Tauranga Maintenance Period

"Cruising ... maintenance in exotic locations ..."

Tauranga may not be as "exotic" as some of our other maintenance locations but it is a handy place to do maintenance (especially when our friends from Shenanigans lent us their car).

The big focus was installing our new 12kW hydronic heater system.  We had intended to delay antifouling until Tonga but as we found out we needed to replace some thru-hulls we hauled the boat and did the antifouling as well.  Thankfully Liz's father, Wendall, came out for a "holiday" and helped us get through the projects.

Liz, as the "Head Mistress", get the glamorous job of doing the annual overhaul of the head.

Coming out of the water.

Scraping off Bay of Island barnacles one by one before final sanding.  This took far longer than I had ever imagined.

Victoria taping before painting.

Johnathan put to work cleaning the prop shaft

While Victoria cleans the propeller itself.

A tent on the foredeck so we can work on the rhib's tubes

peeling back the old flaking layers

Johnathan mixing the two part rubber.

Half way done.

Shiny !

Of course, the reason for the haulout was to replace some old thru-hulls with modern reinforced plastic ones (used ones from Thru-Design).  What is missing in the picture is the collar that we also installed to ensure it was ABYC compliant.

Hmmm ... let's put a big hole in the hull here ...  Checking twice before drilling the exhaust for the new heater.  STV Tuna folks: I think I need a new STV Tuna shirt.

Grampy and Johnathan tackling plumbing.

and re-installing the formerly leaking hot water tank that is now heated by our diesel heater and has a tempering valve to keep the hot water below a scalding temperature.

The old sewing machine - Liz's mother's old one - gets some TLC too and perhaps more importantly Victoria learns how to do it herself.

Wendall lying around on his holiday.  Adding the fan unit for the saloon - this receives hot water from the heater and blows out hot air when required.

I am lying around too.

When I am not lying around, I just hang out in tight hanging lockers.   Note the maintenance induced chaos and the toilet taped shut (cannot use the toilet in the boatyard - makes for long walks in the night ...)

Johnathan helping run fuel lines to the heater.

Victoria cutting exhaust pipe.  Cool the two big kids can run the jigsaw or plunge tool without help now.

Grampy's shop on the dock.  The marina was quite accommodating considering the big sign that says "No External Maintenance"