Category: Boat maintenance

Anna vs the machine

Being about as practical as a rollerskate on a walrus, it will come as no surprise to many of you that mastering Paddy’s industrial sewing machine has proved a bit of a challenge for me.

That machine has an amazing ability to turn me into a swearing, sobbing, fabric munching, bobbin snagging monster. I don’t like it when i can’t do something and when something as simple as sewing a straight line flummoxes me, I become a very angry, frustrated little person.

But last weekend, I actually managed to complete something useful

Paddy quietly worked on his generator while I cursed and spat at the machine in an attempt to make drawstring bags to secure various bits and bobs onto the boat. It didn’t help that I’d left Paddy’s canvass-sewing-for-dummies book at home and that every ‘how to make a drawstring bag’ page on the internet started with “this is a great project for a child learning to sew” – and hardly any of them had pictures!

Now I like to think I am a reasonably smart person, but when it comes to reading technical stuff – I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. So when something that was supposedly so simple that a child could pick it up just wouldn’t compute at all, I started getting pretty shitty with myself. In the end Paddy took pity on me and helped me make the first one (admittedly after a fair bit of “I should be able to do this myself dammit!” protesting from me) and once I actually saw one physically done, it made much more sense to me, and the rest were much easier.

One of the cool things about canvas is that instead of cutting it, you melt it – which means you get to burn along the edges with a hot-knife (kind of like one of those poker machines you use to make pretty designs on money boxes in woodwork at school.)

Burn baby burn!

Industrial sewing machines are quite grunty too – because they have to sew things like sails – so it was a wee while before I managed to master the art of the straight line…

Look! A straight line!

…and was pretty proud of myself when I did!

Okay, so they are only small – but they are something useful, and I made them myself!

The next step is a little more complicated and I will be enlisting the help of a lovely friend of mine Jenn, who knows a little more about this sewing lark than I. We are going to get stuck into the cockpit cushion covers, which should be a challenge!

Unfortunately, after celebrating my success with the drawstring bags,  I got a little cocky and tried to sew together a couple of lee cloths (basically a bit of netting that stops you rolling out bed when the boat gets a bit wobbly) but unfortunately and this point the sewing machine decided it didn’t want to play anymore and stubbornly refused to sew.

No matter what I tried it didn’t work and Dr Paddy ended up having to take a look under the bonnet.

Paddy operates on my nemesis
Checking under the bonnet

When this didn’t work we both decided it was probably time to put the machine away before one of us threw it at something. When it still wasn’t working days later, Paddy was muttering about taking it back to the guy he brought it from and I was convinced I was jinxed and had destroyed the thing.

But on a flight to Auckland Paddy had a Eureka moment. He was reading the  instruction manual on the plane (as you do…) and discovered that sometimes when sewing particularly thick material the machine’s timing can go a bit skewiff. The actual answer is much more technical but went in one ear and out the other – so I will leave it to Paddy to explain in the comments for anyone who is interested.

So I haven’t killed the machine, its sewing again and the big stuff is yet to come – will keep you posted.

Our boat has six eyebrows!

Over the past lord only knows how many nights, Paddy has been lurking in his shed pasting fibreglass into moulds and inhaling all manner of chemicals.

This has all been in the name of plastic surgery for Wildflower – eyebrows to be precise.

Like eyebrows for people – which are designed to keep sweat out of our eyes – eyebrows for boats are designed to keep water (rain, sea spray) out of open windows.

 

Monobrow!

 

This weekend we got the chance to complete Wildflower’s facelift and since so much work went into these things I feel the event should be documented.

Paddy with two of his creations

 

Paddy was so persnikety about his work that we even ended up with a spare – one perfectly fine specimen hit the cutting room floor just because it had a couple of tiny green splodges.

 

The successful candidates

 

Like plastic surgery, you have to mark where the work will be done…

 

Eyeliner
Emo Wildflower

 

And then there’s the heavy-duty eyebrow trimming

Slightly more hardcore than tweezers

 

 

And finally the application.

