Cruisers & Sailing Forums

Yep I sure will teach you to splice. That'll be over a nice cool liquid refreshment.

Hey Mike, now that you have sampled Beer from both sides of the world, are the NZ brew's up there, or the US stuff prefered?
Oh and speaking of numbers, scince you've been gone Mike, there have been a few changes around here. We no longer have the 5 sheep to every Kiwi number. Farming took a downturn and a big change. It would be lucky if it was one for one now.
Rugby season has just got underway too. Yippeee!!!!!Real men, thats wot they are Brucey.
:D :D

Tenakoe. We get Steinlager here but I don't think it is a big seller. I buy European if I get it from the store or beer made by a small brewery locally. The North Americans drink mainly the mass produced stuff which is only drinkable if it is free. Small breweries and all over and that is preferred by folks with taste buds especially the Europeans. We have about 20 sheep on our property. We listed the place for sale a couple of days ago. If all goes well I will have more time for sailing later this year. I played for Suburbs RFC which is in Avondale in Auckland. Started in the 15 B in the early fifties. Would still be playing with the old guys here if I had the time. My boat is still on the trailer and I have been working on the keel making it smooth.

The exhaustive work, the political correctness, the strangling, proactive mindset...ahhh...yes, youth. First, a metaphysical glimpse into whole truths: Everyone's comment contains part of the truth, so will, hopefully mine. A long time ago an old plumber told me why so many plumbers were drunks. He claimed it was because they dealt with water, and that people who deal in and around water create--in their dealings--the same illusions that water creates when you look at an object distorted by water's prism. The object is always in a slightly different place. I think with all aspects of the mariner's life, boats, seas, there is more than the normal share of lies and illusion since, practically, so much of a boat is hidden. Look deeply into Nicholson's voyaging for Practical Sailor, how rigorously researched and prepared parts of his vessel deteriorated quickly and completely. I think this young, articulate, intelligent couple, P&A, probably don't understand physical processes, types of layups, variances between builders and surveyors, and that the idea of "simplifying" doesn't mean multiple thinner, twisting hulls which agitate, work, heave, pull, but instead they bought an idea...like Miller's Death of a Salesman, this sweet couple swallowed the American Dream, they bought a beautiful light airy cabin...like it was a vacation home on Block Island's sandy cliffs not an ocean-going boat. Been there, suffered, licked wounds, restored depleted funds, thought, read, researched, read, listened and my approach changed to parallel the successful, still-living, thriving cruisers who seem to follow the same prescriptions for successful cruising. Didja read April's Practical Sailor about the guy who decided to fix his engine in 40 knots while entering an inlet? Hmmmmm. What are those fundamentals again? I'm roaming, I'm outta here.

And here is another tale:

This is also a youngish couple with limited experience who bought a sailing cat, then set out for the horizon.

Enjoy.

Sorry to dredge this up from the dark depths again, but I decided to read this Bumfuzzle logs to see wether our infamouse couple had made it to Ausy yet. Well no, they are still in NZ and their struggles continue. I am not going to comment at present, seeing as I got shot down by them last time, but if anyone is interested, take a look at their engine incident and see what your thoughts are.

That is why I don't trust idiot lights! They can malfunction and you would not know it! I installed gauges for at least my oil pressure and water temperature. If they stop working, you have a clue that it is gone. Really sad to hear of the additional woes, but I am impressed by their not letting it completely ruin their trip.

Pat is pulling the engine! Kudos for him. This trip will make a cruiser out of him yet! :viking:

After all cruising is about repairing your boat in exotic places!

My thoughts were, finding a hose not designed to handle hot water two stages of problems earlier, should have been addressed and corrected when it was found the first time. The first time he had a problem, although he didn't mention what that initial problem was, he may have got away without damage to the engine. The second time the problem occurred and the engine shut down, I would suggest damaged the engine then. The final cookup sure made sure of it anyway. Surely a temperature gauge would be on the instrument panel. Maintaining a regular watch of gauges is as regular as watching any other thing on the boat. Thats the difference between skippering a boat and "steering" a boat. But OK, maybe there is no gauge and all there is, is a warning light or sound. But if the engine over heated enough to actually sieze, there would have been many other warning signals visual. The poor litle engine would have been sending up enough smoke signals to call up a war party to start with.

I would have thought the problem was caused by the broken impellor, not the hose. On my boat, the hoses that goes from the engine to the waterheater diverts a percentage of the heated water from the engine block to the water heater. Then there is a return hose from the heater and the water goes back through the engine heat exchanger. When I need to shut this off, it just means the heat exchanger has to handle a normal load. Ostensibly going through the water heater removes some of the heat when the engine is warmed. The thermostat should keep the water from circulating to the water heater and heat exchanger when it is cold. The water in the circuit is all freshwater. It is propelled by the engine water heater. The fact the pipe burst, I imagine, was because the water being sent to the water heater was too hot. Therefore I would suspect something on the raw water/cooling side. This would lead me to investigate the strainer, impellor, thru hulls and exchanger, pretty much in that order. But, I would not have immediately concluded that a busted waterheater hose was caused by high heat, if I saw a questionable design.

