Logbook

Getting a new mainsail from Hong Kong

The approaching deadline for two translations, which we accepted recently, and the weather, which is going bonkers, made us bite the bullet and once again board a plane to Hong Kong. The main goal of the trip was to bring our new mainsail, which was waiting for us at the UK Halsey loft, extend our Taiwanese visa and pick up my diploma, which was stored for a couple of months at some binder deep in the bureaucratic jungle of Hong Kong.

Jana and luggage

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The weather really gone crazy

By Petr Šimon

Still sitting in Kaohsiung and waiting. Since we are playing sailors you might thing that following winds, favorable currents, a good weather window is why we are still rotting here (that’s a bit of exaggeration, but it is a fact that during the North-East Monsoon Kaohsiung is showered by dust from inland and sooth from the factories nearby, so rotting we are not, it’s more like being buried by the earth at sea). So weather etc is not the main reason for our delayed departure. We had plenty of chances to cast off. The North-East Monsoon is at full strength now, but periodically it eases up and opens a two to three day windows, which would let us slip in the shadow of Luzon without too much fuss. With a little bit of imagination you could say that we could do it without getting our feet wet.

weather 2013-01

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Christmassy

By Petr Šimon & Jana Benešová

We have started the day of Christmas Eve with a cold frigid shower on the deck. Taking a shower the day before was just unbearable. You might not believe it, but the temperature dropped to non-tropical 14° C. Yes, that’s right. And it started to blow hard too. Regular tropical blizzard. We even had to put on our socks and long sleeves. Yuk. Taking a shower in that weather defied our collective common sense. We Bohemians have a saying: cleanliness is half the health, dirtiness is the whole health. Preventive medicine, you know.

Christmassy photo gone wrong

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Portlights on Hallberg-Rassy 31 Monsun

By Petr Šimon & Jana Benešová

The most dreaded item on our TODO list is finally crossed off. The portslights on our Hallberg-Rassy 31 Monsun probably had the original gaskets and all the windows had leaks, some leaked a lot. We were really afraid to remove them, because there was a lot of aluminum corrosion, salt sediments, etc. What if we can’t put them back again?

To get us some time, we finally made storm covers from 1/2″ acrylic sheets, trimmed with thick gasket. The storm cover is held over the broken windows by two or three supports that are placed across the window opening. It works quite well and is easy to deploy. When we removed the first window, we had the storm cover ready in case of a rain.

Storm covers with temporary plywood supports

Detail of backing plate mounting

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AIS receiver on the cheap

By Petr Šimon

Our faithful Sailor RT2048

When we were leaving Singapore to embark on our very first passage, one Russian Australian sailor gave us his old VHF. At first we didn’t like the radio that was on Jannawhen we bought it. It was Sailor RT2048 with old style telephone receiver. It looked unfashionable and awkward. How wrong were we! We wanted to switch to the new one, but found out, that it does not transmit. So we put back the Sailor VHF and soon found out how great the old receiver is. One actually clearly hears what the others are saying. And you can also pull the receiver out into the cockpit so that the helmsman can easily reach for it and talk to harbor traffic control.

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Janna’s upgrades continue

By Petr Šimon & Jana Benešová

Everyday, the forecast says, that it will rain the next day. The next day the forecast is the same. For few days we fell for the bait and postponed our boat maintenance to the next day. At least we had chance to advance our translations. So the forecasts were helping us in a way.

000 019

Chainplates have to be strong, but the crew also appreciate when the water does not leak around them

When we finally understood the recurrent method of Taiwanese meteorologists’ predictions, we got back to work on Janna. Last week we replaced lower shroud chainplates and decided that it’s time to replace also the two cap shroud chainplates. That gave us a chance to reminiscence over our first attempt to cross South-China Sea from Hong Kong to Kaohsiung, when one of our cap shroud chainplates broke. We had to return of course and quickly have a new one made. But the machinist that we found only had SS 304. When we finally reached Taiwan, we had new chainplates from SS 316 made and now after two years, we decided that it’s about time to use them. I still remember quite vividly how we had to disassemble Janna’s cabinetry in order to be able to remove and replace the broken chainplate back then in Hong Kong. For some reason we remembered that it’s a complicated work and we were procrastinating accordingly. The main excuse we used these days was an unfavorable forecast.

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Janna almost ready to cast off

By Petr Šimon

A cold front just passed over Taiwan, it rained a bit (naturally in the most inconvenient time; I’ll get to that) and it turned cold. It’s actually quite warm even hot during the day, but the shower tends to be quite cold. We first thought that we’ll have to do something about. We could warm a cattle of water on the stove and pour it into our „sunshower“. But Jana, who gets frost bite even when taking a yogurt out of the fridge, proclaimed that it’s not necessary, that we can take it, so instead we got used to the cold water. It might turn even colder before we leave, so at least we’ve got a solution for the cold problem.

It’s overcast today and it’s looks like it might rain again. We didn’t feel like getting out of bed in the first place, so we decided that today is intellectual work day and we are catching up with backlogs.

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The Joys and Sorrows Of a Life At Sea

Getting a new mainsail from Hong Kong

The weather really gone crazy

Christmassy

Portlights on Hallberg-Rassy 31 Monsun

AIS receiver on the cheap

Janna’s upgrades continue

Janna almost ready to cast off

Boat cleaning crew 6

Boat cleaning crew 5

Boat cleaning crew 4

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