Butterfly hatches

I took off the hatches and brought them into the workshop to sand down and treat the timber.
The weather is right now a blistering 110º F and more during the day, with really high humidity, and it's not a lot of fun standing outside either sanding, or trying to varnish with your clothes sticking to you, and sweat dripping off your nose everywhere you look....

In order to make a proper job of the butterfly hatch, it's necessary to dismantle it and remove the bronze rods, so I thought I'd polish them up just this once!

I like it!

It's not a complete job - I plan to improve on the finish after the summer - I want to sail ! It's been six weeks now since I started the timber renovation!  I'm getting impatient.....

Tackling the varnishing....

I have spent many months purposefully dithering over what to do about protecting the long neglected bulwarks, coamings, boomken, and all the other exposed timber adorning Adventure.

I have read many postings on various web forums, each extolling the virtues of their favourite varnishing system, varnish, oil etc, but finally I focused on Deks Olje No.1 and No.2.

These products from the Flood Paint company in Australia are designed to both impregnate and cover.

The No.1 is a thin mixture of oils and solvents applied wet on wet continuously, until the wood simply won't take any more.

The wood having been fully impregnated, it is left for three days to dry and seal.

I sanded all the timber down with the recommended sanding grit being nothing finer than 100 grit - the theory being that anything finer will close the pores in the wood and prevent penetration.

I was a little startled by how dark the No.1 made the Honduras mahogany of the bulwarks.

It went almost black in places and I was horrified at the dramatic change in colour, thinking

I had spoiled the whole job.

Later however the true rich colour of the mahogany came through as the topcoats were applied...

A light scuff sanding with 400 grit sandpaper prepares for the topcoats.

The top coats are applied one per day and the recommended procedure is to sand lightly with 600 grit between coats 5 and 6.I however sanded lightly before applying each coat in order to ensure the maximum adhesion.

As each topcoat went on, the transparency and richness of the finish increased.

Hopefully these 6 finishing coats will endure even the harsh conditions of a Dubai summer -temperatures commonly reaching close to 50º C, and I'll have only to scuff and once and apply a single top coat in Autumn to keep ahead of the game.

The photographs show the hatches missing - these have been removed so that I can work on them indoors, away from the 45 degree heat and humidity... ;-)

It's been a great sailing season during which I have ignored this blog for months...!

Well ! I have neglected this blog for a long time, and now feel it's time to bring it up to date.

Adventure has done a few miles up and down the coast since my last post, with the longest trip being to Half moon Island about 30 miles off Dubai, for a weekend.

Here's a shot of one of my first solo trips with the Burj Al Arab Hotel in the background.

The mast refurbishment went pretty well, although I suspect it is raked a little too far aft.

I'm getting more weather helm than I expected.

She will have to come out of the water as I need to locate the waterline groove which has been painted over. Once this is located, it can be used to level the boat perfectly and then I can measure the mast rake.

I decided to postpone the stepping of the mast, as once I had unwrapped it following the shipment from USA, I spotted a few bubbles in the paint around the trysail track, and a few dings from the transport, so I've decided to completely strip the mast, sand every blemish down to the aluminium, and paint it.

I'm using 'Interprotect' epoxy primer from International Paint, followed by International 'Perfection' topcoat which is a two pack polyurethane.

Even though I haven't sailed the boat since she came all the way over from San Francisco, I'd be an idiot to step the mast knowing that there's work to be done on it, so it's head down and get on with it.....

Adventure arrives in Dubai

Last week I splashed Adventure in the huge Jebel Ali Port, one of the biggest in the world.
The quaysides are about 10 feet high from the waterline, and it's pretty nasty tying up alongside with big vessels passing. The bow waves can smack you up against the dock and easily damage a small boat.
A brand new 50ft stinkpot was badly damaged a few weeks ago in exactly this way when a tug passed too fast and really smashed it up against the quayside. The boat rises, and as she drops, the fenders ride up the quay and land on deck...

After a few anxious minutes trying to start the engine, she fired up, and I was able to motor out of the port - minus mast and bowsprit, and from there, out to sea for a couple of hours trip around the

Palm Island.

The monstrous pink Atlantis Hotel is perched on the end.

The mast still has to be stepped, as I had to leave for France where I'll be till the 24th.

I can't wait to get those tanbark sails up now that the weather in Dubai is cooling down after the brutal heat of the summer.

We have been sailing every weekend in temperatures of 45 degrees C ( 113 fahrenheit) .

The Chronicles of Adventure!

This September I became the proud owner of Bristol Channel Cutter Adventure - the culmination of a year of dreaming and searching for the right boat.

Finally I found another proud owner who was moving to Nebraska - the heart of the country and about as far away as you can get from the oceans around the USA, and who had to part with his beloved BCC.

As soon as I came upon the BCC, I knew it was the boat for me.

The men and women who own these boats are something of a breed apart.

The Sam L Morse BCC doesn't much like going astern - at least it requires a certain application, and practice.

They are smaller than most people's idea of a live-aboard, and they haven't been in production since about 1994, yet the people who own these boats know they have something special.

The build quality, design and functionality came before such secondary considerations as cost of production and profit.

Ultimately, in defiance of modern business practice, the company ceased production rather than cut corners, and produce something less perfect than they could.

The BCC is rock solid, and yet not sluggish or cumbersome.

The author Ferenc Mate described the BCC as the most beautiful 28 ft fibreglass sailboat in the world - period.

To me he hit the nail right on the head.