Launching in sunshine

Work done this time: small area of rot in the bottom plate of the bulwarks forward, timber replaced; one board in the bulwarks port side in way of wheelhouse door replaced; wheelhouse door rebuilt; rot in transom belting, timber replaced; all upper works prepared and painted; prop speed; metal stem band to protect stem and forefoot from flotsam damage; anti-fouling paint.

Hauling in the rain (again)

Chuck, Vlad, Sue

How do we choose these wet and windy days to haul? A SE gale with rain in it, cold and grey! Still, she might as well be in a shed being painted, because it's hardly boating weather.

No problem getting over the cradle, sitting nice and upright, and a gentle drive and push back into the shed. Dave's mast hinged down in about 10 minutes.

Haul-out 2017

Havelock Slipway

Hauled out on the top of a 3.2 m tide. Sitting upright and well-supported. The paint has held up well, it's two-and-a-half years since she was painted at Salthouse. The hull was pretty clean, just a few mussels on the keel where the blocks were. Fitted an additional transducer on the port side just forward of the cooling water intake, this is so the Furuno mfd can be dedicated to display the depth the whole time, and to fish-finding. We have an upgrade kit for the bowthrust; beautifully engineered propellors replace the quite basic standard ones. We're going to follow the advice of the O brothers and the Chris McMullen article and leave the anodes off. The bottom paint is Carboline Sea-Barrier Copper Black and we used about 22 litres. It's an Altex product.

Pelorus River

Off Havelock Slipway

Sue drove around to the slipway in the car with Poppy, and took this picture while we were waiting for the yard to adjust the cradle. It was a big tide and it stood for an hour at least.

Oh, joy!

We got the news we'd be going back in the water Saturday. She went afloat no problem, and Joseph Griffiths had the wheel again for his knowledge of the narrow channel: "Don't look at your depth sounder, you're better not to know."

Joseph on the wheel

Oh, joy! We have been afloat for 48 hours now, and the pump has yet to go off. I looked - no water, wow! All this was, it was a butt joint and Alan (shipwright) couldn't say whether it was a nail hole or the caulking in the butt itself that was letting water in. Anyway he replaced two nails with silicon bronze screws, and caulked the joint, and it's tight. As is the weepy transducer, all dry now. Also fixed the wee bump on the stem (long delay shifting gears when you have a Gardner idling at only 420 rpm married to a Twin Disc reduction gearbox, more bumps likely in the future) and sharpened up the boot topping (thank you Wayne). Also followed the 'O' Bros advice to reduce the zinc and bonded the remaining anode to the aft bearing housing, thanks to Joseph for your work on this. In a very good space right now.

Brief haulout

Hauled at Havelock Slipway

We have hauled out to do a few minor jobs: inspect the hull after the delivery trip; fix a few minor leaks; reduce the zincs. Joseph Griffiths went on the wheel, negotiated the narrow channel, and put her on the cradle. Took a couple of goes to get the cradle right, but then she sat very nicely. 

No real drama

John Burns was to come up on Wednesday July 1st, which thing he did. But on the very day he was traveling we found pitting corrosion in the tail shaft, in the usual place, in way of the stuffing box. We should have inspected it earlier, but we didn't.

John Skipper Burns

So John took the opportunity to have a very good look around, and after making a few recommendations, satisfied himself that Orion was about ready (except for the corroded shaft) for the trip South. John has gone off now to sail a boat back from Bundaberg and will return to Orion in about two weeks, the time it should take to do the work on the shaft. All part of the fun when you own a boat.

