keltik

So let's give this story a real good shot with some context. Otherwise we look like a couple idiots.... Which isn't inaccurate, but not the whole story. A million years ago, Mr Keltik Snr decided he needed a hobby to melt away the stresses of the working week and chose sailing. He did all the appropriate study, got his dayskipper, yacht master and ocean master certificates. Bought a 28ft 1970s boat and made all the mistakes on it over a few years of sailing the shit cold brown waters of the Bristol Channel/Irish sea around Wales. Before eventually slamming down the credit card at the 1999 London boat show and buying a brand new Beneteau 31.7 Damn that was a nice boat. Anyways, a few years later we sold everything and moved to NZ. Naturally the old boy was going to need another boat so ordered something a bit bigger, a Bavaria 38. Selling your business, house and cars then moving to a country where the exchange rate triples your money allows such luxuries. We lived in Ohope at the time, dad specifically picked that house so he could park his new boat in the harbour 50 meters away. He bought a mooring and spent a few days with a fish finder in a dinghy charting the entrance to Ohiwa harbour as there are no channel marks or leading lights to follow. The yacht got delivered to the viaduct basin from Germany, final installation of all the electrical accessories and engine etc were done and we all went out on the sea trials. One week after it was signed off, we started the delivery trip. The first leg from Westhaven to Whitianga went pretty well. Second leg to Tauranga was easy and the third leg to Whakatane was a bit stressful crossing the river bar but went ok. We had planned to do the final trip over to Ohiwa the next day but the wind had picked up and there was a bit of a storm due to come through so we postponed for a week. The following weekend, we did the short trip over to Ohiwa. There was still a bit of a swell but it seemed manageable. Coming in through the entrance we had the dinghy towed behind in case we wanted to take it to scout ahead. Half way into the entrance, it was getting a bit shallow. There wasn't deep water where it was supposed to be. So while maneuvering about trying to find the channel, the keel touched the bottom. Before we could do much about it, a wave picked up the boat and gently dropped it down a bit further into the shallows. As dad tried to free the boat, a medium sized wave came through, picked us up and dropped the boat a little further into the sand. Having a thin lead fin style keel, it just speared itself into the sand and we were stuck. Whilst trying to figure out the next move, a few more rollers came in and knocked the boat sideways. In the trough of each wave, the propeller was getting out of the water. Then on the crest of the next wave - with full power to the engine, we were free! The bilge pump clicked on... Not usually a good sign. "Take the wheel son, give it full power back out to sea". I pointed the boat back out the entrance as dad went below to check for damage. I will never forget the look on his face as he lifted the floorboards in the cabin and stared through the multiple 6x18inch holes where the keel bolts used to be at the sea floor going past. He attempted to block the holes with the seat squabs or anything to hand but it all got sucked out into the sea as the boat rolled around. He made a mayday call then shouted at me to keep the engine at full power. The throttle was pinned... But now the water level in the engine bay was up to the air filter. The diesel slowly died. We all sat there in silence. Put on lifejackets. Grabbed some floaty stuff to hang onto and prepared to get into the dinghy... Which was gone. All that was left was a frayed piece of rope. I guess the propeller ate it and the dinghy noped itself out of there. So we stayed with the boat untill we just swam away from the cockpit. Some nice chap in a fishing boat heard the mayday and picked us up within 10 mins of being in the water. He dropped us off at the Ohope wharf and we walked the couple hundred meters home. Later that day, we hopped in the car and drove around to Ohiwa to find the yacht washed up onto the beach. The deck was split off from the hull, splintered fiberglass and damage everywhere. Dad called the insurance company and they were going to send some people to start the salvage operation. While we waited, we climbed into the boat and made a start on taking the mast and rigging down. The insurance assessor turned up just as we were unloading the fridge full of beer. A slightly suspicious look. A few hours later, 2 excavators arrived on the beach and set up a sling between their booms then carried the hull off the beach and loaded it onto a lowboy. Once the dust had settled, dad had to pay his $500 insurance excess and got paid out as a total loss. Not even 2 weeks from delivery to write off. Then after a respectful mourning period he bought another one and we all lived happily ever after.

