Launch Date

Andy informed us late today he plans to crane Waiouru into the water next Tuesday (16th).  The paint tent will now be taken off Monday afternoon which means Nick will not be fitting the engine on Sunday.  Instead, he will finish the central heating and defer installation of the engine until Waiouru is in the water.

So what happened today?  Well Richard fitted the lining into the rear sliding hatch and also re-installed the lining to one of the side hatch doors after he decided to was 2mm out of alignment.  It was hire boat turn around day so the rest of the staff were too busy to work on Waiouru.  Jan and I focussed on completing the ventilation and condensation management actions.

The first task was to remove the tops off all the roof mushroom vents.  Then masking tape was stuck around the top edge of the cylindrical chrome liner which joins the mushroom vent to the timber ceiling lining.  My concern was the diameter of the vents is greater than the chrome liner.  This has the potential to allow any condensation that forms on the inside wall of the mushroom vent to drip into the ceiling cavity.  Eventually it might rot or stain the ceiling panels.

Taking the top off the mushroom vents gave me access to the gap between the vent and the chrome liner.  Construction adhesive was squirted into this gap with a caulking gun and then roughly smeared with my index finger.  The tape was then removed.

View from inside the boat looking up into the chrome liner and mushroom vent

All the surplus adhesive will be cut off with my Leatherman multi-tool once it has hardened.  Any condensation that now forms in the liner or on the inside of the mushroom vent should now drip onto the floor in the boat rather than being trapped in the ceiling cavity.

The second of today’s ventilation jobs was to fit the louvered vent plates to the cupboards, wardrobes and bed.  Oh, and the front doors.

The central heating and ventilation are now combined with the central heating running at low level down both sides of Waiouru.  There are radiators in the wardrobes, lockers and under the bed with high level vents to allow the heat to escape.  It’s taken a considerable amount of effort thus far and we hope it works! <of course it will>

Thinking that Nick would be installing the engine on Sunday I dived down into the engine compartment immediately after lunch and gave the lower portion another coat of bilge paint.  This will be the last opportunity to get easy access to the area.

Halfway through writing this an email arrived from our blog domain name provider.  The message from GoDaddy informed us we had 12 days to renew the domain or it would be cancelled.  We had taken the initial subscription whilst in Australia and used an Australian account to pay.  The GoDaddy website proved somewhat problematic when attempting to change the account details to our UK bank and address.  Eventually I reached the payment screen and was then given the option to pay using PayPal rather than our UK account.  If I’d realised there was going to be a PayPal option I wouldn’t have gone to all the effort to change the band and address details.  One thing I noticed was paying from the UK was more expensive as we were charged VAT whereas in Australia no GST (VAT) was charged.  Live and Learn! 

The last task was to fix the HDMI connection between the Network Media Tank (NMT) and the 32” TV.  When the NMT is turned on the ‘splash’ screen appeared on the TV but the screen then went blank.  The connection was tested with another cable and the system worked.  My initial conclusion was there was a fault in the ‘built-in’ HDMI cable.  But then I realised if that was the case then the ‘splash’ screen wouldn’t appear.  Then I remembered the original HDMI cable which had been run through the ceiling and wall cavities was  HDMI 1.4 compatible whereas the temporary cable was HDMI 1.3.  Perhaps the NMT wasn’t compatible with HDMI 1.4.  In then end this didn’t seem right and eventually the problem was solved by changing the NMT HDMI settings from ‘Auto’ to 1080 60Hz.  The NMT is now broadcasting a signal to both TV’s and receiving a DTV signal from the terrestrial aerial at the bow.  So the media system is now fully functional.