Feb 9-23
Hi All,
As I mentioned in the last log, the next 2 weeks would be all about TLC for Mystic as we prepare to cross the northern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea.
We are now sitting comfortably in our Pilot House, air-con blasting away, recuperating from 14 days of 8-10 hours of pretty hard work giving Mystic the TLC she needed. But wow, we have not worked in such tough conditions since Shelter Bay in Panama. We did haul on Monday, Feb 12 and splashed 5 days later on Saturday…..we cleaned the fuel tanks, put new seals in the stabilizer fins, finished the detail on the boat and added some bottom paint….4 big jobs in 4.5 days…wow!!! And, we fought high winds, major dust storms….the boatyard is all dirt/gravel and a quarry is near by…..and filled with weeds and trash with lots of bugs, probably the worst conditions in a boatyard we have been in during our 14 years ….at one point you could barely see 100 yards from all the dust…then it turned hot….like 96*F….36C….yikes….that was rough!!!!
We arrived on a Wednesday, Feb 7 around noon at the marina and Oliver, our boat man, quickly organized a thorough washing of Mystic….ODG….was she dirty and salty….Oliver washed everything including all the canvas….took 4 guys almost 5 hours….best wash job in a very long time…cost USD60. For the next 2 days they started detailing…..polishing all the SS and 2 coats of wax on the entire boat…..they would work another 4 days when Mystic was hauled out….took 2-3 guys, 6 days…again best detail since Australia….cost USD450….wow!!!!
I spent one day cleaning 4 of the large Racor fuel filters and housings….took me about 1.5 hours each….quite a messy job and the housings were full of that algae crap. We were fortunate to organize a fuel tank cleaning once we hauled. There are no professional companies available so we did it ourselves. We hired Arnold, a local carpenter working on boats here in the marina, who provided the manual labor. It took 3 men plus us 3 days to clean the fuel tanks. We first did the port tank….we used our fuel transfer pump to empty the tank into drums. Then a small teenager climbed into the tank…it was a little dirty in the forward and aft compartments. Our fuel tanks are divided into 3 compartments to attenuate the wave action. Kevin cleaned the tanks with lots of rags, scrub brush and clean diesel fuel. He did a great job!! We then put clean fuel back into the port tank. I say “clean” as we were assuming all the crap would settle to the bottom of the barrels so we only used about 80% of the barrel. In all we lost about 95 gallons of fuel out of 415 gal or about 23%…ugh…..wish we could have found someone with a filter and saved the fuel but not to be in the Philippines….ugh!!
We cleaned the starboard tank next…yikes…it was really dirty…we pulled 32 oz of algae out of the port tank and another 64 oz out of the starboard tank….3/4 of a gallon of crap…Holy Algae Crap Batman!!!! But, we had another issue….the inspection port gasket on the starboard tank was ripped….it was not leaking but it was in bad shape…..arghhhhhhh!!!! We did our research, emailed some folks but in the end we were on our own. Arnold went to talk with some diesel truck drivers and repair shops and then went to an auto store and brought back some cork gasket. The store did not have any material information but doing more Google search we are pretty sure it is Nitrile Rubber cork which is exactly what we wanted. We made another gasket, tested the material in diesel for a day and all was good. We refilled the tank but we didn’t have enough fuel to cover the gasket so we had to buy another 250 liters (66 gallon). We got the gasket about half covered and left for a night and no leaks!!! In the process of transferring all the fuel from the port to starboard tank to cover the gasket, we found we had about 2-3 gallons of dark, dirty fuel at the bottom of the port tank….arghhhhhhh…..and we had been so careful…..so back in the tank Kevin went for another cleaning….oweee for Kevin. We got smarter on the strboard tank and put a cloth filter over the fill hose plus left more diesel in the barrels…..the cloth filter was pretty clean!!!
I did fuel polish for many days and yep, the racor filter got dirty again…..I’m pretty sure it was from all the fuel in the port tank. I changed filters and for the last few days the filter is staying clean….fingers crossed!!!
Cost for the fuel tank cleaning…USD825….such a bargain. Arnold said that between him and Oliver (detailing) we provided wages for 15 families. He was a very gracious and friendly man with good skills and a great work ethic…..we wish we had more work for him!!!
Wesmar Stabilizers: Well…..guess who showed up a day early….Steve the Wesmar specialist from New Zealand…I’m in the ER with the fuel tank guys and Steve walks into the salon…..SURPRISE…..somehow we had all miscommunicated the date but we are sooooo glad he caught it at the last moment and still caught the plane!!! So Kathy scrambled to find him a room…luckily the hotel had one…..and Steve went to work…..We were able to drop the port fin…..AND as suspected it was in bad shape…..looks like a potential installation issue with the speedy sleeve in Australia. The speedy sleeve is a thin SS sleeve you cover the shaft where the seals are located. It makes inserting the fin shaft into the housing more difficult and you can catch the lip on the speedy sleeve on the seal easily. Steve’s trick is to use JB weld epoxy on the edge to make a smooth transition as well as epoxy on the bottom flange to keep the sleeve from slipping down….pretty ingenious!!! The fin shaft is in bad shape….if we were in USA we would most likely get a new fin but not possible here. So, we cleaned it up pretty well…..filed off the rough edges, installed a new Duralon Teflon bearing….these should last 5-6 years and we only need it to last 18 months so most likely all will be ok….fingers crossed!!
