Why Us?

The area below the gunwale to the rubbing strake on the port side was rubbed back and lovingly painted before we commenced cruising this season.  The starboard side wasn’t accessible and therefore looks rather battered after our first full cruising season.  During the first three weeks of this season the battered looking starboard side of Waiouru has been the side facing the canal and no boat has hit it.  We winded three days ago which meant our ‘good’ side is now on the canal side and in the last three days we’ve twice been struck by passing boats.  Today Daniel and I returned from a long walk to find a very shaken Jan.  Initially I assumed it was fright but then I realised it was anger.  She was absolutely livid about nb Cream Cracker whose steerer had managed to grind his boat right down our good paintwork.  No apology! 

Now that the starboard side is accessible I’ve commenced the process of repairing the area below the gunwale.  The two pack blacking looks fine, it’s just the area above the rubbing strake that needs some TLC.

All rubbed down and a coat of primer ready for a guaranteed sunny day!

One of the first jobs this morning was to replace the plug on a 240v multi-way distribution board.

I need to convert the IP44 output socket on the Kipor generator to a standard 3 pin socket and this was the simplest way with the resources available.  Why did I need the converter?  Recently we purchased a 240v rotary oscillating polisher from the local Halfords.  The idea is to eliminate some of the hard graft when polishing Waiouru.

This elderly gentleman was passing and offered to give the polisher a test run!

We could have plugged the polisher into one of the power sockets in the boat but I prefer to run it directly from the second output socket on the generator.

Now that we have been able to gain access to the starboard side I’ve had the opportunity to examine it more closely.  There is some damage to the handrail paintwork where the fender hooks have been chaffing over winter.  I also noticed the following vertical rust line below one of the portholes.

Some hard rubbing with Craftmaster polish managed to remove it.  I’m quite pleased with the finish from the electric polisher.  It’s probably slightly better than my manual effort and is certainly easier and quicker.