Home at last

At home in the driveway with Kaipuke in the background. The trip meter reads 1,371 kms.

Now where do I store it ? And this mast is only 11.5 metres. The main is due any day now and is 17 metres long.

Car Ferry

Almost home. I've killed some time in Whangarei, and had a leisurely trip from there to Opua. It's still only 4:30pm, a couple of hours until high tide. But the angle looks good and I get on and off with no problems.
Being a local, and regular user of the ferry, I get charged for a "standard" trailer, even though it's almost three times longer than it used to be.

Whangarei

By the time I get to Whangarei I need to refuel. There is a Gull service station with it's own off-ramp from the highway. Very convenient when you have a long load.

Right next door is Bunnings warehouse. And a bloke can't let the big jobs get in the way of a bit of shopping (eh Ralph !). Besides, I'm now running ahead of schedule. I need to plan on getting on the car ferry at something close to high tide if I'm going to avoid any problems with the angle of the ferry ramp. High tide today is 6:23pm.

Homeward bound

I have a bit of a lie in today, leaving at 4:30am from Napier.
In the photo I am parked outside the Matamata public toilets. Partly because I know there is parallel parking here, and partly because I have other business to transact. It is 8 o'clock Saturday morning. I go for a walk and find some coffee and breakfast.

Off to Napier

Friday 30th October 2:45am - I leave for Napier, taking the back road around the Waikare inlet (because the first car ferry doesn't leave until 6:40am). Getting away early means I am through Auckland by about 6:30am and don't get tangled up in traffic. I am in Matamata for a bit of breakfast and coffee by 8am.
I have a dream run and am in Napier a little before midday.
I was a bit surprised to see the mast still on the boat, and the boat still on the marina. The weather is cold with frequent icy rain squalls blowing across the marina. Over a very welcome hot cup of tea, Anne & Harvey (boat owners) explain that a friend will be along shortly to remove the mast.
Enter John ! Probably best described as an entrepreneurial marine DIY'er. After a bit of head scratching, a few extra lines, a couple of winches, some naval gazing, a couple of halyards from the main mast, and a couple of hours work and the mizzen is lying on the marina beside the boat. Effectively the main mast has been used as a mast gantry for the mizzen. A very useful exercise for future reference.
In the photo the mast is loaded up on ute and trailer and is parked at "Bay View Snapper Holiday Park". The operators of the park were very accommodating. I had explained on the phone, a couple of days earlier, that I would have a long load and not particularly manouverable. For the cost of my cabin overnight they had also reserved two campervan sites, to park the ute, in a position that gave me easy egress in the morning.
By this stage I'm a bit knackered and am in bed before 8pm.

Tripod and trailer

This is the swiveling head of the tripod. The mast will sit on this bed of braided rope and then tied down with rachet tie downs.
Note the furry consulting engineers making their final inspection.

The swively rollery thing

So this is the unit on the ute that the mast sits in. The 3 boat trailer rollers are on stainless steel shafts, in a steel frame. The whole unit swivels. A couple of eye-bolts are welded into the top, and a chain will be shackled across the top, but apart from that the mast is free to move forward and back and swivel during cornering.

Ute and trailer after mods

So here the rig ready to pick up the mast. The draw-bar has a 4.6 metre extension on it, made from 75mm x 75mm box section stell. This is bolted in place with a couple of large bolts and two U-bolts. The draw-bar also has wiring which acts as an extension cord for the existing trailer wiring to the ute. The idea being that I can remove the draw-bar extension within a couple of minutes and I have my standard light trailer back again.
The trailer has a tri-pod, mounted just forward of the axle, and this has a swiveling head to allow the load to move when cornering. The ute also has a swiveling head which also incorporates rollers to allow the mast to move for'd and aft as the load "shortens" when cornering.

