Author: richwest3

Boat Bling

February 17, 2016

boat-bling

Our Monitor windvane: From a rusty hunk of junk, hanging off Legacy’s butt, to shinny, sparkling bling dangling from her derrière. That’s how it’s been transformed. We hadn’t even intended to rebuild it, but it looked so bad after Legacy was waxed that I couldn’t resist.

It turns out that it was a much-needed rebuild. There were broken bolts, a crack in the stainless and other worn out parts.

We removed and disassembled it and Chris from Tig Art welded the crack and polished the stainless. He did a great job. We reassembled it, and in the process, I found I lost one part. Of course, a vital, critical, can’t-do-without-it part.

Enter Marine Diesel Services. They’re the guys who created and installed our rudder bushings two years ago (still working great!) and have helped us with numerous tasks. Malcolm made us a new one, using the un-lost one as a sample. I can’t recommend these guys highly enough!

We had a rebuild kit, mostly intact, from when we bought Legacy 18 years ago. It’s all back together, hopefully working great, ready to steer us in the right direction (we won’t know for sure until we get out in the ocean again). -Rich

What the heck is a windvane?

For those that may not know about windvanes, it’s an ingenious, totally mechanical device with no motors, wires or transistors. When the boat turns slightly sideways to the wind, the wind pushes a board sticking up in the air off to one side (not installed in the picture). A mechanical linkage connected to the board turns a paddle (seen folded up in the picture) such that the water flowing over it pushes it to the side, pulling on a line attached to the steering wheel. Simple and elegant.

I have to admit, we don’t use it much anymore. It’s so much easier to use our hydraulic autopilot as it steers a very straight course with no extra miles covered. The windvane meanders a bit, changing course as the wind changes direction. These days we always seem to be racing a weather system into port and can’t afford the extra miles sailed. (Or maybe that’s just my excuse for being lazy ;-).

I do know that I wouldn’t be without our Monitor. When we lost our alternator (and therefore everything electrical) on the way to Hawaii, it saved us.

You Shop

February 13, 2016

you-shop

We found a pretty good way to get parts and goodies to NZ – You Shop by the New Zealand post office.

We normally use a mail service in the States called St. Brendan’s Isle, but they seem to have some kind of special pricing arrangements with UPS, FedEx and DHL where they are charged about five times the going rate!

Enter You Shop. You sign up for free and get an address in the States, England and China. Have your orders sent to the appropriate address and You Shop consolidates your shipment and delivers it to NZ at a very reasonable price.

Down Side (or Upside?):

FedEx, DHL and UPS handle customs clearance for you. You Shop doesn’t. But You Shop also doesn’t charge you for handling the customs clearance like the others do – usually about $50. We had to go to our local customs office, present invoices for the items, along with a copy of our Temporary Import Exemption form. There was no fee as most items were for the boat and those that were not didn’t total more than $400 in value. Doing the clearance ourselves was just as fast, or faster than having one of the big three do it.

You Shop has a very good website that is totally functional (kind of rare these days). The communications were excellent as they kept us up to date with the status of our package throughout the entire process. I have no complaints and only praise for the service. -Rich

You Shop’s Website

By the way, for big stuff, look into Kiwi Shipping. We’ve never used them but we’ve heard good things about their service.

Sunday Surprise Leopard Seal

February 7, 2015

We were out for a stroll on the docks when we ran across this guy…

leopard-seal

It’s a Leopard Seal who’s kind usually live in Antarctica. It wasn’t a total surprise as there was one hanging around on another dock a few weeks back. We never did get to see that one. Cyndi almost got to step on this one. That wouldn’t have been fun. They’re pretty dangerous.

And by the way, this is the view from our little “hotel” room next to the marina office…

view-from-our-room

We’re staying here while Legacy is out of the water. The mast up in the yard that’s furthest away is Legacy. That’s Mount Maunganui in the background. -Rich