Fixing Things in Exotic Places

View from our cockpit in the boatyard

June 16-22, 2013

We did it……our stabilizer leak is fixed!!!!!!!

After over 100 emails trying to coordinate between Wesmar in Seattle to ship the necessary parts, Wally the Australian Wesmar tech we needed to fly into Papeete Tahiti for the repairs and Technimarine, the boatyard in Papeete, we finally got everything coordinated for a haulout on Monday, 6/17. The experience was one of highs and lows and some frustrations with the French language barrier and some of their methods. Here goes the story:

We were scheduled for the first boat haulout @ 7:00am so they wanted us to overnight in the “slot”, where they pick up the boats with the 75 ton travelift. Ok, not so convenient for us but we can accommodate. Now we also have to pick up Wally at the airport Sunday afternoon. So in preparation, I took the rental car to the boatyard, about 10 km away, intending to take a bus or taxi back to the marina. So off I go only to discover there are no buses or taxis on Sundays…..whoa….so how do people get around????? So, I started to walk back the 10 km in a very hot sun. After about 30 min I stopped at a local restaurant to get some water. I ask if there are any taxis…..no taxis on Sundays, but “my husband will be glad to take you to the marina”……oh, wow, how kind of you……2 min later she comes back and says her husband will do it for 2000 francs…..about $22…..hmmm, good Samaritan with a price…..let’s see….4 more miles in the sun or $22…..not a hard choice!!!!

We then take Mystic Moon to the boatyard, get her tied up with some help from another boater as the concrete wall is quite high and pretty hard to get off the boat. But, I manage to make the climb and away I go to the airport. Wally and I find each other, we make it back to the boatyard, climb onto Mystic and then proceed to get acquainted Aussie/USA style…..too many beers, several bottles of wine, a great BBQ pork chop dinner on the flybridge we proclaim to have it all figured out!!!!

We are ready with coffee and lines @ 7:00 am. About 7:15, Alain, the boatyard manager comes over to tell us they want to splash another boat before us so it will be another 45 min…..ok, another cup of coffee please…..well, it took them 1.5 hours to get it done, then our turn…..which then took them 2.5 hours to lift us and set Mystic in place. Alain has his own system of blocking a boat using 3’x3’x3’ solid concrete blocks which only a fork lift can handle – he firsts tape measures where to set the blocks……but in our case, it took him 3 tries, moving the travel lift with Mystic in the slings back and forth so the fork lift could move the blocks…..it was the most painfully slow method we have ever experienced. Most boatyards could haul 3 more boats in the time it took them…..arghhhhhh!!! I talked with Alain afterwards and he was beaming with pride on what an excellent method of blocking he has developed…..whoa…very interesting…slow but very secure/stable!!!

Port fin – had the biggest leak

Look at those barnacles….arghhh!!

More Barnacles

So at 11:00 am we start to work…..we all thought we would be hard at it by 8 – 8:30ish so we had lost about 2.5-3 hours. Our goal before sunset around 5:30 pm was to drop both fins and assess the damage done by the seawater leak. We were amazed to find a gazillion barnacles, small and large, growing around the shafts and on top of the fin. Wally could easily see the barnacles growing up into the seal area. There is only about 1” clearance between the fin and the hull so it is hard to clean the area as well as see what is exactly going on.

Wally went to work in the engine room decoupling the fins, with me getting him every tool I own…..must have been 100 trips up/down the stairs and in/out of the engine room!!! We needed a lot of wood blocks to put under the fins so we could slowly drop the fins out……so off I went to talk with the yard workers…..they do not speak English and I don’t speak French…..but through a lot of hand demonstration they get the message and 30 minutes later about 15 heavy wood timbers show up. Kathy and I then proceed to build up the blocks. Wally and I then lower the fins while Kathy takes out the wood chocks.

Wally and John inspecting the port fin shaft

Wally inspected the damage and declares we are not in bad shape….he is really pleased withjust the minimum damage to the fin shafts…..but, we will need to use a sleeve to go around the slightly galled/corroded shaft. Wesmar had sent the sleeves but using the sleeves requires us to grind out about 1/8” from the seal carrier. Ok, I had already asked Alain about a machine shop……I go see him and he says he will take me at 7:15 am in the morning…..great…..we are done for the day……we all head to the cockpit for lots of cocktails…..for our aching bodies you know…..then showers and head downtown to find a restaurant where we have more beers/wine and a nice dinner.

