We were berthed at The Anchorage marina at Nelson Bay. The girls flew home, leaving Brendon and I aboard to tackle the long list of outstanding tasks. After a mellow breakfast at the marina cafe, and with additional tasks arriving every minute by phone from Bronwyn at the airport, we cleared the decks to tackle the first item: the strong smell of diesel left over since we ran out of fuel at little Beach.
Diesel in the bilge
It didn’t take long to find the cause. There were several centimetres of fuel in the engine bay bilge, maybe about 200ml. I re-checked the injector lines, and found that I hadn’t quite pinched a couple of them tight enough after I’d bled them at Little Beach. Tightening them up was simple, but it took us the rest of the morning to clean the bilge.
Thankfully, the Sweden’s engine bilge has a baffle that prevents it from spilling into the other bilges unless it is really really full, so the problem was fairly contained. We made a start with the ever-so-useful Puppy pads that I always keep to hand, aided by a plastic scoop fabricated from a plastic water bottle. Then we scattered laundry powder into the remainder to make it clump, so that I could lift it out with kitchen paper. Finally I polished the whole area with dish detergent followed by wet-wipes. When we were done, we had a full bucket of sopping debris, but the aft cabin smelled clean again.
Tangled lines
Our next task was to sort out the deck lines. Because every control is doubled, and all lines are led back to the cockpit, there is a complex snarl at the foot of the mast where 17 lines turn through pulleys to get to where they need to be. We had noticed on passage that it was ridiculously difficult to free up the reefing lines when raising and lowering the main, but whenever we went forward to check them out, they always looked OK. Sitting quietly at the dock, we moved the boom about and wiggled things, and discovered that when the boom is centred (which it never is under sail, but is when hoisting the main), all of the reefing lines are pulled into close contact with the main sheet, which they cross at right angles. The tension was so great that they would jam solid and prevent us from raising the main.
Re-routing the lines was a long and complex job, remembering that we couldn’t just untie them all, as some of them were doing important work holding things up. Something that looked good at the mast, wouldn’t necessarily work back at the clutches in the cockpit. It took a lot of thought, but we sat companionably in the sunshine, and carefully and slowly tried several iterations until we found one that worked. Of course, the clutches that I re-labelled in Queensland are now incorrect again…
The other problematic control was the foresail fuller, which went through three tight turns before reaching the winch. The turns had been run through zero-friction rings, but it was still really hard to furl the sail single-handed. We re-routed the aft end through a midships pulley, which made it run a bit smoother. The bow end of the furler line had been routed through a Z-shape when we purchased her, but one of the rings had shattered from the tension on our recent passage, resulting in a better angle but running the line over the top of the anchor winch, which probably isn’t ideal but works for now.
It looks like it should be possible to address this by either refurling the sail in the opposite direction (although we’d need to get the UV strip re-stitched onto the other side), or perhaps by fitting deck hardware on the other side of the boat. Still, it is already greatly improved.
What exactly have we got?
Brendon went to explore the neighbourhood on foot, and I hunkered down to tackle the lockers. We have inherited an enormous quantity, boxes and boxes, of spare parts and tools and gear.
The previous owners had it all arranged in a way that obviously suited them, but I still unboxed it all and examined every item, so that I’d remember what I had when I inevitably needed it in the heat of a future moment. I repacked it, labelled the boxes, and then got to start on the manuals.
Professional checks
I arranged for Jeff from Nelson Bay Boatyard to come and look at our teak decks, and he said that didn’t even want to clean them for me because they were in great shape, and would remain so for at least the next year ‘as long as we regularly get them wet with sea water’. A genuine honest guy, thank you.
Jonathan from Marine Refrigeration came to have a look at the fridge, and found that that the compressor had no pressure at all. He cleaned it out and re-pressurised, but couldn’t find why it had leaked in the first place, which was a worry. He was quite up-front that he could get it going, but couldn’t promise that whatever had happened before, wouldn’t happen again. We’ll see how it goes.
Blackout
Brendon flew back home, and that night a big storm came through, so that I woke to no shore power or internet or mobile phone service. As well as fettling the boat, I was also working remotely at my day job, so was keen to at least contact my office to tell them that I wouldn’t be logging in. I borrowed the marina’s courtesy car to try to find a working cell tower, but everything was out, including traffic infrastructure and all the buildings. I drove to a couple of cell towers but they were out too; the storm had taken out the entire grid from Sydney to Port Stephens.
Back at Nelson Bay marina, you could tell the cruising boats because they had lights and power. Some even had the internet courtesy of the Starlink satellite service. The marina hotel was running because it had a standby generator, and the marina laundry ran on the same circuit, so I figured that I would wash some clothes. Unfortunately, the machines relied on an QR code to take payment, and all the phone networks were down.
I went back to the boat and had a thoroughly relaxing day. I read a book, went through the tool boxes, examined the soft furnishings, enjoyed a glass of wine. There are few lifestyles as fine as messing around on a boat.
