise that I am only at the beginning of my apprenticeship – and only on the first rung of the ladder. I have long ago left the shadow of the Boat Broker behind me, and am now almost on first name terms with the guys at the engine shop and the local chandler.

My Nigel Calder book on boat maintenance has a few greasy fingerprints now – hey I even know who Nigel Calder is!

If I could write an email to a 12 month younger self and explain the next 12 months of boat ownership, would I do it? First I have to work out a method of charging my my laptop from the boat’s power supply!

Well I guess that it’s no good setting up a blog site and not posting any blogs, so here goes!

When we originally bought La Mouette last year, we didn’t have any long term plans for cruising or anything like that. Didn’t even really think about such things. It was more along the lines of weekends away around Pittwater and the Hawkesbury and maybe even up the coast a bit to Lake Macquarie or Port Stephens.

As kids on Mum and Dad’s yacht we spent weekends away on Lake Macquarie and the overnighters were just as much fun as the getting there by sail. I can remember the raftings up and group sails. It was all fun – but then life was more fun back in the 1970’s, however let’s not go there just at the moment.

Was buying La Mouette a desperate bid to try and capture a chapter of youth long gone? I wouldn’t say that, but more probably, the yearning to go sailing is still there. Packing the Landrover up with the tent and cooking gear is part of the same yearning. So is the motorbike. Especially the motorbike. A BMW K100LT is not just a tourer, it’s a full fledged gypsy machine, built to cruise the highways and take you, and your luggage to far away places – and also La Mouette. The open road or the open sea, it’s pretty much the same thing.  Bilbo, in J R R Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, is talking to Frodo the Hobbit: “He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step onto the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'”.

I think It’s started. The road, or the current has swept us along already – Youtube hasn’t helped much either – too much information and too many people following their dreams is setting a dangerous example!  They say that the horizon at sea level is only 4.7 km, but we can see a lot further than that. Of course the horizon is only as far as your imagination. The hard part is turning those dreams into reality and thus the real journey begins.

Welcome aboard!

Take your shoes off and come aboard!  Don’t forget the golden rule, one hand for you and one for the boat.

Take a seat and I will put the kettle on and make a brew, or would you prefer something a little stronger.