We dropped the starboard fin the following morning and it was in better shape, although the seals did have a nick from the speedy sleeve insertion in Australia…it looks like the bottom sleeve was compromised but the top sleeve held pretty well…there was some water on the shaft but very little corrosion and grooves….caught it just in time!!!! The next 2 days Steve cleaned everything best he could, changed new trunnion bearings on the actuators, installed 2 new actuators that had been leaking oil and then we raised the fins…..he was all done by Friday at noon!!!!
Bottom Paint: We had an excellent bottom paint job done in Phuket last April and as expected, the bottom paint was in good shape. The only paint available in black that was compatible with the Interswift we applied in Phuket was Micron 66 so we did a light wash and sand job, then added one coat for the entire boat, a 2nd coat 4′ on the waterline and then a 3rd coat 12″ down on the waterline…..that should do us just fine for the next 18 months until we get to Seattle!!
We splashed on Saturday am….the haulout lane is only 19′ wide…we are 17′ wide so it was very narrow getting in and out….TG for thrusters…plus Olivers guys and the boatyard guys did an excellent job of line handling…they used a diver to place the straps properly and viola we are splashed….Mystic weighed 44 tons…very little water and fuel onboard!!
Engine Work: So by Saturday noon Steve and I were in the engine room for the next 3 days….oh my aching back…..but at least we could turn on the air-con and open up the hatches to the ER and instead of the high 90’s F it was in the mid-80’s….sweaty but doable!!!
Cummins: new coolant Heat Exchanger, new fuel cooler, new coolant, new coolant filter, new fuel filter, new stabilzer HE, new aftercooler HE, new injectors, set valves, realigned shaft to transmission and eliminated slight vibration
GEN: new exhaust elbow, new coolant pump, new injectors, set valves, new fuel filter, new belt, new coolant Heat Exchanger, new coolant (Fleetguard); new injector pump, new raw water impeller
Yanmar: new coolant, new transmission oil, realigned shaft to transmission and eliminated a significant vibration
Fuel filter mystery: When we changed the spin on fuel filters on both the Cummins and Yanmar there was algae crap on the filters…..now how did that get past the Racor 2-micron filters in front of both engines….plus the fuel cooler on the Cummins was dirty….arghhhhhhh!!!!! We would discuss this over beers/cocktails for several nights…..the best guess is that in Kota Kinabalu when the algae grew in the fuel tanks last Nov/Dec when we were in the USA, it also grew in the spin on fuel filters…..which means some water got to the fuel filters…..and maybe the engines….ugh, ugh, ugh!!!!! We will get the injectors tested and see if the tests can reveal anything!!
Rudder PSS: well, another oops from Australia we guess….like from 2 years ago…..but, we really have not been in much rough waters in those 2 years and this last 200nm we certainly did….as I was in the lazarette getting every tool I own for Steve, I saw something white…I looked closer and our PSS rudder seal was covered in white salt….ODG…violated rule #1 again….keep the water out of the boat…..long story short but the seal had leaked from an installation error…..Steve was able to correct and all is good now….I guess we should be glad for that rough water….better to find the issue now rather than the Bering Sea!!!!!
We did the seatrial on Tuesday and all was good except we have a slight oil leak on the Yanmar coming from the shifter device. We spent several hours trying to locate a Yanmar dealer….finally found one close by….my back was killing me and it was painful to walk so Kathy walked to the store…good news….we can get the part, bad news 30 days to ship in…arghhh…we will be hopefully long gone by then…..so a quick check with our Japan sources and we can get the parts in Okinawa….I mean it is a YANMAR afterall!!!!
Steve: Many thanks to Steve for working hard for 8 days in some tough conditions…..he is a great diesel mechanic, Wesmar specialist, a part time cruiser, has a great family and loves red wine, whiskey and beer…gotta luv those Kiwis:))))
Kathy: ODG…..the woman has been a cleaning machine….I mean dust got everywhere from the dust storms in the boatyard….plus about a gazillion loads of wash from all our dirty sweaty clothes and rags, plus she has been doing a lot of research on Japan. We are both reading Shogun by James Clavell and I think the current boat/cruising laws are from that era….ODG the ultimate in officialdom….what a royal PITA….ugh. They have open and closed ports…90% are closed…so you have to apply for permission to the closed ports……Kathy has spent hours doing the research…there are no cruising guides so she read many blogs, uses Google Earth to scout our potential anhcorages and was able to cobble together a list of places we might want to go….but then we needed to plot it all out so that is how I spent my day after Steve left…..no rest for the weary!!! Then as I was pulling my hair out our good friends Andy and Sue on sv Spruce came to the rescue with their closed port list, they had been working on their list since Nov….theirs was by far the most complete list we had come across and saved us a bunch of time….we sooooo owe them many bottles of wine!!!
The Plan: We probably need another week to finish all the Japan prep, do some smaller engine room jobs, and major provisioning…..that will take maybe 3-5 trips to various places to get everything….ugh!!! So, we are targeting March 2-3 to leave +/- a few days. The weather is starting to calm a little but still crossing the Luzon Strait is going to be tricky!!!
Hope all is well!!
John
Mystic Moon
Subic Bay Philippines
PS: Pictures on the website: http://mysticmoonvoyages.com/haul-out-and-boat-projects-in-subic-bay-philippines-2/
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