The Trinidad Refit (part I)

It feels good to be floating again! I’m writing this post as we make our final approach to Panama, after an eight day passage from Grenada. After a summer split between the UK and US (learning how to be landlubbers again), we flew back into Trinidad in mid-September to be reunited with the second most important lady in my life (on reflection I’d better make that fourth). So two months have passed and the blog has remained silent – despite some nudges from back home – for what has been a very good reason. Our experience from Croatia was that refits tend to be quite full on, and what we had lined up in Trinidad was suitably more ambitious than our previous refit, based on the learnings and yearnings of 18 months cruising. So we decided to write the refit posts retrospectively, once we’d had a chance to recover from what was undoubtably the most intense six weeks of work I’ve ever been involved with. I’m going to provide an introduction into the scope of what we tried to achieve and then provide some answers to some high/low light style questions in this post, and then Laura will answer the same questions and provide an overall reflection in her follow up post.

A long list of projects

Back before we left Serenity for the hurricane season, whilst we were bobbing at anchor in Grenada, Laura and I started to look forward to our next sailing season in the Pacific and I discovered that Laura was struggling to be as excited as me. The reason was that we were coming off the back of a run of maintenance issues (a lot of them toilet related), and Laura was worried that this was the new normal and a function of us trying to cruise on a relatively restricted budget. So in an effort to turn things around, I asked Laura to make an open-ended list of all the improvements she would make to Serenity across all areas of boat life if time and money were no object. I did the same and, after talking all of them through, we put them together into a combined and prioritised list. All well and good, but the key outstanding question was how many of them could we afford.

That was the question we then set about answering over the summer, and the wonderful news was that the answer was most of them! The reason being that, because we could see the full list of what might be possible, we were able to have a really good discussion about the relative investment we were making in each item (often offset by more of our own time in the research, design and installation). In the past, we’ve often struggled to choose where to pick on the ‘budget vs premium’ spectrum that exists for every product, especially where premium comes with clearly recognised quality improvements. But now we were always able to reference the trade-off items, and especially when the sacrifice needed was our time we were almost always happy to make that investment to maximise our quality of life through this next sailing adventure.

So, where did we end up with our list? The final project plan for Trinidad included 167 items, although these varied wildly in scope from five minute to five day jobs). Rather than bore you with a long list, I’ve grouped / whittled them down into the following (unprioritised) list to give you a sense of what we were trying to achieve:

• Sanitation: All kinds of ‘good’ stuff to reduce both Laura’s maintenance load and unpleasant odours from the holding tank
• Watermaker: Our most complex system to date…a way of turning salty water into fresh, to reduce pressure on water storage from having long-term crew in the Pacific where fresh water sources are also harder to find and refill from
• Power supply: Fitting the extra alternator that we bought back in Croatia, but never needed until now (watermakers use a lot of power!) and installing extra ventilation fans to reduce fridge power draw
• Windows and hatches: Resealing the leaking saloon window (for the third time!) and cleaning off corrosion on all external portlights
• Anchoring: Refurbishing our windlass motor (a surprise project we discovered on our return to Trinidad), splicing extra rope onto our 60m of chain to allow for deep water anchoring, and end-to-end / remarking of the chain itself
• Dinghy: Upgrading the propeller, overhauling the outboard to fix the ‘weird’ noise and leakage of water into the gear oil, and improving our ability to secure the dinghy when we leave it unattended (we’ve been warned about thefts in Central America
• Anchoring comforts: Creation of new anti-roll device to deal with swell and addition of new deck shades / rain covers to allow hatches to be left open overnight
• Clean and paint: After paying for the yard to sandblast off all the old paint, we needed to restore the keel, reseal the keel to hull joint, clean and wax all the topsides and barrier coat and paint the undersides (the only exciting bit of which was the new paint we were using that would no longer rub off into the water when we clean the hull)
• Propeller: Adding a fancy folding propeller to reduce engine wear and noise whilst increasing speed on passage
• Engine: Improve the shaft sealing, add a collection point to the raw water overflow, reinstall loose mounting bolt and a full service
• Steering: Complete service of all cable steering and replacement of failing lip seals and corroded bearings on the wheel shaft, and manufacture of new leather steering wheel covers
• Running rigging: Replacement of chafed halyards and genoa furlex line, plus structural repairs to furlex, vang, jib car and traveller
• Downwind rigs: Upgrades to allow use of new downwind sail plans that are better suited for Pacific (vs. Atlantic) wind and wave conditions
• Home comforts: Improved coffee making equipment, pressure cooker, general pots and pans, cutting boards, non-slip mats, non-breakable plates, interior lighting, mattress topper, car stereo, cockpit lighting
• Communications: Installation of permanent sat phone antennae and WiFi booster cabling
• Professionalisation of previous fixes: Plating over poorly cut holes, covering up old bumper repair, straightening wonky wardrobe doors, recabling fans and reading lights,
• Mosquito nets: Replacement of generation 1 nets (effective if hard to fit and now starting to show larger than mosquito holes) with the new generation 2 model (5 second install time, durable fabric and rated to prevent ‘no-see-ums’ according to their manufacturer – Aust’s ABC (Against Biting Critters))
• Bimini and dodger: Hand made new ones as the old ones were letting through so much sun and water, it was often debatable whether the effort to put them up was worth it

So it’s fair to say we had a lot to do and (surprise, surprise) we didn’t quite manage it all. But I’ll leave the review of where we got to for Laura’s next post, and move onto my highlights and low lights.

