BRAVO Refit - Weeks 4 thru 9

YES, you read that correctly......Week bloody NINE !!!!!

Our refit project continues forward, albeit at a truly glacial pace.  It's a helluva lot of work.  We took a few weeks off to travel with Seattle amigos David and Diana, making it deep into the South Island.  Had some great adventures, and saw some wonderful sights.....Another blog post will follow shortly on that journey.

But there is progress on several of Bravo's fronts...

Fuel tanks: 

Mock-ups of the 3 starboard tanks awaiting fabrication.  Not a right angle in the lot!

The last couple of days have been big ones...Thursday afternoon saw the stainless steel tank installs completed.

The tanks are true works of art, we hate to cover them up.  Welding doesn't get much better than this.  I finished the plumbing in the afternoon and called a tanker truck company to deliver fuel to the boatyard for Friday morning.

We filled the starboard side first (3 tanks plumbed together as one).  Went without a hitch, and we calibrated the sight glass at 270 litres.  No leaks!!!!!  We then started the fuel running into the port tank, and immediately saw a leak at the filler.  Not a total surprise, as the filler neck had a couple of tight bends to navigate, and the hose just wasn't up to the task.  Bummer.

We had the tank welder make up a custom filler neck in stainless steel.  This morning we had the truck back, and loaded up on 210 liters of fuel....with NO leaks!  YEEEEE-HAH, a real success.  We can now start to rebuild our home, reconstructing the demolished bulkheads and cabinetry, and reinstalling the watermaker, rebuilt generator, dodger and bimini.  Should be a a few more weeks of work remaining, and the leaky fuel tank episode, begun in Ecuador well over a year ago, will be a closed chapter in the Bravo history book!!!

Painting:  The hull has now been painted from the rail to the waterline.  2 coats of primer followed by 2 coats of finish paint.  The cove and boot stripes are freshly painted, and the bottom paint awaits spraying.  Looking SHARP!!!

Exterior woodwork:  Scraping off of all old varnish is finished, and we've begun sanding to get ready for the new finishes to follow.  Hopefully if the forecast rain holds off, we will be completely sanded within the next week.  (yes, we have LOTS of woodwork)

Freezer:  Foam insulation shipment arrived last week, and we picked up the new compressor in Auckland last week.  Started this weekend on building the new box, completing the vapor barrier today.  Should complete the box construction this week.  Lid fabrication will likely take a couple of more weeks, then we'll be ready for new countertops.

Rigging:  The boom came back from the welder, and looks great.  We had a lot of reinforcing work done of weakened areas, and installed a new reefing system.  We are also replacing the rest of the standing rigging, and that should be finished in the next few days.

Sails:  Our main sail and genoa have both been repaired, and await pickup.

Canvas:  We received our new dinghy cover (old one was stolen when the dinghy and motor went on walkabout from the Whangarei town dock)  Also had repairs made on the dodger and bimini.

Mechanical systems:  Generator is in the shop, having completed a major refurbishment, including injectors, injection pump, heat exchanger, and substituting many of our new spare parts in storage for those on the genset, so we should be good to go for many more hours.....(knock on wood!!!)  Engine will get it's 1000 hour service when we're back in the water.
 

Those are the major pieces to our refit puzzle.  Lot's of minor ones interspersed, of course....tracking and stopping leaks, rebedding port holes, reinstalling all hardware removed for the painting work, reinforcing the rubber tubes of the dinghy, regalvanizing our anchor and chain, other rigging modifications, etc.  It's coming, but slowly.

Stay tuned for a photo and travel blog update on our terrific recon journey around this terrific country.

BONUS PHOTO:  Shipwright next door to us shows true kiwi ingenuity!!!

BRAVO Refit - Weeks 2 and 3

Progress has been frustratingly slow these past couple of weeks.  After the tanks came out at the end of week 1, we thought we were "off to the races".  Unfortunately, at this point, three weeks into the project, the plywood mockups to get the new tanks fabricated are still not quite complete, so we will not have new tanks for at least the next 2 weeks or so.  We also learned that our shipwright Don does not work on Mondays!!!  WTF???  This adds 20% to the schedule for any of his work.  Not good.  At all.....

Well here's where we are at this point:

Tanks:  Mockups ALMOST done, then will go off to fabrication

Fitting the structural supports that will go between the tanks on the starboard side.  These get fiberglassed to the hull and support the generator above, as well as anchoring the tanks.

 Partitions have just been glassed in.  Pretty, right?  Well hold that thought...

When the 3 tanks were mocked up in plywood, the 3rd one was slightly too big to maneuver into position in the tight space.  So it and the adjacent tank needed to be redone, and the glassed-in partition will be cut out and re measured and recut (remember, boat hulls taper from bow to stern, so each bulkhead is unique!)

That's what the mockups are for, but it would have made more sense to try it BEFORE glassing in the bulkheads!!!  just sayin'.......

Repair of old through hull fitting hole will be as strong as original.

Meanwhile over on the port side....   We've figured out how to rebuild this side in a single tank, eliminating the hassle and expense of multiple tanks like we need on the starboard side.  It means a large vertical tank, thin enough to slip in the entry, and elimination of the horizontal leg of the L-shaped previous tank.

This required moving a through hull fitting which is the vent for the propane locker.

The repaint project is well underway.  BRAVO has scaffolding all around, and is being prepped and sanded, with the all small dings and scratches of her 30 years of voyaging being filled and faired.  We're also stripping all of the varnish off the exterior wooodwork, and polishing all of the stainless steel.








Ahhh, and now on to the galley.  As you may recall, the freezer box has been a terrible energy drain for us, requiring that we run the generator daily for perhaps 1 hour.  The refrigerator box, on the other hand, has been relatively efficient.  We figured that the freezer had to have bad or lacking insulation causing the problem, and decided after 3 years in the tropics to do something about it.  This past weekend, surgery began, as we tore out the existing counter top and the freezer box itself, along with its insulation.  Not pretty.  At All !!!

Demolition beginning.  Laminate surface removed, as is the freezer hatch (freezer is in the background)

"There's yer problem, ma'am"  Poured foam insulation along the hull (back wall of freezer) is around 1/4 inch thick!!!  Recommendation is for R-28, which is nearly 5 inches!!!  Other walls were better, with around 3"

Galley today, awaiting new freezer and counters.

Back topsides, the boom has gone off to the welding shops.  We're making some improvements to the reefing system, and strengthening the gooseneck (connection of the boom to the mast).

Poor BRAVO is looking a bit shabby now.  Hopefully the next few weeks will see progress as the rebuild continues.....stay tuned!