Seal Carrier with old seals – this is what got chewed by the barnacles and caused the leak. The outer lip needed to be ground down by 1/8″

We are up at daylight starting to get things ready…..I head off to the machine shop with Alain…..the machine shop is all in French…..I try to explain what we need but leave with a sick feeling that it will not be done right…..and sure enough, Tita, the very nice wife of Alain, brings us the carriers back early afternoon and Wally is not happy…..they only took off half of what we need…..hmmmm…..ok, how about we use the dremmel and we grind the rest out ourselves….ok, give that a try…..so 2 hours and 5 stones later…..TG I had that many…..Wally says it will do!!!!!

Shaft after cleaning the grease – you can see the corrosion damage

In the meantime, we have been busy cleaning the shafts and getting the Duralon bearing out from the shaft housing. I also arranged for the boatyard to prime and paint a few places on our haul that needed some touch up, as well as the top of the fins and the base plates. In the meantime, a local bottom paint sales representative is touring the boatyard and stops to talks with us…..very nice lady from New Zealand…..we ask her what we can do to prevent the barnacles from penetrating the seals…..she suggests an epoxy primer and a very hard bottom paint…..I go ask Alain and he says yes we can use some of this “Vivid” paint out of his private stock….wow, thanks…..of course, but with a price…..he charged us over $300 for paint and labor for maybe 30 min of work and a pint of paint and primer….I actually did some of the painting myself with my brush as you need to paint the antifouling about 30 min after the epoxy primer is applied and the guys had gone to lunch so the primer would have setup too hard by the time they got back!!!!

Cleaned shaft with sleeve and trying the seals on for size

The end of the 2nd day as the sun sets has us with the seal carriers ground down, the fin shafts as clean as we can get them and the new Duralon bearings installed….we are ready to lift the fins and set in place the next day…..so up to the cockpit, more cocktails…..showers and off to town for dinner…..OBTW…..Kathy and I are now taking Advil by the handful…..these 12 hour days of manual labor is a killer….oh, to be 20 something again:)))

The next day we are ready…..but, the 3 of us just can’t lift the fin…..they have to be 300+ pounds…..well, the boat next to us is a fellow named Roger…..he is Swiss/French and he is doing the bottom of his steel boat. We had become friends over the past 2 days and he is a 30 something very strong guy…..he sees us struggling and offers his help…..he then calls over 2 more workers and voila, they easily lift the fins in place while Kathy and I get the chocks underneath……Wally is very happy until he notices the sleeves have moved down the fin shaft…..not good…..the sleeve might not be covering the bad shaft areas and against the seals…..arghhhhhh. So, we have to drop the fin and try to figure out how to get the sleeve up next to the seals without the sleeve moving down. Well, it takes us 3 tries per fin…..we ended up having to take off the original sleeve and replacing with a new one…..Wesmar had sent extras as I guess this happens most of the time……and around noon Wally declare success….he is a happy man!!!! He then proceeds to hook up the fins in the ER while Kathy and I clean and spray the props with Barnacle Buster and do some other cleanup chores. I eventually go into the ER and help Wally hook up the last fin and set the “pots”…..a process to center the fins to the boat. Wally finally declares job done around 5:00 pm……just an 11 hour day……pass the Advil, beer, and scotch and wine please!!!!

Job done…..back killing me:)))))

Now Roger has become a good friend…..so he joins us for cocktails….we are glad to offer him some beer and wine for all his help….we proceed to have a worldly discussion…..USA, Australia, France…..on the merits of fixing things in exotic places))) We then invite Roger to dinner and he takes us to “Les Roulottes”…..maybe 10 food trucks near a park that setup and serve some great French, Polynesian, Chinese et al food!!!

In the sling and ready to go back in the water…see Mystic smiling!!!

The next day we are #2 to splash….we witness the same bizarre workings of the travel lift but eventually get splashed around 10:00 am…but not before we pay over $2100 to the boatyard for 3 days….. the most we have ever paid for a boatyard by 3X. Wally inspects the stabilizers, finishes the centering process and says lets go check her out….so away we go into the ocean and Wally is all smiles….no leaks and the stabilizers are working very smoothly…..YES!!!!!

