All the boat batteries were buggered and so I had to fist replace them all before I could start the engines and move the boat out of the marina to the boat yard.
While at the boat, I removed all 5 batteries and we lugged them all back to the car and headed off to the battery shop.
I purchased 4 x 135 Ah Deep Cycle AGM house batteries and 1 x 100 Ah lead acid engine start battery totaling $1,348 which was much cheaper than the $1,900 I was quoted at another place.
I left the old batteries at the shop to be recycled and took the new batteries back to the marina and we lugged them all onboard, and then I spent the next couple of hours connecting them all back up and making sure everything was working fine and the batteries were charging.
After this, my back was hurting like hell. Each battery weighed 34kg’s and we had moved a total of 340kgs to and from the boat.
I tinkered around on the boat for the rest of the day, going back to stay at Wayne’s place late afternoon.
On Tuesday 22nd, I got up early to go down to the boat so I could exit the marina lock at 08:00. Wayne came along for the ride to help me guide the boat through the lock as I only have half a meter clearance on either side.
It was only a short 15-minute trip down the creek to the NT Marine Facility where the guys were waiting with the travel lift to lift the boat out of the water at 08:30 on a 6.6m tide.
It was a weird feeling being lifted out and driving along through the yard still in the boat.
When I climbed down off the boat, I was shocked to see the state of the hulls after 15 months without any anti-fouling paint.
I had left the boat in this state when I returned to Darwin from Indonesia as I had cleaned the hulls spotless so I wouldn’t have any bio security issues on arrival and didn’t have any time (or money) to deal with it at the time.
Both hulls, propellers and the rudders were totally covered in oysters and it’s amazing the boat had had any power and steerage on the trip from the marina to the boat yard.
After a couple of hours of high-pressure water blasting, it came up pretty good. The boat was taken out of the slings and placed on the hard stand and then the fun began.
I unloaded all the gear I had brought up from Perth and started to get everything setup. The first task was to scrape off all the shell remaining from all the oysters and other sea creatures that were attached to the bottom. The best way to do this is with a stainless-steel paint scraper and loads of elbow grease.
Within no time I was sweating profusely in the 33° heat and high humidity. It was hot as hell on the sunny side, while the other three sides were in the shade. After several hours I realized I had a massive blister in the palm of my hand even though I was wearing gloves.
I packed some plastic padding into my glove and kept going. Wayne had come down to help me for the day and he had gotten busy sanding the hulls and he was a great help saving me quite a bit of time and lots of sweat.
When my hand got too sore from scraping, I too started to sand the hulls. All the old dried coats of anti-fouling paint had to be removed as best as possible to give a good smooth surface to paint over with the new anti-fouling.
After a while, my sander had had enough and quit and refused to go any more, so it got thrown in the bin and I had to borrow Wayne’s sander while he setup a grinder to take off the remaining shell from the hulls.
It was hot, back breaking dirty sweaty work and we were both filthy, working till 6pm. We cleaned up for the day and went home. I was totally stuffed and the thought of doing this for the next ten days was overwhelming.
I also dropped my Honda 2KVA generator off at the local dealer to have some work done as it had been recalled for a second time. They had to order the parts in, so I had to carry the generator back to the boat and I will have to get it done next time I’m in Darwin.
Then it was back to the boat, scraping, sweating and sanding until the late afternoon once again and I was so trashed by the time I got home I fell asleep and missed dinner.
These were jobs I had been meaning to do for quite a while but just never got the time. He also refilled both sail drives with oil, saving me more time. All up this work cost me $1,212
The sanding and grinding went on for days and at some point, the rigger (Gary from Nautical Supplies) turned up to take a look at my fore sail furler that had been seized up and unusable for a couple of thousand miles.
I had come to the conclusion the bushes in the foil had worn out and maybe the swivel should also be replaced. Either way the fore stay had to be cut and removed to replace these items and so that is what he did, using a halyard to temporally hold up the mast as he brought the complete furler down.