Not much drama tbh. From where I was sitting down in the cockpit, I couldn't see shit. Just sitting there trimming the main sail waiting for instructions. Skipper called everyone to be ready for a tack, told the helmsman to make the turn when ready. We were nearing the edge of the channel and trying to get every bit of distance before tacking. Guy on the helm left it a few seconds too late and the boat stopped pretty quickly when the daggerboards hit the bottom. As its a soft silt bottom - it wouldn't have damaged anything. We just dumped the wind out of the sails, fired up both diesels and gave them full beans in reverse. Soon as we were free - engines off, sails tightened up and away we went. Probably the 3rd time I've run aground in the last 9 months on 3 different boats. The only time you start to pucker is when the tide is going out and the engine isn't able to pull the boat off the bottom. Then you need to get creative. Running aground at sea or during a bar crossing is a whole different thing. I've got a great story about that from 18 years ago.

The weather for my first race was a real shame as the week before I had the pleasure of doing another race on a big catamaran. Absolutely no wind. So we drifted along for a couple hours, relaxing if not thrilling. 2 weeks later, did the next race in the series on the same boat. A perfect amount of wind and had a great race until we ran aground. So this next race, the forecast says we'll have 10 knots which is perfect conditions for my boat. Fingers crossed I can do the 2 handed race on Saturday and if the weather continues to be perfect, might do the open series race on Sunday. If the weather's shit, I'll do Sundays open series race on the catamaran.

The timing of these new winches is pretty ideal as I've entered a race! The Mount Maunganui yacht club runs slightly more casual races than the Tauranga club so I'm going to attempt to do their 2 handed winter series. Only 2 people allowed on each boat. There are 6 races all up. The first one didn't go so well. 2 days before the race, my crew (dad) caught COVID. So I roped in a mate to help. We were a bit late getting the boat up to Tauranga, setting it up took longer than expected with the new rigging and conditions were shit. A 20 knots westerly whipping the harbour into an annoying chop with 30 knot rain squalls coming through. We tried to get the main sail up but there was no way to safely do it due to the outboard cavitating with both of our weights further forward. Me at the mast feeding the sail in and Mike at the winches. Normally I would duck behind a container ship at the port to get the sails up but there were none! With only 20 mins to the race start, I called it off. Not enough time to get our shit together and get to the start line.

Got another job ticked off the wish list. Have had a saved search on trademe since November and finally the perfect pair of self tailing winches came up for sale. Very rare to see any come up for sale at all, never mind a matching pair in exactly the right size for me. So before we begin, let's make sure we know what a self tailing winch is. On a regular yacht sheet winch (sheet being the boaty word for a rope controlling a sail) you wrap the rope around the winch drum a couple times and apply tension to the loose end (the tail) whilst turning the winch. If you don't have enough tension on the tail, the rope just slips on the drum. So to get maximum power into the winch, you really need 2 hands on the handle turning it - and a second person pulling the loose end or 'tailing' for you. Not ideal when you only have 2 people and the other one is supposed to be steering or doing something more important. So the existing Masport Barlow winches just won't do. They also have no gear reduction so the drum of the winch turns at the same speed as the handle. Picked up some grease and some machine oil and set about stripping the new ones down. They'd been in someone's shed for 10years collecting dust so I thought would need a really good clean. So nice to see a piece of kit that's about 25 years old and still in excellent condition. The base and gear train are solid bronze, the winch drum is anodized aluminum and the bearings and ratchets are all stainless. A few delrin spacers and some chromed bronze external hardware. I kinda get why they are like $1,400 new. Especially when you're going to expect 20+ years of use in a saltwater environment if they're treated right. And installed them on the boat. You can see the magic of the self tailing winch. The loose end goes over that horn and into a spring loaded grippy groove. This does the tailing for you, leaving your second crew member free to fetch beers. The new winches also have a gear reduction so the handle requires more than 1 turn to spin the winch drum once. This reduces the effort required. These winches aren't big enough to have multiple gears - on the bigger ones, you'll get one gear reduction turning the handle clockwise and a greater reduction anticlockwise.

The riggers got the mast finished Friday afternoon. Loaded up the Mazda service team on Saturday and filled a chilly bin with beverages. Some sick fucker brought a box of big can ranfurly. https://i.imgur.com/tLBWj7T.mp4 Didn't have reefing lines so had a bit too much sail up for the amount of wind. Sailed past the mount and had a look outside the harbour but it was a bit too hectic. Heading back in, we tried a gybe (turning the back of the boat through the wind) and got massively overpowered. Had the boat heeled over so far the water line was half way up the cabin windows and half way up my back sitting in the low side of the cockpit. Decided to drop sails and motor for a bit after that. So we found a sheltered spot behind matakana island, dropped anchor and threw some lines in the water. Pretended to fish for a couple hours, had some lunch and plenty of beers. A good day out. Headed home with just the small foresail up and the engine humming away at low revs. Next job is to get some reefing lines run for the main sail so it's not so unwieldy. Should have a good day for it this Sunday then I'll bring the boat home from Tauranga Sunday night. Thanks to the average weather I didn't quite get my money's worth having it in the marina. It was nice not having to set the boat up every time but it felt a bit lame knowing every week is $100 you don't get back so you feel extra pressure to go out.

