Mooring King Malu

I know I haven't written for a long while. I have been too busy. A lot of this is to do with Malu Marine. Indeed this is sort of about Malu Marine. We have fitted a webcam to a mast above the Resource Centre we how have at the Marina. This records all the goings on of the marina. You can see a live webcam still every 60 seconds on the website too.

Anyhow, this is a recording from the webcam of us mooring after sailing for the morning. Unless the wind is very low we now always moor into the wind. This allows better control of the boat.

Broken shackle

We were washing down King Malu today and I happened to notice that the anchor chain was not connected to the anchor. On further investigation I found that the shackle holding the anchor to the chain had broken. We were very thankful that we had not lost the anchor or worse... the boat.

You can see how the shackle was suffering from metal fatigue, but it was not obvious because the area of fatigue was hidden by the swivel joint to the chain. This will become something for our annual inspection in the future.

Konnos Bay for the weekend... not

We decided to have a weekend at Konnos bay. Wind should have been 15 knots steady for the sail out. But it wasn't. It was 4-10 knots. So we motor sailed most of the way to Cape Pyla... we call this mode 'snudge' it uses very little electricity (5-10Amps, which means we have 18-24 hours on the batteries to do this) and is almost silent. Some of our nefarious friends suggest it would be great for assisting during races. What it does is to take the prop drag away totally and just move a little more water under the hull. It gives another 0.5-1 knot of speed.

The wind gauge kept playing up and then the compass direction. Most annoying. I even tore off a small piece of light sailcloth to revert to the old fashioned way of telling wind direction.

The chart plotter was really weird. We would suddenly appear to be heading in a totally different direction. We reset the navionics twice. It was not funny. That is till we realised why...

We had added a swimming platform. With the swimming platform went a boarding ladder. And we found a great place to stow it beside the mast in the saloon.

It was neat and tidy and out of the way.

And made of stainless steel.

And right beside the electronic compass!

Anyway... moved that and the chartplotter and wind gauge behaved again.

Wind dropped more. We want to get to Konnos tonight so we started the generator (the motor is hybrid, using generator if we want to use the motor for a long time of motoring). Great. Till the generator died. OK, so try this then... your diesel motor dies and you are 10 miles from the marina or a mooring and the wind has dropped (4 knots) but the swell is pushing you onto the rocky shore.

But we do have the batteries. That is a little further than we would expect to motor without the generator. We didn't know exactly how much we needed for that trip. So we were very careful. But we motored all the way back to the marina.

The interesting thing was the power gauge. By the time we got back to Larnaca Marina it was dark. We have a nominal 96V system, which means that the 97.3 volts the bank had dropped to was about 57% capacity. The Curtis controller thought it was 78%, which needs re-calibrating, but nevertheless to get back with more than 50% of the battery capacity still available shows what you can do with electric drives.

Swimming Platform

The plan had been for a BBQ behind the port with Vasilli and his family. Vasilli is the owner and director of TechnoMetaliki who are the folk who do all the amazing stainless steel work we use. The photo shows the new swimming platform he made. He got to try it out for himself!

Anyway... I say the plan had been... because the wind got up and we were worried that the food would blow off the BBQ. So Tim cooked it on the Actifry at home and I brought salads. We had a great evening together.

To Zygi... well not quite!

The original plan had been to start really early and sail to Zygi and back. Both Tim and I looked at the weather, and there was a possibility we could do it. The forecast said northerly then easterly changing to southerly around mid-day. I was slightly sceptical as only one of the forecasts said that the northerly and easterly would be anything other than a few knots of wind. But it was worth a try.

As it turned out, the winds were light. For the first few hours it was 2-4 knots so we motor sailed. It's an algorithm we call 'snudge' on the electric drive, where we give it a tiny kick and it really helps so with 8-10 amps on the electric drive we were sailing at 4 knots in 4 knots of wind. Not racing along but a gentle potter.

We tried the Asymmetric and that helped till we got to Cape Kiti and the wind dropped away to nothing so we zigzagged to try and find any wind and failed so just motored for a little hoping it could come up.

It did, but not with the quantity or direction we wanted, so we just headed out and put up the asymmetric and the mizzen stay sail.

We've not had these light wind sails up for quite a while. 120 degrees wind and we're heading in the wrong direction but sailing. Light winds still so we head for home.

We were shocked arriving at the Zenobia site. Normally there is one small buoy and a load of junk for dive vessels. By junk I mean empty containers tied onto ropes tied to the wreck which the dive boats moor on. You can see it in the right hand side of the photo.

However, today approaching from the south there was a south marker buoy! It hadn't been there when we left at 7AM.

