Whats been happening

Aaron and I went out to the boat at its mooring. Aaron sealed a leak in the propeller tube coupling and added a float switch to the aft bilge pump.  I put on my wetsuit and snorkeled on the mooring block. It was low tide so it was only 400mm deep. The bottom is mud and the consistency of custard, so I got pretty dirty. The chain which I had to dig out of the mud was in excellent condition, so I just replaced the rope. snorkelling on the mooring paddling out to the boat

Yesterday the boat was launched on the travel lift at Marina Bayside at Taren Point. Everything went well and we had a surprise visit by Steve, Paul, their boss and the new guy, with champagne. Thanks to the staff at Marina Bayside, skillful and helpful, we also enjoyed their company. 😊 Motor started straight up and we crossed a foggy George's River back to Tempe. We had calm conditions the whole way with a swell breaking at Dolls Point. One of the raw water pipes on the motor started leaking - the hose clamp just needed some tightening. Ev took the car back and met us at the mooring with the dinghy. Had to scrape 6 months of barnacles of the mooring rope but we had a good time The boat worked as planned and look forward to taking it out this weekend. a foggy start (thanks for the photo Alex) a champagne send-off from Steve and Paul, these guys worked across the street and saw us each morning at the coffee van. me installing the tiller  ...

After a false start on Friday we fixed the leak in the heat exchanger by cutting a new seal and we replaced the injector copper washers and retorqued the injectors.  The boat will be lifted in the morning and the rudder will be fitted and the niche areas will be antifouled.

Launching tomorrow and having d some trouble getting the electric fuel pump running, try again tomorrow. Also installed kort nozzle on stem and antidotes prop We also had a visit from the labels Martina from our local fav cafe Percy's.

Busy today installing the new prop shaft and aligning it with engine. The Tide seal had to be installed with new seals as the old ones had been damaged by the rusty prop shaft. Ev painted the kitchen bench and it looks terrific. Glad we completed the installation today as it being launched on Friday. Sitting down in the bilge isn't much fun. Aaron trimming the Tide seal collar to give us more space on the prop shaft 

I made a new propeller shaft tube out of plumbing pipe and fibreglass, I cast the threaded ends using the original brass fittings as moulds. The tube needed to be changed as the former steel tube was causing electrolysis. Tube installed in boat inside view of tube thread detail Aaron finished off the battery compartment and Ev finished the paining and installed electric conduit in the bedroom

Here is the boat still waiting for its rudder and propeller guard but substantially finished, plan to launch this Friday

After 6 months the tent has come down. It worked really well, kept everything dry even though it's been a wet year. Only took 2 hours tonoulll it down and we got to see the finished boat. I like it ! Cover off the scaffold, the boat is appearing.

Tomorrow the tent comes down so we want to get as much outside of the boat completed beforehand. We installed the manual bilge pump the electric deck wash a and believe it or not the cabin door. This door we value at about $10k in man hours, it was much harder than we planned and had a lot of rework. But itsok now and seems to work. Can we get out in a fire? I'll let you know  The cabin door The manual bilge pumps are not filtered and washed with f I have been in touch and cc cc pump CCTV camera pump is the f the same shirts çcccf⏭️ pump and the electric deck wash

 Today we installed the new prop tube and the V berth panels