A prelude to our next new adventure - Port Macquarie

Here is our next destination - the lovely Port Macquarie...

Port Macquarie is a town, situated within the local government area of Port Macquarie-Hastings Shire. It is located on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, about 390 km north of Sydney, and 500 km or 252 nautical miles south of the Gold Coast. The town is located on the coast, at the mouth of the Hastings River, and at the eastern end of the Oxley Highway and has a population of approx 72,000.

But before we leave, Fete needed some major work.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Firstly: I decided to re-varnish to entire interior of Fete. This became bigger than I thought as those of you who have attempted to do this will attest too...

I won't bore you with all the pics that I took, but will publish a couple so as you get the idea. I spent approx six, yes six, months doing every locker door, floor & bulkhead and this means replacing all the teak louvers that were damaged and then sanding and 4-5 coats of varnish.




(If you wish to see the rest of the pics, just email me and I will send them thru)

.After finishing with the interior and being pleased with the results,  I checked this off the list and went to the next item. My list is 3 pages long as most of you with boats will know what I am talking about





But before I could start on the next job, which was to sand the deck back and re-caulk it, the marina was hit with a major hail storm which damaged many vessels on the marina, especially their "Clears". Luckily I had strung a canvas over Fete between the masts for protection from the heat, but it proved to save us from some major damage . . . so I thought.

(Remnants of the hail storm in the fore-peak)

  Another consequence of the storm, that I discovered later, was that some hail had hit the forward mast around the port side spreader and had ripped out a large piece of mast. It's not quite visible here but I can assure you that it wasn't good. The mast had to be fixed NOW and therefore it had to come out to be worked on.
I employed a shipwright and booked the mast into Runaway Bay Marina on the Gold Coast as they had the ability to lift it out with their forklift - much cheaper than hiring a crane.

It wasn't long before we got the diagnosis that the mast had a damaged "Compression Plate" where the spreaders were attached and the damage probably happened when we got knocked down as mentioned in the Blog:- "San Francisco to Hawaii - at last!" Obviously when the masts went under, the spreaders took the brunt of the force, due to their position some 30 feet above the deck. Surprisingly though it would have been all the fresh water (rain) that we have had since our return that caused the damage. Another problem was that the head of the mast had also sustained damaged which again allowed fresh water to trickle down from the top.
(The view at left is Fete without her mast and a bucket covering where is should be.)


The view here at left is with the spreaders and the old compression block removed and the mast scarfed out. Whilst we had it at this stage we re attached some damaged wiring which runs thru the conduit you can see on the right hand side of the mast. The pic at right is the new Compression block ready to be inserted and below with it in place.

Now all we had to do was to put her back together and paint it. Again before painting we changed all the running, steaming and anchor lights , along with 2 new spreader lights, so as all would be working for the coming trip.
The mast had been on the hard at the marina for 25 days and it had been stinking hot but now, Friday 31st, January 2014, it was back in and all tied down. All there is to do now is put back the furling headsail and re-attach the main to the mast.




 The work of the last month, although done by a qualified shipwright, reminded me of where we  are going and the Pilots Boatshed Museum down by the waterfront in Port Macquarie.

So until the upcoming little adventure to Port Macquarie, I will leave you with something that always brings a smile to my face, especially during and after some hard times . . . 

The little clip below is of a mate of mine from Southport Yacht Club, Rockin Rollin Mickey Lawler, who gave us an impromptu concert on the deck of SYC on Christmas Day 2012 . . ENJOY!

Thanks Mickey, Mickey Mickey!!!