There is a full set of north/south/east/west buoys. But beware there are no lights or bells on them, and they are not (yet) on any charts so sailing into Larnaca bay be careful at night.

First sail of the season

First sail of the season... Dry dock and travelling took its toil! But now she's ready for regular sailing. 

BBQ

A year or so ago Tim bought a barbeque for King Malu, but we had not so far fitted it. On the last lot of CAD laser cutting and folding we got done I got round to (sorry) making the plate for it to  sit on.

The plate has four lugs to stop it falling off and a spigot on the bottom (welded using our new welding machine) which goes into a piece of stainless steel tube which is lashed to the stern of the boat.




Two days later we tried it out. Worked very well indeed.

Back in the water

Yes, King Malu is back in the water! You can see the new swimming platform on the stern. We're in a new berth now. Not a floating pontoon, but right by the slipway which means that it cannot break in the same way and it's more sheltered.

VOLVO OCEAN RACE LISBON STOPOVER

About 180,000 people visited the Volvo Ocean Race village in Lisbon for the stopover. The atmosphere at the village was electric because Team Vestas Wind was rejoining the race with a rebuilt boat. 'The boys are back in town' was their theme tune for the stopover and you could see the entire crew, including skipper Chris Nicholson, were looking forward to being back in the race.

Each boat in the Volvo Ocean Race carries a Silentwind Generator as backup for the main diesel generator. Normally the teams run their diesel generator five times every 48 hours, but this is reduced to three when they use the Silentwind Generator. The boats have a extremely high power requirement because as well as the specialist navigation and normal 'house' requirements they also have a very high demand for the media and filming equipment to provide the coverage we see daily. Those demands make the needs of a normal cruising yacht seem minimal by comparison.

At each stopover they create 'The Boatyard', a huge tent containing eight shipping containers, which they use as workshops and stores. The Boatyard is shared by all the teams. Inside the Boatyard there is a huge sailmaking loft, large enough to check and repair the colossal main sails for the Open 65s. The loft is surrounded by carbon fibre workshops, mechanical, electronic and rigging workshops and an administration area to co-ordinate any repairs. 

Nick Bice
Boatyard Manager

This race has seen less major repairs needed compared to some previous races. The Boatyard Manager, Nick Bice, has the responsibility of ensuring each boat is safe and ready for the next leg.

He is a laid back Australian who very obviously enjoys his work and is rarely is seen without a smile on his face. He told us that it was his personal project to see the race take further steps towards use of renewable energy. 

The start of the next leg was not what the crews might have liked, with the wind dropping to almost nothing while they were upstream in the river and sailing against the tide. Suddenly the wind picked up and, to the joy of the crowds, real racing began. The next leg will be one of the toughest the teams have had to face with upwind sailing most of the way and the forecast showing winds of 50 knots right on the nose as they pass Cape Finistere into the Bay of Biscay.

Topcoat

Spray painting the hull is not the easiest job in the world... and when the wind blows, holding down the 'tent' so it doesn't blow away makes it more difficult.

Not quite finished yet... a little more to do to make it close to perfect. Then a seven day wait for the paint to really harden before we put her back in the water.

Epoxy undercoat

We have been watching out for the right weather for a couple or weeks or more. 'Right weather' for painting is low winds (under 10 knots) and low humidity (under 50%). Monday and Tuesday look like being those days... or Monday and Wednesday.

Anyway, we started today at 07:00. Yes, 07:00! Too early for me really.

First thing was a major job masking everything and creating a 'tent' around King Malu so that no paint reached other boats, cars or people!

Then time to check the humidity (was 47% and dropping), mix paint (this is a three part epoxy paint) and start the compressor.

Then time to start. Tony (Paul's Dad) is a pretty expert spray painter. Paul is actually very good himself, but had only done cars not boats till today.

First a sample patch to check everything.

Then time for masks and some serious spraying!

Once started it went pretty quickly and created a firm even coat of epoxy on which we will spray the Awlcraft 2000 top coat.

Basically all done in a couple of hours. Very much quicker than painting by hand.

Then time for lunch and...

...raising the curtain so that they don't blow over during the night.

Stop Thief!

Today I was over at Dyrenia at church and got a phone call from Tim to say overnight that King Malu had been broken into and 'turned over'. Fortunately he meant that the boat was not upside down, which would have been a catastrophe but it was bad enough that everything had been taken out and tossed around in the cabins and saloon. They were looking for money, but found none as we keen no money on board!  It was, however, bad enough that they took some tools. Not valuable, but very irritating.

Caulking -- step two

Tim & Jacob spent some time watching YouTube videos about caulking teak. The considered opinion was not to mask but to sand it away after it had set. So we'll see how it goes!

