Kingfisher Yacht Cyprus

  Well, it's not every day you get to sail with someone who has sailed all the way round the world… in a sailing race! It was great to have a day sailing with Ruth and Suzie. Though I was so tired I reefed the sails so that I didn't have to think too much! I only realised that when I got home and fell asleep for a few minutes. There are even a couple of photos of me which is unusual!

  I had a problem or two with the Selva 6 HP outboard tending to stall at low RPM. Cleaned the spark plug (which was dirty) but… found the internal fuel tank had become detached from the cover and was spewing out plastic fibres as it was now being ground to pulp by the flywheel! So removed it and covered and then filled the hole and now re-sprayed it. Couldn't get the matching colour but looks quite smart with the lighter blue cover.

 My birthday (and Christmas) present from my wife… a new bimini cover. Goodness Liza looks like there are a lot of lines around the boat! But this angle the cover colour matches well Sunshine... still sunny October in Cyprus! OK, so the bimini cover does show up as brighter than the stack pack! 

Sheila and Lukas had bought two sit on kayaks this summer but not had much of a chance to use them. Melvin is a long term sea-kayaker so we took them down and Sheila and Melvin took them out while Katie and I sailed Liza, then anchored. Then lunch and time for a sail… …while towing the kayaks. Last time we took the kayaks out we tried towing with a person onboard the kayak. That didn't work!

In June I started replacing the standing rigging, but the shrouds are relatively easy to do. The big one is the forestay because it involves removing the forestay from the furler system and means taking the mast down! So… step 1: Turn the boat around  OK, the photo isn't really necessary except Helen on the bow looks like we're off whale fishing and she wants to spear the whale! Step 2: take the boom off and put it in the cabin.  Step 3: Remove all the electrical connections from the mast Ummm… that wasn't as easy as it should have been as the nuts under the deck kept slipping! Step 4: Drop the mast and take the forestay off… no photos because everyone involved with this process... two lines from the top of the mast and two people catching it as it came down! Step 5: Remove the cone from the furler Attempt 1: Dig out all the corrosion with a small screw driver Result: Failure Attempt 2: Fill up with WD40, try again, fill up with WD40 again and leave overnight Result: Failur...

 There are three ways to replace the standing rigging: Take down the mast Use a cherry picker (€50/hour) Climb the mast when there is no wind I chose number 3, though it was Helen that climbed the mast! I'd already changed one of the shrouds since I had bent the wire taking down the mast when I was moving the boat from Latchi to Larnaca, so there were three more to do. We always have two lines on the bosun's chair, main and safety, just in case there is a problem… for instance a block breaking at the head of the mast! A cotter pin goes in from the outside, with a split pin holding it in place on the inside. Sounds easy? Yep, sort of is… unless you're up the mast doing it when it takes a lot of concentration not to drop the cotter pin which would undoubtedly bounce on the deck into the water! I think I'm more nervous with someone else up the mast than myself! It's not that high, but on a small boat with relatively small keels it moves around quite a lot. Anyhow… all ...

Bought one new shroud to replace the broken one. I will replace that tomorrow then replace the other two... one was already replaced. Didn't order them all in one go to make sure that the length is correct!   Then got parts for the backstay and started the replacement of that.

  It was quite blowy today... well, gusting a lot. By the time we came in it was 11-14 knots gusting 25-27 knots. When we got into the marina I noticed this: one of the shrouds has broken, so I'll replace them all!

A few weeks back - before the lift out - Liza was given an autohelm by a friend. It was on my list of things to have but was certainly not going to be this year. So as a gift it was brilliant! Today I bought cable and ran it all the way through Liza to put a waterproof socket in the cockpit (in one of the open lockers to protect it slightly) and it looks like it all works. Time for a sea trial soon!    

This may be Lukas's last sail on Liza for a while. He's off back to the UK. He did an immense amount of work during the lift out for which I'm thankful and so today it was a long sail with me, his mum (Sheila) and Lukas. We sailed across the bay to the Dhekelia Sailing club and watched them sailing, then back to the Larnaka Nautical Club and watched the kids learning to sail. Then back and the wind slightly dropped... And there's this mega yacht sitting outside the marina. We're peering over trying to work out which flag it's flying. Looks like Cayman Islands. It's name is Maryah… so looking it up on Google it's 125m long and 17m wide! Up to 54 guests with the owner and then 48 crew and 34 staff members! Staff members because there's a night club on board.

Placed new side walls to match in with the new bulkhead cladding. Looks very good. Still some work to do, but beginning to look like a modern yacht!  

Sheila and Lukas bought a sit-on kayak so we took it out for a trial... but that's Katie on board and Helen swimming after her!  

We'd hoped to go back in yesterday but the winds were too high for a small boat like Liza so had to wait till today. We were added to the end of the queue for today… which mean not 12:00 as they had hoped but 14:00. However, outboard fired first pull and we're back in our berth. Now for some sailing.

Too windy to go back in 24 kts gusting 30 kts which is high for a small boat. Tomorrow. They have been importing or exporting red earth in the port, and the wind was from the north so the boat has red earth dust everywhere! And the whole beautiful white hull is coated with this red earth almost glowing!

WE'RE READY TO GO BACK IN! We fitted the toilet back in place, did a final blue line down one side of Liza and refitted the 'ships carvings' inside. Liza is now ready to go back into the water tomorrow at 09:00!

 Final two coats of anti-fouling and gel-coat over the fibreglass fot the toilet. We'll make it in time!

Major service toilet kit. The instructions is just a piece of card with an image approx 5cm x 4cm showing where the service parts fit. Most of it is now serviced. Two parts I struggled with to get screws undone, if it doesn't work well, I'll have to try harder which may mean drilling out the heads of the screws and replacing. Also fibre-glassed new mounting plate for the toilet in place. It had been a rather messy board screwed and glued on top of the old mount which no longer worked. Which also made it a bit high when you were using it! So cut all that old fibreglass away and made a new mount. It was dark by the time we finished!

More painting and painting… and watching Morning Star into the water... we'll be following on Monday. There is something interesting Tony has done to his rudder… He has created a tunnel effect with almost a triple rudder. The aim of this is to improve steerage in reverse and to lighten the streerage in forward. Tony, being an ex-pilot is into fluid dynamics, so it will be interesting to see what effect it has. If it has the effect he hopes then maybe a lot of boats will do this. And what did we do on Liza ? Polishing and polishing the hull!