If you want a job done ...do it yourself

So, I still have this problem of how to get the mast from Napier.
I also realised that using a carrier was potentially more risky, and probably expensive, than I first thought. An 11.5 metre mast was one thing but there was also the standing and running rigging, which needed to be removed from the mast, to be shipped. And there was boom, traveller, mast step and sails.
So, I figured "I have a ute and trailer !", with a few "minor" modifications I could go to Napier and collect everything myself.
Here's the shot of the ute and trailer before mods.

Mizzen Mast turns up on Trade-Me

Another incredible bit of luck. This boat is only 10 years old and not had a lot of use. The owner says he is making the boat more "family friendly" buy building a fully enclosed wheelhouse. But the Mizzen is stepped in the cockpit, so must go.
I buy the mast, boom, all rigging, mast step, traveller, sail, and sail cover for $5,500. Bargain !!!
Trouble is it's in Napier, 650km away. I approach the guys who I used to pick up my main and they came up with a figure of $2,500 to collect it, mainly because they wanted to charge the normal hourly rate of a senior rigger to do the job. I contacted two freight companies, one that never came back with a price. The other quoted $800 to get it from Napier to their Auckland depot, which still had the mast 230km away, and still left me with the problem of getting it to Russell.
Lesson learned. Try telling a freight company you have a load that is 11.5 metres long, and expect a big price or a long silence.

Found my Main mast on Trade-Me

Incredible bit of luck really. A guy in Ruawai (near Dargaville) has a 50ft ocean racer that he is converting to a junk rig. It's a 21metre, 3 spreader, keel stepped mast. Is complete with boom, standing rigging, running rigging etc etc.

I go for a drive with a rigger from Opua with a specially modified ute and trailer to collect it.

What I need is a 17 metre deck stepped mast, and it is current in Opua being modified.

Update for the last few months

Again, I have to confess to not being a very good blogger. It was May when I was rebuilding the cockpit well and made the last entry.

Here's a bit of a summary of what's happened since then :
Cockpit well painted inside and out.
Companionway lined with steel plate and brackets for steps in place.
Curved companionway steps laminated and epoxy'd, ready for paint and install.
Aft cabins, sole framing in place.
Master cabin en-suite framed and plated.
Engine heat exchanger mounted just forward and below the engine.
Cooling system header tank in place.
Thrust bearing supports for "Aqua-Drive" in place.
Found the ideal propeller on Trade-Me (25x18).
Prop shaft cut to length and new taper & thread machined.

Cockpit rebuilt

The ugly remains of the old cockpit have been cut away. Check out just how ugly, a couple of posts back.

The upper edge has been framed up with a 40mm pipe, so that there is a nice rounded edge. Looks good and is easy on the back of the knees if sitting on the edge with legs in the cockpit well. I then made a light frame with angle iron and then plated with 3mm steel. There is additional reinforcing to support the steering pedestal as this can take some fairly hefty loads when in a big sea.

Cockpit drains go to 50mm galvanised steel pipe and go all the way aft to exit at the transom.

All ready for a final clean up and a few coats of paint.

Mizzen mast compression post

Today I completed the new mizzen mast compression post. The original had a complicated arrangement to allow you to walk from one side of the cabin to the other underneath the mizzen. This was necessary because the original layout had one huge aft cabin. In my opinion the cabin was too big for ocean passages. Too much room to be thrown about in.
I have opted for two aft cabins and decided to redo the compression post with a single steel tube (75mm outside) extending down to a heavy plate in the bilge which takes the mast loads out to two main ribs.

The new cockpit well

This is probably the last job that will see Kaipuke weather proof. The original well was a real dog's breakfast. The steel sides were just butt welded to the deck. This left a sharp edge and was ugly as well as having great humps and hollows in the deck surrounding the cockpit well. Also, the original had not been completed in that there were no cockpit drains. So after the project had been abandoned the well filled up with water and rusted right through the bottom.


I have completed the framing of the well using a 30mm steel tube for the upper edge. This gives me a nice rounded edge which will be comfortable on the back of your legs if you are sat on the edge of the well. It also looks great and has given me a very straight edge to work to, to take the humps and hollows out of the surrounding deck.

