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.