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Proudest project: Steering wheel covers

Before I get into the details, it’s worth clarifying that Laura and I split all the tasks up between us at the start of the refit depending on who had the best understanding of what needed to done. That’s not to say that we then worked entirely in silos, as lots of the work had times when two people were needed, but it meant that we could then focus on planning for our own jobs without fear of duplication or things falling between us.

Given my complete lack of experience on matters related to fabric, leather and sewing, it was an easy decision to assigning all of these projects to Laura during the divvy up. However, around four weeks into the refit, I had endured a really tough couple of days where everything on the boat seemed to be out to cause me injury and stacked on top of the previous week’s exertions (see Toughest Moment below), I was getting close to burning out. Thankfully, Laura spotted this before it happened and, knowing that I would refuse to take a day off whilst she was working, she instead suggested I take on a project that didn’t require any time outside or physicality. Seeing as none of my remaining tasks fit this criteria, she offered the steering wheel cover project to me, with the insistence that I could learn the limited required needle skills from a YouTube tutorial.

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Our previous steering wheel covers were at this point more electrical tape than fabric, as we’d long stopped trying to repair the countless numbers of broken stitches and tears on the old fabric. This meant that the cover was actually a bit loose on wheel, which could at times be unnerving to the helm unless they gripped the wheel sufficiently. Thankfully, Laura had some left over leather from a pair of shoes she’d made for our friend’s wedding, plus her leather working tools, Sailrite sewing machine and fancy UV resistant thread. There was also a 20 minute YouTube tutorial that explained all of the steps required, and so I sat myself down in the saloon at the beginning of the day and began my only foray into sewing other than reattaching broken buttons.

It turned out to be unbelievably satisfying, low energy work – the perfect antidote to how I had been feeling. It was impossible to go fast as you had to spend a lot of time stretching the leather over the wheel to get the right tension in the material; however, I had a whole day ahead of me and plenty of Rugby World Cup games to catch up on. I won’t pretend that it was anywhere near as complicated as Laura’s other sewing projects, but I was able to gain the sweet satisfaction from learning a new skill and completing a project with a visible quality improvement to Serenity. The new wheels were a joy to use on the sail down to Panama and I’m hopeful that they will now get us to Australia without need for any more major repairs.

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Toughest moment: Clean and wax

If I had been asked at the start of the refit what I thought would be the toughest project, I would have answered the antifouling without a pause for breath. My experience painting the bottom of the boat in Croatia had been a lesson in just how hard this job can be, and this time we had the added challenge of redoing the barrier coat (essentially extra waterproofing and a paint primer on the hull). This time though, the antifouling would not claim the toughest project mantle for me. It was still hard, but the learnings from Croatia, combined with the improved choice of paint and equipment, and most importantly the help that Laura was able to provide meant that this project didn’t live up to its billing.

Instead, it would be the innocuously sounding clean and wax project that would take me to breaking point. The majority of Serenity’s exposed surfaces are a thin layer of white gel coat that covers the fibreglass structure. This gel coat is gradually damaged by it’s exposure to sun and sea, which over time causes it to weaken and take on a chalky appearance, and Serenity had sailed a lot of tropical miles since we had first done this task almost exactly 12 months before.

That time, we were fortunate to have Ballin and Katherine from our Atlantic crew to help us with the work. The goal of the project is to first give all the gel coat above the waterline (i.e. the deck and sides) a really thorough clean – ideally with a pressure washer. You then polish a wax compound into the gel coat, before finally going over all the surfaces with rags to get off the excess wax. Doing this with Katherine and Ballin had taken an entire day, but had been made more complex because Serenity was in the water at the time and so getting access to the sides required some gymnastics / dinghy work / docking adjustments. This time, we had ‘easy access’ to the sides via some scaffolding, so Laura and I foolishly thought we could replicate the same single day timelines.