I then framed up the rest of the well with 40mm angle iron ready for plating. I have still got the plating to do, and the drains to put in place. Once all is done I'll post a couple of photos.

All that grinding

The grinding of the old deck welds and fittings wasn't really as bad as I thought. I've ground back all the old welds, cut old fillers and vents out, and got a coat of primer on everything. I got it all down in 3 days.
I still have the gunwale to trim in readiness for it's stainless steel capping. And I have also designed a cradle/scaffold arrangement (yet to be built) to hang off the gunwale to make it easier to do some of this new work.

What next

Focus now needs to move to completing all other welding on the deck. Until this is done, I can't do the final coats of paint on the inside, under the deck. And until that's done I can't put in the insulation. Without the insulation is in there is often a condensation problem.

A lot of what's now left to be welded on are stainless steel fittings, but there are also a number of old deck welds that need to be ground back and cleaned up, as the final finish on the deck is going to be a non-slip paint finish. There are also old stantion bases, deck fillers (for fuel & water tanks) and tank vents that have to cut out and replaced. All this cutting & grinding ideally needs to be finished before the stainless fittings go on because the iron filings (from grinding) can "contaminate" the surface of the stainless, leading to rusty pitting. Not looking forward to all that grinding, but it's now pretty much the next "must do" in the overall scheme of things.

The stainless that is to go on includes, chain plates, deck step, bollards, hand rails, bow rollers (for anchors), and a 19mm round bar to all of the top edge of the gunwale.

After Hatches

At last ! All hatch frames have had several coats of paint including top coats of 2-pot polyurethane. Each of the six Maxwell hatches are in place in a bed of Sikaflex 291 (Adhesive/sealant/bedding compound) and held in place with lots of 316 stainless steel bolts & nuts.

The large forward hatch is also back on after having several more coats of paint, and insulation, in the form of marine carpet glued to the underside, and a rubber sealing strip.

That front edge of the cockpit coaming has been completely rebuilt, and also has it's first few coats of paint.

I also built four dorade boxes for the foredeck vents and these are welded to the deck. These are designed to allow air into the boat but any water that enters the vents drains away at the base. I've put one of the teak tops, with cowl vent on top, onto the dorade box, for show, for this photo. The boxes still need several coats of paint before the tops all go on permanently.

So hopefully, this winter, I have more air, more light, and less condensation.

During Hatches

I had a lucky break in that hatches by Maxwell, 450mm square (exactly what I was looking for) came up on sale at Burnsco Marime. These hatches normally retail for $NZ499 each and are very rarely discounted much. These came up on sale at $349 each, so I bought 6 identical hatches and "saved a fortune".

First I made up steel frames, with rounded corners, a few millimeters larger than the Maxwell hatch frame. These were to be welded into the deck to give a perfectly flat surface to mount the hatches on, and also raises the hatch about 15mm off the deck. Hopefully this will contribute to them being water-tight.

In the photo you can see that I have made the cut-outs in the deck, and welded the frames in place. The aft cabin frame has also now been set up for two hatches instead of one large one.

While I had cutting and welding gear on deck I also started repairs to the front of the cockpit coaming. I don't think that this ever had an adequate coat of paint, in the hard to get to places, and rotted from underneath.

Before hatches

No permanent hatches were in place and the original framing of some were too small to be of much use. The original layout had one huge aft cabin with one central hatch in the deck. There were no hatches at all in the main cabin ,i.e. at the bottom of the companionway.

Until I got some permanent hatches in place it was difficult to get enough air and light into her and this contributed to her getting very hot on Summer days. The temperature inside regularly exceeded 40 degrees C by mid afternoon.

I took this photo before I got to work on cutting and framing up ready for hatch installation. Click on the photo to enlarge it and you'll see one large hole in the aft deck, and a couple of small frames forward of the main cabin.

You can also see the steel hatch I made for the forward cabin. This just has a coat of primer, and has no interior insulation or rubber seal, and needs several addition coat of paint.