He ended up taking the whole 20-meter furler back to his workshop, carrying it down the foot path a couple of blocks down, while I continued sanding the hulls.
The next day, the hulls were by now looking pretty good, so I decided to acid wash the water line on both hulls to remove all the Kimberly mud stains. It came up so good I washed the whole sides all around using a scouring mop I bought from Bunnings. This also was hard labor and my arms were in so much pain after a couple of hours, but the results gave me some hard-earned relief.
In the late afternoon I started sanding the propellers and sail drive legs back to bear metal ready to have Prop Speed applied. I was going to get this done by the yard, but they wanted $2000 to do both, so I went to the boat chandlery and bought a medium size Prop Speed kit for $390 and did it myself.
Everything in Darwin is ridiculously expensive. Even a can of marine CRC at the boat chandlery was $60. I purchased 14 liters of Carboline Sea Barrier 3000 and 8 liters of Altex Multi~Bond primer. This all cost me $1,545
Next day I was back at Bunnings buying more things for painting. So far, my Bunnings bill was $1,747. The morning was spent masking the waterline, bagging the sail drives and painting both hulls with the primer. It was so much easier than sanding, but my arms were aching like hell after a few hours.
Finally, it started looking like I was making some progress and this night I went out to the Darwin outdoor cinema with Wayne & Lynn.
Sirocco has always had a nice blue bottom, but being Darwin, it was too hard to get blue anti-fouling, so you can have any colour you like as long as it’s back.
She came up pretty good and I was happy with the results. The next job was to paint the propellers and sail drive legs with Prop Speed. I had never done this before and was a bit worried about getting it done right, so I spent an hour or so watching YouTube videos and reading all the instructions.
It seemed a little dauting, but nothing I couldn’t handle, so here goes nothing. The primer was a little hard to get good coverage on the first coat, but the second coat went on much better and the clear was very easy to apply. All up I think I got very good results and saved myself $1,610 to boot.
I was scheduled to splash the boat on the 28th but the swivel for the furler hadn’t arrived yet, so I had to stay on the hard stand for another day and change my flight. Good old Qantas charged me $480 to change my flight by one day after I had already spent $1,111 for the return ticket. Thanks Alan you bloody garden gnome, I hope you enjoy your multi-million-dollar retirement payout.
I spent the afternoon gluing the edges of the rubber boots back on that seal around the sail drives while waiting for Garry.
At 06:30 next day on a 5.1-meter tide, Luke and I arrived at the boat ready to splash. Nafea turned up to prime the raw water pumps for me before the launch which was nice of him. Sirocco looked so beautiful once again as she was gently lifted up high and rolled back over the water.
Lifting and splashing a boat is always a tense time, but everything went smooth and a short time later she was back home where she belongs, in the water once again.
After starting both engines and checking for leaks, we glided effortlessly out of the slings and waved goodbye to the men at the boat yard, before doing a 360 and heading off for a pleasure cruise to kill an hour or so before our booked lock time at 08:00.
We entered the lock without any dramas and I spent the next couple of hours getting the mooring lines just right and washing all the yard dust and blue anti-fouling dust off the boat. The remainder of the day was spent on boat jobs ad trying to find out what was wrong with my SeaTalk instruments. I managed to get everything working OK and I think it turned out to be just a loose cable.
I still had an issue with the AIS transmitter that I believed was a software bug and I ended up getting Wayne to take it to the local Ray Marine dealer to have the software upgraded to the latest release. Hopefully this will solve the problem I've been experiencing once and for all.
Wednesday 30th August - I pack both my two suit cases with 64kgs of leftover painting gear, clothes and unwanted items from the boat. My flight departed Darwin at 12:30 and I arrived back in Perth at 14:55 for a hard-earned rest.
I was so tired having come from a three-week trip offshore, strait to Darwin to paint the boat and now I have less than a week off before having to go back to work for another three weeks.
All up, it cost me $12,556
Geez I love boats……
Track Sirocco's progress
Next boat trip can l suggest a cruise ship.?
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