What we hadn’t realised was just how dirty Serenity had gotten whilst spending three months out of the water in the yard. Dust, wind and rain had all taken their toll, and we hadn’t been able to get hold of a pressure washer. So we started bright and early on the decks using soap and scotch pads, but realised after a few hours that getting the whole boat done in a day would be impossible. Recognising that the decks could be done just as easily whilst she was in the water, we rolled back our ambitions for the day to just getting the sides of the boat done. But even this would be a mammoth task – moving the scaffolding around the various stands holding Serenity up was a real challenge, combined with the efforts of spending most of the day in the sun balancing on a wobbly board whilst cleaning surfaces above your head. We pushed and pushed and pushed, but as the sun started to set we still had half of the port side to go. Laura started to make a move for our head torches, but at that point I just collapsed on the ground and said “no more”. I had pinned so much onto getting the work done in a day that not even managing to finish the sides felt like failure.

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This was the moment I referenced above when Laura decided I needed some time on something less demanding, and so she kindly took on finishing the work herself the next day whilst I recovered with my sewing. We then tackled the decks the following week, when we were floating on the dock after we had launched. This was a really good example of why you should almost always hold something back unless its a truly critical situation, as otherwise it can leave you exposed when you overstretch yourself.

“Your ego is writing cheques your body can’t cash.”

Stinger, Top Gun

I need to be a bit less like Maverick in the future 🙂

Lowest hanging fruit: Cockpit lighting

Laura and I often joke about how boat projects always turn out more complicated than you initially think and how sacrifices always end up having to be made. I was fortunate during this refit to stumble across a couple of projects that, if anything, were easier than I expected – the new lighting we’ve put into the cockpit is one that certainly meets this criteria.

Up until now, we’ve had a rechargeable USB camping light to bring into the cockpit when it gets dark, but it’s a cold glaring light that can leave people squinting and the battery doesn’t last more than an hour or so. So I came up with a plan to install a 12v power socked in the cockpit table (also useful for charging iPads displaying detailed charts), and then find some LED lights that would add a more diffuse ambient light. Putting the power socket in turned out to be incredibly straightforward, as I was able to leverage wires that had already been run into the cockpit table, and the new waterproof 12v cigarette lighter socket was almost plug and play as a result. Then I had found some really cheap waterproof lights (at this point the budget was stretched thin), which I thought would be okay. We tried them out down below and they were fairly underwhelming; however, when we got them in-situ they turned out to be the perfect length and brightness. We can store them on an old fishing line reel when they are not in use, and Laura is working on adding some loops to the bimini to make them even easier to deploy. What really made my day was when a fellow cruiser described them as ‘a real touch of class’ when we hosted him for drinks, and we are now looking forward to many more of these pleasant evenings above decks.

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Game changer : Watermaker

For all our time cruising on Serenity, we have counted ourselves lucky when it comes to fresh water. We’ve yet to meet a monohull that has as much fresh water storage as us (800 litres or over 200 gallons), and this translates to almost a month of water for Laura and I without resorting to strict rationing. We were even able to make it across the Atlantic with two crew on board and have over 25% of our tanks left at the end. That being said, the most common reason why we end up going into marinas is in order to fill up our tanks, but we’d decided that this was a manageable expense and it has meant that we’ve been able to avoid the tricky subject of water makers in the past.

Looking forward, the Pacific is an area where the availability of fresh water is much more restricted that the Caribbean, and we will be cruising some of its most remote areas with a crew of four. One option to deal with this is be extra careful with water usage, carry extra jerry cans and be willing to hike around these islands to find water (which may often need to be bartered or paid for). When Laura and I considered this option, we became worried that this ever present worry about water might detract significantly from our Pacific experience, and so we decided to look at watermaker options instead.

Thankfully, we met some cruisers in Grenada who recommended a company called SeaWater Pro. Whereas most watermaker companies will sell you a completely assemble unit for you to install, SeaWater Pro sources all the component parts and sells them to you with a set off instructions for how to put them together. This results in a big saving ($2,000 less than the closest competitor) as well as the ability to install the product more flexibly in the odd shaped spaces around the boat.

The downside is that it was a lot of work to get all the components in – at least five full days of my time when you include all the planning, plus a couple of days of Laura’s help. There were so many constraints in terms of the tolerances of the fittings, the space available on the boat, and the best practices that are recommended to reduce maintenance issues down the line. I was constantly in mind of the carnival game ‘Whack-A-Mole’ as every time I thought I’d found a solution, another problem would raise its head. This culminated in the first low pressure test of the system, where we identified no fewer than 27 separate leaks…

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But, on the flip side, this was a project that really illustrated to me just how far we’ve come since we started the cruising life. It combined our newly developed electrical and plumbing skill sets, with some unfamiliar elements such as high pressure pumps and reverse osmosis membranes, and also required a significant proportion of the ever growing tool set. And now anytime we are low on water, or even just using motoring with some spare amps coming out the alternator, we can turn on this amazing system and produce up to 80 litres of fresh water an hour. That is enough water in an hour to last us around three days, or more if Laura is restrained with her showering. Laura’s current feedback is that, in the new watermaker world, showering restraint is a thing of the past and I’m sure she’ll expand on that point in her follow up post…