May 9, 2018
We usually haul the boat out of the water for new bottom paint and related maintenance every year, but we made it two years this time. The reason that we could wait an extra year was the extraordinary Hemple NCT 8190M bottom paint we’d used back in 2016.
OK, I know that the bottom in the pictures below doesn’t look so good, but there’s only fouling in the areas where the bottom paint wore away – around the waterline and on the leading and trailing edges. The paint is made to wear away as the boat is used but we probably didn’t put enough paint on those areas last time. In the last picture in the set below, you can see exactly where the paint wore off. Where the paint didn’t wear away, it was working well, even in Tauranga where the fouling is foul (sorry).
We had a few other major tasks while the boat was out of the water. We’d bent our shaft strut in Tasmania and while we did our best to straighten it, it needed more work. To do that, we had to take the prop shaft out and to do that, we had to drop the rudder. When we did that, we got a big surprise.
We found a pretty big crack in the rudder, hidden in an area where it wouldn’t have been visible even when diving on our bottom. We drilled a few test holes and the surrounding area was clean and dry. What a relief. The amazing Bridge Marina Travelift crew ground the rudder down and added new layers of fiberglass over the cracked area.
I think that most of the stress is handled by a stainless steel web welded to the rudder shaft inside the rudder. If that’s the case, this repair should last a long time. I think the cause was just poor manufacturing. The glass was very thin in the spot that cracked and most of the thickness there was foam used for shaping. Below the crack, on one of the top surfaces of the rudder, you could see the seam where the two halves of the rudder were joined when it was made (visible thanks to a little wear on that surface).
I was worried that this repair would mean a huge delay getting back in the water, but thanks to Merrick at the yard, we launched right on schedule, even with the crack repair.
There were a few out-of-the-water projects that slipped through the cracks. đŸ˜‰ One of them is apparent below – we didn’t get a chance to clean and wax the topsides. Oh well. We’ll do it in Fiji!
I can’t say enough about the yard here at the Tauranga Bridge Marina. This is the forth time we’ve used this yard and they are amazing. The price is reasonable and the service is perfect. The staff are professional, accommodating and very knowledgeable.
Update: Wow, just thinking about all that work makes me tired…
-Rich