The new shaft from Chatfield Marine

Additional detail for geeks:

It's crevice corrosion, and possibly occurred during the time she lay idle in Whangarei before Brian bought her. It's hard to really know how bad this kind of corrosion is just by looking at it. But there's significant loss of strength, and with the best part of 1000 Newton metres of torque made by the Gardner 8LXB and multiplied by the 3:1 reduction gear, there is the potential for even a 3-inch shaft to shear, and Simon Willis of Chatfield Marine confirmed this. Various courses of action were mooted, from doing nothing based on the premise that the corrosion was historical and Orion had been going around like that for years, to replacing the conventional stuffing box with a floating seal to prevent similar problems in the future. Sue and I felt that we couldn't live with a known (quite major) defect, and that equally we didn't need to fit (expensive) modern solutions that would involve disturbing the stern tube. So we took the middle road, and decided simply to replace what was there, but with SS2205 instead of the existing SS316. 316 would have been the standard of the day when the existing shaft went in, but 2205 is commonly used today. To quote Australian Stainless (ASSDA): "The grade has excellent corrosion resistance and is superior to grade 316, performing well in most environments where standard austenitic grades may fail. 2205's low carbon content gives the grade a high resistance to intergranular corrosion and has better resistance to uniform, pitting and crevice corrosion due to its high chromium and molybdenum content. As 2205 is a duplex stainless steel, the grade is also less sensitive to stress corrosion cracking in warm chloride environments, unlike austenitic stainless steels. The grade also has good resistance to stress corrosion cracking when exposed to hydrogen sulphide in chloride solutions. High mechanical strength combined with excellent corrosion resistance gives 2205 high corrosion fatigue resistance."

Position of the blocks

It was pretty cold in the wind, and hard to find the necessary patience. But it's important to do this stuff, to be blocked well next time. Nick had some notes from when he hauled her last during Brian's time. Options in Marlborough include Tory Channel Contracting in Picton and Havelock Boatyard... both have good patent slipways. For the position of the blocks also see this page on this blog.

Caulking

Nick and John have done lots of caulking

One would use red lead, but it takes a long time before it dries enough to putty over. So now Nick uses a primer made specifically for underwater work, and he notes the time he paints it on and there's an optimum time to start puttying - when the paint has taken a set, but hasn't completely dried. He says the paint then kind of glues the putty into the seam. So, they go along in sections, chalking up the time they put on the paint.

Some of the butts needed attention because they'd got rather wide and stayed wet long after she was out. John refastened some of them using silicon bronze screws and was pleased to note they all pulled up tight. And some we put a tingle over as well, as in the picture below.

Nailed it

John Butler

 John's hand-made nails

John makes by hand the nails that will fasten the sacrificial board to the keel. You can't buy nails like this in any chandlery shop we know. When we bump the bottom going into Havelock we'll know nothing's going to drop off.

Hauling out at Salthouse

High and dry

The wind was fresh from the west, blowing onto the Salthouse jetty. I think Greg and Nick nearly postponed, but she came out just fine: straight, upright, and well supported. It's a great wee slipway, in a lovely setting.

Skipper Brian and his crew

These are the guys who did all the hard and often dirty work of the conversion, and also went on week-long fishing trips to Barrier Island. It's been our great honour to meet them, and we really hope they come down to Picton one day to fish for the blue cod and to have a drink from our bottle.

Brian Gallocher piloting Orion
up river to Salthouse

Salthouse Boatyard is at Greenhithe on Lucas Creek. The upper harbour is lovely, with bush coming down to the water's edge. The deep water is marked by but also taken up with moored craft, and you have to pick your way through them carefully. 

Tory Channel Contracting

That's not Orion on the right

Round the back of the ferry terminal on Lagoon Road is TCC's yard with two cradles, and a jetty. There's a big shed, and inside we met with Shorty and Fred who were "no problem" kinda guys. They're tuned into wooden boats too, so we may find ourselves hauled out here before very long.

Franklin's Boatyard

Franklin's Boatyard, Waikawa

Continuing our search for suitable slipways we looked over the gate of Franklin's Boatyard, Waikawa, Queen's Birthday weekend. It's on the site of the old Jorgensen Yard, and this suggests the slipway might well take Orion. There are two chandlers and several marine businesses nearby at Waikawa Marina.

Havelock Slipway

Havelock Slipway

On our way north in the van we went via Havelock to check out the slipway. We saw two cradles that could take Orion. By luck, we were there at dead low water and got a good look at the channel.