Full development on the 4GR then build a 5GR to drop in there once we know it all works. /I'm told a 13B would happily do the power and rpm numbers you're looking for

Had the local rigging guy take a look at the boat. Since it's 'rod rigged' with solid nitronic rod holding the mast up instead of multi strand wire - the usual wear signs of fraying or unraveling wires don't really exist. It just fatigues, cracks then your mast falls off the next time you load it hard enough. So the experts recommend having it all removed and checked every 7-10 years. The expected lifespan is 15-20 years. Well this rig is 30 years old now. So today we took it all down and sent the lot off to his workshop for inspection. Turns out one rod had some cracks in it, a couple of the rigging toggles were damaged and needed to be replaced and the whole way it was set up was a bit janky. As all of the rigging wire gets coiled and bent out of shape when you lower the mast to go on the trailer, the solid rod was a massive pain in the ass to deal with. Especially when you need to be careful not to kink it. It needed a minimum bend radius of something like 1.5m so was rather unwieldy to tie down. The bonus of rod is that it lasts longer than wire and doesn't stretch, but the rest of the boat probably won't make another 30 years and racing performance is less important to me than ease of trailering the boat. So I've made the tough decision to throw money at the problem and make it go away. Hopefully on Friday we will put the mast up with the rod replaced by more conventional easier to handle wire. All new hardware and a few other minor annoyances fixed. At least once this is done, the chances of being killed by a fallen rig dragging me into the sea will be reduced. My wallet is thoroughly beaten and bleeding. Fingers crossed we get it all done in time for Saturdays fishing trip.

Did a sailing New Honda outboard is a peach. Had enough grunt to start bending the mounting bracket in half so will get a tig magician to lightning glue a strengthening backing plate onto it. Mrs didn't freak out this time. Put it in the boat park for a few weeks so I don't have to dick around setting it up each weekend. Next event is taking the workshop lads out for a drink/sail/fish on Saturday if the weather holds up. Then going to do the plate island race the week after.

Update time. Got the hole fixed. Sent it to Mr Jones Snr who has the luxury of being retired so had plenty of time to spend on it. Towed it into work to paint the bottom so I could have a nice warm dry space. Lifted the boat off the trailer with a jack under the front. Found a screw had backed out of one of the bunks and ripped a hole in the hull. So quickly bogged that up. Got 3 coats of epoxy barrier paint on the bottom. Learned that the fumes from that paint are pretty grunty! Then threw a couple coats of antifouling paint on there. Last paint job is to add a silver pinstripe along the waterline. Got the signwriter to throw a name on the side. The star is some kinda hi-vis stuff used on road signs. Looks mint with some light on it. Tempted to hire a berth at Tauranga for the rest of April so I can do a few long weekends without having to set up the boat and tow it around each weekend.

Genius. A modern mans Lucas starter generator

One thing that didn't work great was the new outboard. Remember how I swapped the original one for a newer short shaft model? Well that was a mistake. The long shaft really would've come in handy today. Coming back to the ramp, it managed to suck some air down and sit there cavitating for juuust a bit too long. Dropped power to idle but it wouldn't recover. So the wind blew us into the breakwater rocks. Bit gutted, but the main cedar planks are ok, it's just fucked the outer plywood skin. Should be able to cut off the damaged layer and glass a new piece in easy enough.

Took dad sailing for his birthday. Absolutely perfect day for it The missus had a bit of a freakout. She's never been on a boat in the sea before and never been sailing with any wind. Heeling over going to windward was a bit much for her. She had the death grip on the bulkhead and wouldn't move or speak. Anchored off matakana for a bit then dropped her off at the ramp and went for a quick blast with the old man to push it a bit harder. It's quick! Sails like a much bigger boat. I'm thoroughly impressed. Doesn't point as close to the wind as I'd like and there are some other handling quirks to get used to. On the whole, I feel a lot better now I know it works.

