Saloon rust

Banged more rust today, got into the lockers on starboard of the saloon, right along under the galler counter. The rust was fairly bad but it came off fast with the needle scaler, and the metal under is fine, no holes, not even close. So i already put a coat of zinc chromate primer on it, and tomorrow morning a first coat of epoxi.

Also frank came by just now, he is the owner/skipper of the ” island seeker” the aptly named 32 footer on which i’m going to clipperton. We’re getting some stuff of karaka sorted so that we can take it along, life raft, spare gps, charts, kayak, etc… als we’re going for a sail tomorrow, there is a little rally organized, a bunch of boats are sailing  to the island out of the bay, then we’re having a party, and come back the next morning… should be fun, and a good opportunity for a little sea trial of the boat before the big trip.

Bad rust in the pilot house

This morning I applied epoxi primer over all the treated areas in the aft cabin and the corridor, it looks nice and white and shiny…

Then i started on the rust in the pilot house, and it looked bad to start with

And once the scales are removed, the steel underneath is real ugly… not sure what I’ll do about it. It is really non structural, just the floor of the pilot house, and it will be a massive job to cut and replace. I might just patch it up.

Job progress

Yo! Things are coming along nicely, the needle scaler is very good and i have cleaned the rust out of the whole aft cabin, including the hallway…
I primed alredy with zinc chromate and tomorrow morning first thing i apply a coat of epoxi primer on the whole thing. Then i get started banging rust in the kitchen…
If you haven’t already, check ketchkaraka on facebook, i keep posting details of the work being done there…

Back in business

Well, i guess i have been neglecting this log for a while…
I had an excuse, i was crossing the pacific on another boat… but that’s over.
We sailed to australia, we had a great trip and a good time, then we sold the boat, and I, Tom, have been back on karaka in mexico for about two weeks. Kim is still in australia for 6 weeks or so, working and spending time with family and friends. Pfew, what a way to describe the past year… anyway, let’s move on.

Karaka has been sitting on the hard all this time, forlorn and gloom, gathering dust… heresy you say, well, i can only agree, but all is for the best as we find ourselves now in a position to undertake the massive refit i have been planning for the last three years. Amongst the jobs on the list are:
Extermination of all the rust
Repainting of the whole boat inside and outside
Conversion of two of the fuel tanks into storage
Remodeling of the engine room
Rebuilding of the fuel system for the engines
Instalation of an underwater viewing window
Instalation of an electric motor as a diy hybrid propulsion/charging system
Renewal of all that needs renewing
And the list goes on, those are only the big ones…

So we are in la paz, baja california sur, mexico, in a lovely town with lots of friends around, drinking tequila and eating tacos, and work is finally underway after the last couple weeks spent catching up, locating tools and paint, and mostly battleing the mess we had left inside karaka. I emptied the whole boat to gain access to the bilges.

Amongst the other news,, kat is doing fine, we had left her with a nice lady on a boat and she had a lovely time while we were gone. She is back on board now. Amongst the ones who did NOT have a lovely time while we were gone were the cockroaches, whom i am delighted to announce the demise. Not a one left on board, and if that’s not good news i wonder what is.

What else? Well, so much happened… check kim’s great article about our trip on Orianne, go the the webpage www.thecoastalpassage.com.au , download the free issue #52 , and check out page 25…

As for now, carnaval started today in la paz, for a week of festivities, closed main roads and impossibility to get anything done, which doesn’t matter as i will spend my day time banging rust inside the boat anyway…

Then for march i have myself a little sidetrip again, i have been hired to skipper a 32 ft sailboat from here to the island of clipperton and back, carrying scientists and artists on an expedition. Check out their website: www.theclippertonproject.com

Okay, that’s it for now, but expect frequent updates about the progress of the work from now on…

Oh and i almost forgot to mention, if anybody feels like dropping by and lending a hand, i will be more than happy to have people staying on karaka and helping out, so just drop me a line… actually, if you are reading this then you must be a friend, so drop me a line in all case,n and let me know what is happening with your life… i have unlimited internet on the boat so i should be able to take some time answering my mails from now on…

So what the F…. is going on with Karaka those days?

Yes I guess it is all rather confusing…

so, Karaka is sitting in a boatyard in La paz, Baja California , Mexico, while Kim and Tom in an act of unprecedented betrayal, are sailing on another boat along the coast of eastern australia…

We just completed a successfull crossing of the pacific on a 40ft steel cutter called orianne, that we are about to resell.

So for now Karaka is not going anywhere, but soon, soon, she’ll be ready to roam the ocean again. Tom is about to fly back to mexico to take care of Her, there are a few months of work that are long overdue. basically an extensive refit is planned, elimination of all the rust, repainting, revarnishing, plus some conversion and modification that have been too long on the project list…

We won’t need crew as such for a while to come, and we already have a lot of people who want to sail with us through the pacific next year, but in the good ol’tradition, we’ll welcome anybody willing to give a hand to the refit, there will be work for everybody, and some of the craziest, tequila fueled, mayhem making parties you’ll ever seen… we’re going to put mexico on fire, and hopefully get karaka all shiny and beautiful as well…

Kim is going to stay a while in australia to work and make a bit more money( it is going to be expensive sailing in the pacific, and all the money we’ll have will probably be eaten by the boatyard bill) and will come back to the boat sometime in february maybe, we’re not sure.

so yep that’s it, sailing in oz for now, fixing up orianne, visiting kim’s island, then down to brisbane to sell the boat, then tom back to la paz to work on karaka for the next few months. that’s the plan…

Pacific crossing

well, this is going to be the last post here for a while…
We are almost ready to set sail with orianne, karaka is safely stored in a nice boatyard, cat is happy and well on another boat with a nice lady to take care of her, etc etc…
So we are a few days from going… The boat is getting loaded with food and supplies, we are finishing off the last few jobs, and hopefully by the end of the week we re gone…
First stop will be the marquesas, then Vanuatu, then Australia. We won t stop much , trying to get there as fast as possible.