PVC and hard pipe is NOT a thing to put in a boat that is subject to vibration. It is a questionalbe design point. The joints just don't hold up to the vibration. All hoses should be flexible, high quality, double clamped etc... etc... I would have probably, thought the vibration would have caused the pipe to fail. As a mater of fact, that's exactly what I thought when I read about the issue the first time.

I do absolutely agree an overheat shut down is a SERIOUS thing. Not something that should be ignored, or chalked up to gremlins. I would have gotton something like a handheld infared thermometer and used that to see if I had indeed fixed the problem. I would have been very cautions for at least the next 10 run hours or so.

I think Pat may find the resolution of the engine issue to be more significant after they get into the engine. I'd be suspect about my valves, valve guides, valve seats, cam lobes, valve train , piston rods, crank, crank bearings and engine crankcase. Hopefully a minimal amount is damaged, but I certainly want everything remiked (using micrometers to make certain all components are within manufacturing tolerances) to make sure. Small price to pay when you have to strip the engine down anyway. If the piston is seized, the cylinders are going to need be be rehoned, oversized pisons and rings.... sigh... Hope the mechanic he has is up to snuff. :confused:

I am depressing myself. I think I'll go for a sail.

Later...

Good comments.

I didn't read that much of their site, but think they have the right attitude. They frankly say they don't know what they are doing (though must surely now) and I read many of their comments, even those quoted in this thread, as making fun of themselves.

All of us, at one time, knew nothing. They are learning the way all of us wish we did. Robin Lee Graham knew nothing when he set out, and seemed somewhat surprised his sextant worked.

As for not caring about culture, that pretty much sums up about 99 percent of the tourists who come here -- and many of the cruisers. It's just that Pat and Ali are too honest to pretend otherwise.

I wish them luck and hope they get home okay. If we share an anchorage, I'll offer them a beer. I think they would be a hell of a lot of fun to spend a bit of time with.

My two cents

Leaving Pat and Ali out of this, I guess you could look at the knowledge aspect in several different ways. Firstly, I guess with all the overload of rules and red tape and sue the pants off mentality you US people have to deal with, the freedom of open water to you guy's, must be like opening a gate to a Bull in a Rodeo. But down here in NZ, we grow up with a surrounding ocean that even on the best of days, can be a challenge and on the worst of days can be down right deadly. We often get comments from visiting yachties when arriving down here, "we have sailed all over the world for years, and the worse peice of water we ahve ever encountered is you Cook Straight". Now that is not saying there are not other seriouse stretches of water in the world. It is just that few of those area's are within normal cruising routes. So NZ and Oz have very tight and stringent safety rules for yachties. Only a few years ago, a visiting yacht would be forced into coming up to a Cat 1 certificate before being able to leave NZ. Why?? well it was considered that, if you got into truoble out there, it was NZ that had to come to your rescue at NZ's expense. So you should be able to look after yourself as much as possible, before shuch a case of rescue was required. Another aside story, we had a nutter here in NZ that decided he was going to row across the southern ocean to Oz. He left NZ three times and had to be rescued three times at great expense. He was warned every time that he didn't have the gear nor experiance to do this trick.

Across the puddle from Wheels is Wellington. It is interesting to watch plains take of from there. They do not taxi, they just hit maximum throttle and go straight up. The wind speed is often enough for lift off. Sydney in the land of OZZ to NZ has been done in 2 hours 3 minutes and the return trip in 4 1/2 hours or more. Same plain flying at the same speed. The pilots on the group can explain.

Been reading this for awhile now, and Alan I tell ya, some friends are with the USCG aux and they have bozos come for their inspections with the brand new boat acting all surprised when they're told they gotta have lifejackets aboard, amazing. Back to the story, it brought back some fading memories of their log about Sydney and King's Cross, that's where all cruisers should go as soon as ya become a landlubber. That's the thing about being a cruiser, get off the beaten track, forget dining at MacD's, mingle and live like the locals, and sticker price shock or however ya want to say it, us Yanks gotta realize and understand a lot of countries don't have the population to support cheaper prices for commodities, shops being 7/24, gotta go with the flow of the country and realize things aint the same. Gotta tell ya, you Kiwi's and Aussies are probably the better sailors for what you are required to know. Just me two cents which I might add to later. Now they're downunder, they'll be doing a lot of this lol :cheers:

Good comments Chuck. Hey Mike, yeeeup. Wellington has been the Airport for my two worst landings I have ever experianced:D

From their May 3rd log:

"We spent the afternoon getting "pissed" on VB (Victoria Bitter), gorging on Big Mac's, and on the way home stopped in and rented some movies at Blockbuster. Good stuff."

They could be in "Anytown USA"...

I read their logs just for the amusment factor!

Why should sailing around the world age them?

It should make them younger, more full of life, more open to fun.

I like pizzas and burgers, and FREE beer, too. I haven't read the sailing manual that categorizes this as unseaworthy behavior.

Maybe I've just been surrounded for too long by "captains" who think so much of themselves and look down on all others who aren't as creakingly boring as they are.

Lighten up, go sailing, have fun, make mischief.