Last car I re-vinned the VTNZ guy made me strip off the underseal to prove I'd fixed some rust properly. But he was a cunt

I'm sure we had one of these back in the 90s. Does all the vacuumed up crap go through the fan then into the bag? Our family one sounded like an orchestra of children playing the recorder being fed into a wood chipper. It got replaced by a nice quiet Dyson that sounds like a F-86 at takeoff thrust

I think one of those bmw things runs an external e-throttle actuator with a linkage up to the actual throttle bodies. I think they also explode a lot. Carry on

Today's progress Trailer has a legit WOF from not my workshop. Rotten hole has been patched and faired. And painted. Not exactly Roman levels of fabrication excellence, but it's getting done. Bought some epoxy barrier coat and antifouling paint for the hull. This weekends mission is to get that sorted.

Some people put wheels under the caravan so you can tow it behind. Genius I know. Relate hard to the oil pressure gauge story after chasing a high oil pressure issue on the jet boat which didn't exist.

Managed to rip one of the lifeline stanchions out of the deck. I knew it had leaked a little water under there but was hoping for the best. Sent it off to the old mans place so he can play boatbuilder. He loves fiberglass. Since that particular stanchion takes a lot of stress and the docking cleat is close by - he's cut the hole out until there was good wood, glued in a new piece of ply, glassed it all together then set the deck skin back over the patch. While it's there, he's also going to repair a few dings in the gel coat on the hull so we can apply a new barrier coat and paint the bottom. Got a deadline to work to. He wants to go sailing around Tauranga for his birthday in 3 weeks.

Anyone want a boat? Hawkes bay peeps perhaps? Up for sale on the tard and bookface munterplace. Uncle keltik needs the money for jag parts.

Ended up deciding to bankrupt myself and get OEM Bilsteins. Should be about 4 grand landed. They finally came back into stock at the start of February but In the meantime I spent all my savings on bits for the yacht. So now I'm just patiently waiting for the jet boat to sell.

On the to-do list; Get all instruments working. Managed to get the depth sounder to power up after rewiring +12v to the correct pin. Need to make sure the transducer is good next time I'm in the water. The mast head sender unit for the wind angle and speed gauge is missing. Luckily, all my gauges are made by Midas who still support the old stuff and can provide parts for an acceptable price. Sort out wiring for cabin lights. Install the solar panel and charge controller. Replace the jib. I've got 2 sizes currently, they're both kevlar laminate ones that are fucked from age. Need to decide what size and material I want the new one made from. Install my chartplotter somewhere in the cockpit. Repair a few chips in the gel coat then paint or antifoul the bottom. Sail it in a decent wind and see what breaks. The big goal for this year is to do the legends regatta without dying.

Been doing the Wednesday night races on another boat in Tauranga. It's keeping me motivated to get mine done. The Wednesday night stuff is a bit more aggressive than the weekend ones I'm used to. Straight into the race after work, no time for messing about. Luckily the crew are excellent people who don't take it too seriously.... But still managing 2nd in our division of 16 others. Finally decided on a name and made the official change. Since the jet boat was "Good Enough" this one shall be "Nice Try" which reflects all of the work done by the last guy and the quality of my repairs.

Got the new springs in. Managed to bleed the brakes properly by unbolting the caliper and tilting the bleeder nipple to the top as it's in the 11 o'clock position when installed. Not sure why, but it tows a million times better now. No more banging the back end of the tow vehicle around - it just follows along smoothly. Went for a WOF and failed on front wheel bearings. Previous owner said he had done them but one was rust fucked and the other had no inner bearing cage left... Just powder. Had to tidy up the seal surface on the stub axles so hit it with JB weld to fill in the pitting. Should be better than it was. Replaced the lights with some of those Narva kits that have oring sealed connectors on the harness so there's no joins - you just plug it all together and cap off any connections not used with blanking plugs. Hopefully get the WOF issued next week when I can get it back down the local for a recheck.

We both know you should just be thankful the WOF inspector didn't find the massive amounts of rust. Don't tell me it's a Leone without rust, thats unpossible. I failed a WOF on trailer wheel bearings today... Which was a legit fail. Also had to do the brake test with a tapley meter because it was a braked trailer. Hitting the picks with 3 ton of boat behind you on a wet road with no ABS was mildly exciting. Anyways, he also failed it on a piece of angle iron tie bar which had been scalloped to bend it around the boat hull, but the cut scalloped section hadn't been welded back together good enough. It seems the VIRM is pretty strict/maybe overkill when it comes to which bits of a boat trailer are structural.