Wally has a 1:30am flight that night so we just celebrate on Mystic for a while, then take the bus downtown to the market where Kathy and Wally do some souvenir shopping and I walk to the boatyard to pick up the car. We cap the day off with a great celebratory dinner onshore before we take Wally to the airport….we then collapse and have the sleep of the dead!!!!!

But wait, that is not all we get to fix in this Tahitian exotic place. We had developed a leak in the watermaker pump…..called the Clark pump. Kyle at Spectra thought it was just some worn O-rings (we have over 2100 hours on the watermaker…..more than a lot of people put on in a lifetime!!!!) but suggested we use the Spectra tech here in Papeete as it is a bit tricky to open up this high pressure pump….ok, we had called Gilles, the tech, before we moved to the boatyard. Well, he has this rather superior, arrogant personality…..never lets you talk but tells you what your problem is….like how does he know????? He is soooooo busy he can’t bother to remove the pump but if I will do that and take it to his shop he might have time to work on it whenever. Well, in 2 days he shows up w/the pump…..obtw, fortunately I had the o-ring/seal rebuild kit which he did not…..he replaced 10 o-rings…..so, I install the pump….which btw is not all that easy as you are in a very cramped spot…..and guess what, while the original leak is fixed, we now have 3 other leaks on the other side….I call Gilles back…..he is too busy but will come look at it tomorrow….he shows up, sees the leak and then goes off on how complicated these pumps are and this is a bad pump….I finally ask him to stop talking and ask him maybe he did not install that side correctly or maybe an o-ring fell out while he was tightening…..he then goes off again and says “too complicated” and he is done…..that’s it…..really……I will order you a new pump, which btw have a lifetime warranty from Spectra, but I have to pay the freight…..about $800 for shipping in the new pump and shipping the old pump back. What can I do but agree…..but I think Gilles knew I thought he messed up big time at my cost…..we were not on good terms!!!!

I since emailed Kyle at Spectra and he said he would go through me on this transaction and to save the shipping I could just bring the old pump back w/me in November and hand deliver to their factory in San Rafael, which I have done in the past. Kyle is also somewhat surprised at Gilles feeling the old pump was bad and “too complicated” as this pump was not exhibiting any signs of going out…..but, what can we do????

When we get back to the marina, Gilles delivered the new pump…..wow, only 7 days to get here from California…..not bad!!!! I did have some fun/difficulty getting the new pump installed. First, the quick disconnect connector for the inlet hose broke in the new pump as I was transferring from the old to new pump…..yes, a few choice words were said. I did not have a big enough extractor so went to the store to get one. This one was slightly too small also and it actually went all the way into the pump…..not good, more choice words and a few tears later I called Gilles for help……he did come down and I got an earful of French and not much help, except he did tell me to take the plug out on the other side and I should be able to extract the extractor, maybe…..he could not help me on the broken part……but I did remove the opposite plug and the extractor came out ok. I then wrapped the extractor with some non-skid, inserted and was able to back out the broken threaded part for the quick disconnect connector…..finally…..I was doing the happy dance but was in the laz so just did it mentally.

I then installed the pump and guess what…..I had several leaks on various membrane connections but not on the Clark pump….making progress at least. There is a stainless pipe going from the pump to a membrane that I could not stop leaking out of the compression joint. I went up to Gilles shop and found out he does not work on the w/e….gee, for being so busy he doesn’t work on w/e’s….wow…..anyway Michele the chandlery guy was very helpful and told me there was no way to get the compressed fittings off the pipe, that there must be some corrosion under the fitting or the pipe got bent….bottom line I needed a new pipe. Well, Kevin at Outbound who had installed the watermaker had left me some high pressure black hose for just this occasion….AND, Kyle had cable tied 3 new compression fittings on the new pump…..SO, I made up a new hose with new fittings and voila, we now have no more leaks!!!!! Yes, I looked a bit strange to all the people in the marina as I was doing the happy dance in the cockpit….what is wrong with that white man:)))!!

What should have been an hour job took most of the day…..arghhhhhh!!!!

View of Moorea from the boatyard!

And that my friends, is fixing things in exotic places!!!!

PS: And we have one more item to repair…..the FBB 150 satellite phone…..but that is for another day while the body mends!!!!

PSS: We will be leaving Tahiti tomorrow, Monday the 25th and heading 15 nm to Moorea. We will stay there for over a week and enjoy the Pacific Puddle Jump Rendezvous….good times with lots of boats who crossed this year!!!