Varnishing, EPIRB and 200V switch

We're slowly moving from phase 1 to phase 2 of the restoration of King Malu. The deck work is mostly complete, we have ordered a new suite of sails and so we are starting to look at the cabins.

The most obvious part is what the saloon looks like. The cabins are seen only by us, but when we invite guests on board they see the saloon. In general the saloon looks pretty good. We need some new upholstery and a carpet, but the lockers are solid teak and look smart.

Notice the bolt cutters behind the steps. These are a critical safety tool every yacht should have available. If you loose your mast you need to be able to cut the rigging free quickly.

Anyway... what didn't look so good are were the steps down into the saloon and the teak behind the steps. So the first thing to tackle was stripping and re-varnishing that area.

We used some cheap triangular sanders we bought from Lidl plus a Fein Multimaster. The Fein Multimaster is new and expensive, the sanders from Lidl are at the opposite end of the cost spectrum. In combination they worked well. The Lidl sanders for the large areas and the Fein for the detail. What the Fien was particularly good at was the gaps between the teak tongued and grooved boards. There is a rubber linear piece that takes sand paper for doing exactly that. We highly recommend this tool.

We then used a Sadolin water based clear varnish. On the teak woodwork I put 4 coats and on the steps I put 8 coats. The steps took a bit more work. We removed the old anti-slip, which was no longer anti-slipping and replaced it with Treadmaster. We kept the metal anti-slip tread holders and we are very pleased with the result.

At the end of 2011 we also bought a McMurdo EPIRB and fitted that.

It is fixed in place very close to the steps, as in an emergency you need to get and deploy it quickly. It won't do any good being in a locker if the yacht sinks!

The EPIRB will automatically start transmitting when it's in salt water, so you might wonder if water coming in through the companion way will set it off. This is not a concern as there is also a magnetic switch in the unit, with a small magnet in the bulkhead fitting, so it has to be removed from the fitting as well as be immersed in water to set it off. There is also a way of setting it off manually.

We bought the McMurdo EPIRB from Mailspeed Marine in the UK. Dave Somers is the representative we deal with and he is both helpful and very knowledgeable.

The McMurdo G5 Smartfind Plus is a 406MHZ Epirb designed to operate with the COSPAS-SARSAT international system, but is also fitted with a 12 channel GPS receiver. This addition ensures that the exact position of a casualty is relayed directly to the emergency services.

Finally... the last thing we did was to fix the Sterling 220V Automatic Switch in a new place in the saloon locker above the chart table.

This switch is a great device. It automatically swaps between shore power, generator and inverter, but in each case makes sure the power is clean and stable for 10 seconds before connecting it. You can buy it from our store at Malu Marine.