“Sheer Tenacity” gets a bit more TLC!

 25/8/2014

After 6 years of the cruising life, 30 000miles, and a couple of bumps,   scratches, and storms, we decided to take an extended break in NZ, and do a repaint while we were on the hard.

At the same time, we wanted to fit a new holding tank system, to comply with the ever increasing demands of marinas, and to replace all our sun faded red Sunbrella.

Holding tank fitted behind upper cupboard doors 

With the new 130% Quantum headsail (with it’s bright red UV trim), the new fully battened main looked a little tired inside the 7 year old stackpack! With quotes of NZ$1700, Mary and I decided to do the stackpack ourselves, saving NZ$ 1350 in the process! Our little Thompson Walking Foot machine (Sailrite), which we bought to do our cockpit winterising, was fantastic!

Nameless but good undercoating complete

Stackpack still in production

 Roger, from Northsails Opua, did a great job professionally correcting the genoa luff length (after Mary and my laborious hand sewing mission in Tahiti to make it usable), and replacing the red UV on the staysail .

To sort out the wind generator that went pearshaped in the storm, we are changing the turbine back to a 3 phase alternating unit, and using the Silent Wind Rectifier/Regulator controller system in place of the built in AirXMarine one, which cannot cope in BIG wind gusts! If this works well, I can see many cruisers going this route! I will have to feed a 3^rd wire from the unit back to the new control unit, but that will bring all the important management bits into the boat, and within reach! We also had to import from Spain new silent blue blades to replace the ones that delaminated in the storm.

Life on the hard is never the best…. But ,at least with a Porta potty we were able to avoid scaling ladders in the freezing cold and rain at night!  In fact, while hauled out, toilets and bathrooms take on a whole new level of importance! So much so that we even paid a visit the famous Hunderwasser toilets, which are the main tourist attraction in the town of Kawakawa. They certainly are different!

Despite the weather being rather wet and cold, we managed to do all the paintwork and antifouling in the planned 2 weeks, and Sheer is back to her best! All that’s missing now, is the new and upgraded AirXMarine windgen!

Looking good and back in her environment