You can follow our progress on the blog we set up for Orianne, and that we are going to keep up to date via satelite phone. The link is :

Http://blog.mailasail.com/belmont/

Mexicooooo!

Parties, good friends, huge jam sessions, busking plans, carnaval, haul out uncertainties, crazy scary secret project that I won’t even talk about yet, tacos and tequila.

We’re all over the place. We don’t know what’s happening next but it sure is exciting.

Haul out take 2: failure

The machine was too small. Or Karaka was too big. in either case, we stayed in the water… We are very upset about it…

We had everything ready, we went early, emptied all we could onto the dock, sails, books, anchors, rope, bits and pieces, tons of stuff, and karaka lifted about 10 cm out of the water from being free of all that weight. but then despite the high enough tide, we could never get the boat on top of the machine that takes it out of the water, and after several attempts we had to give up. so our plan to be in that nice little family boatyard in la Paz with our cozy little private corner where we were going to make a gypsy camp and work on making karaka the beautifullest ship in the harbor, is not going to happen. it is very annoying as we spent the last few weeks checking all the shops for supplies, organizing parts and tools, preparing the boat, making friends, making plans for a longish term stay including circus class and busking and all kind of cool stuff, and now we are back in our anchorage, wondering what to do. there is no decent other boatyard in town, so our options re now getting somehow limited. we need to think hard and seriously about what we do next. Karaka needs a refit, but we also need to do it in the right conditions or it won’t be done properly. we don’t have that much money to spend so we need a small yard with cheap rates and where we can do the work ourselves… it is likely we’ll have to look in another town for that…

but for now we are trying to save the day, we are going to go get kim’s violin which is ready at the repair shop, then back on the boat for a night of revelry and bachanal, pizza night on karaka, gypsy music and lots of tequila. fuck it, we’re not going to be depressed over the ruin of all our plans for the past 3 months.

Quote of the day:

Iif you want to make God laugh, try to stick to a plan.

Karaka haul out status: pending

all is fine, waiting for friday morning… nothing changed with the plan, we are still scheduled to get out on the 18th.

today we started emptying the boat, trying to get all the heavy stuff out of the lockers and on the deck so we can take it to shore before the machine lifts us. we have already 8 cardboard boxes full of books, and i had to run to the supermarket to dumpsterdive some more.we got piles of stuff. karaka will be incredible when she’ll be empty…

on the crew front, kim is busy taking circus classes and african dancing classeas and also getting tired riding her new bike… martin is still with us and helping. he has no set plans and will be hanging out for a while longer, helping with the work in the yard. we got one couchsurfer, jamie from tasmania, australia, and also there is laura, another australian we met in costa rica, who is around for a week or so. we also met another very young cruiser, alex on moondance, who just sailed down from santa cruz, california. he is setting for a world cruise and he is hanging out with us at the moment. actually as i write that he took both laura and jamie out to a nearby island for the night.

otherwise, well, the weather is improving, the cold spell is gone and now it is about the nicest weather we ‘ve had in a long time. it never rains, it is cool but not cold, always sunny. just great. ideal for working.

kim is doing her best to find time to finally answer all those mails , so if you have been waiting for news for ever, it might actually happen soon…

ok, that’s it for now. no pictures i’m sorry, but klim’s camera is broken and we don;’t have another one. we’ll have to get the pictures from martin or from our other friends and crew…

Haul out, take one

It almost happened. but we are still in the water. if all goes according to plan, we should be on the hard friday afternoon.

What happened is that the guy from the boatyard under estimated the size of karaka and so when we showed up at the appointed date and time, the tide was not high enough. As a result everybody got a bit grumpy and we had to go back to the anchorage. i went back just after to confirm a new date, but then the guy started telling me Karaka was too big for his machine and that he did not want to take the risk of breaking his machine taking karaka out…

We got a bit distressed by this as the other otpions in town are not good, either too expensive, or full, or too far from town, or they won’t let us work ourselves, etc. so we went back armed with pictures of a flimsy trolly that was used to haul karaka out in thailand and the boat papers showing the registered weight of karaka, and we manage to sway the man. we are rescheduled on friday the 18th. we’ll have to go early before the hightide and then empty the boat of all the heavy stuff such as anchors, dinghies, sails, life raft, etc etc in order to lower the weight of the boat, and hopefully the machine will be able to take us out…

after that there is just one more issue we are concerned about, and that is finding a nice spot on the yard. we had asked for a nice private corner with shade tree, but that was attributed to another boat so we’ll have to fight to get a good spot now. anyway, all good, have to run now..