Renewing caulking -- step one

Jacob has been removing some of the the old caulking from the leak in the cockpit. The photo is actually Tim trying out the tool... we're using the Fein tool with a special blade. Works very well.

Then new caulking and sanding down the teak. Should make King Malu look great in the cockpit.

Deck repair and swimming platform

We brought the new stainless steel swimming platform for a trial fit this morning.  Since we no longer have an outboard motor on the transom this is something we can now have! As well as swimming from the boat it will also make boarding a lot easier when we are moored stern to...

It wasn't a 100% fit so a few minor changes needed, but it will be excellent when it's finished.

We also glass fibred the deck in the place where we had previously ground away for repair. This is the first time I had done any glass fibre work, though Tim had done some when he lived in South Africa.

I was very concerned that it was going to pad up the deck and make it lumpy. However it went much better than I expected, and we just need an epoxy skim layer and then treadmaster.

Nearly ready for spray painting

We have patched up spots in the hull ready for the antifouling. Wherever there are little pits we touch up with Awlgrip Hull Guard, which we now gather is no longer made. It's a very hard epoxy paint that adheres well to the hull and to which the antifouling adheres.

Having the right chemistry on all the paints so they work together is important.

 We have put up posts and ropes all around the hull ready for the drop clothes. We're looking for the right day/two days for the spray painting. We need two things to come together -- low wind and low humidity. It's essential the humidity is under 50% while we paint and for at least a few hours afterwards. The specification says for up to 96 hours afterwards but we'll never make that.

I did find last time we painted than unless it was under 50% for painting and about 4 hours afterwards then the paint would go matt rather than gloss.

The Honda outboard is now removed and the swimming ladder too... that is being rebuilt into a swimming platform so that getting on and off the boat when it's moored stern to will be a lot easier.

The stern will be hand painted to match in with what we already have.

On the port side there is a part of the deck that has slightly delaminated. So we have removed the flooring and ground back most of the glass fibre. Within the next few days we will lay in about 4 more layers of glass fibre matting and then new treadmaster.

The number of spots may look like King Malu has some sort of disease, but in fact they are all relatively minor. There are a few more on the rudder which always seems to get more problems.

What we do need to find is the right treatment for the propellor so that we don't get so much growth on that!

Euro-pallet ready for shipping from the UK

Malu Marine... Euro-pallet ready for shipping from the UK. New solar equipment for yachts and off-grid houses. Watch this space...

Lift out

Because we haven't sailed King Malu as much as we wanted last year the hull and particularly the propellor were very much more covered with growth than in previous lift outs.

We had notices about a 1 knot reduction in speed for the same RPM recently and looking at the hull and propellor I can see why.

I did wonder if the Axiom propellor was more a susceptible to reduction in performance due to the particular shape. But having talked with the designers, this is not so. They had never seen such a gunked up propellor as ours!

Wot no sailing?

Malu Marine is coming of age. There are lots of exciting new products we will be selling (wind generators, deisel generators, ropes... more later when we go public) but that means we are busy remodelling the workshops and warehouse rather than sailing.

Damage to King Malu

Today my son was travelling to the UK so I picked him up to bring him from his flat to our home before taking him to the airport. I drive slowly, very slowly because I was not feeling well. He promptly banned me from taking him to the airport and we phoned a friend to take him instead. I lay down on the couch with a blanket. It was a kind of flu bug that made me feel lacking any energy and just plain unwell.

The phone rang. I didn't want it to. I just wanted to sleep to be honest. It was a friend from the marina who rang to tell me that King Malu had broken free of her mooring and was banging herself on the piling between us and the next berth. I phone Tim, but he's in Nicosia and cannot get to Larnaka for a while. I have to go to the marina and try to sort it out. Most of the family say 'you cannot go, you're ill' but Daniel, my older son, says 'Dad's running on adrenalin now, he'll be OK'.

I got another friend to pick me up and take me down there as I really wouldn't trust myself driving. King Malu is free from the mooring... in fact about 4 metres of the jetty had broken free and she was alongside another boat beating herself to death on a steel mooring. All the mooring lines you connect, and we had connected 4, are useless if all three cleats on the jetty are no longer attached to the jetty!

I asked a friend from the marina to help, as I'm still feeling washed out, but eventually had jump onto a neighbour's boat and then jump from that to King Malu to try to sort out some very long lines and pull her back to the jetty.  She's OK, but the port side is really messed up and will need repair to the gell coat and a complete painting of the hull. This will be the first time the hull is painted as the original manufacturers gell coat has lasted all these years. Sad really.

Amazing what you can do when you're ill, but running on adrenalin!