 

 

Perfectly sculpted eyebrows

 

 

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful
The bandages will come off tomorrow and an extra layer of sealant put around the edges and she’ll be good to go.
It was a labour of love for Paddy but he did an awesome job. The amount of work he’s done to make Wildflower what she is is phenomenal. I’m really proud of him – and his beautiful boat.

 

Sew what?

It’s official, they are wearing woolly jumpers in hell.

After years of refusing to do something as girlie as learning how to sew, I am now in the process of producing cockpit cushions.

There is a lot of work on the boat that, not being an engineer or mechanic, I can’t really help with. So in a bid to do something practical, I have been introduced to Paddy’s industrial sewing machine.

As many of you know, the idea of me as a domestic goddess does not sit well – least of all to me. But I really do want to do something tangible, so I’m willing to give it a go. Besides, sewing canvass to make something for us to sit on isn’t the same as lace on frilly things.

Photographic evidence for the unbelievers

The last time I touched a sewing machine was during manual classes at primary school – all i really remember about that is trying to race the thread off the material by  slamming the foot pedal down. I also remember coming in one week to see a bit ‘Out of Order’ sign on the machine I usually used – I’m still giving myself the benefit of the doubt as to whether that one was my fault… I do remember making a really great deck chair in woodwork though – I’ve still got that.

So I needed some serious remedial lessons.

Enter the lovely Keri – a good friend of mine who I’ve always been a little bit jealous of because she made her own really funky clothes (she also had the best name for a clothing label I had heard in a long time  ‘Snotbubbles!’).

The first step was to make a mock-up of a cushion out of Calico (the canvass for the cushions was a teensy bit expensive so I didn’t really want to be practising on them!) but we actually found material in a much better colour…

Seamstress Keri helps with the mock-up
Tools of the trade - cushion foam and low-carb beer

Unfortunately our lovely orange mock-up fabric turned out to be too flimsy for the machine – so now I’m back to boring but heavy-duty.

The next step was getting the sewing machine to behave – and this reminded me exactly why I never had the patience to take up sewing.

There are so many teeny tiny persnickity little things that can go wrong with the sodding machines and Paddy’s seemed to snarl up and screech to a halt every few seconds.

Paddy has a stubborn streak when it comes to technical stuff and, where I would have lost patience and given up in disgust, he finally managed to get the thing to work.

We seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties...

In the end it turned out to be a combination of thread tension issues, fabric that wasn’t strong enough, dirt on the thread and the thread spool thingie being pulled through the wrong metal doohickey (or something like that)

But once all that was fixed, the actually sewing was relatively easy. I haven’t got past the practising sewing straight(ish) lines on a bit of fabric part yet – but you’ve got to start somewhere.

I was amazed at how convoluted and technical sewing machines actually are. I don’t know why they have such a fluffy, girlie reputation – they are about as obscure as car engines to me.

Watching Keri take the thing apart and adjust it was pretty impressive actually – I was totally lost! She told me that machine maintenance was not covered at all when she took sewing at school, which I think is crazy since you pretty much have to dismember the things when something goes wrong. I’d like to think things would be a bit more progressive now though.

So I officially take it back – sewing isn’t just a girlie girl pastime. It’s a real, technical, practical skill that I am going to do my best to master without maiming myself or the cockpit cushions.

Wish me luck!

Stop staring at my bum!

A boat out of water is a sad sight – all awkward and exposed. But it’s a necessary evil to ensure everything is in good shape below the water.

Fish out of water

Living on a boat out of water can be a little unnerving as well – particularly when it’s windy. Being several feet up in the air and swaying from side to side when you are nowhere near the ocean just feels wrong, as does climbing down a ladder to go to work in the morning!

Our longest stint out of the water was a few months ago while Wildflower’s decks were being repainted. We became temporary residents of the Evans Bay yacht club, and for several weeks the sounds of lapping water and ducks were replaced by passing traffic and power tools as people worked on their boats.

Paddy and I had a great time at the yacht club, with the locals embracing us as one of their own – but spending so much time so close to the bar probably didn’t do our livers any good (these guys drink rum and coke by the jug!)

Again, boat life forced me to sort out my coordination issues as I mastered the art of clambering up and down a ladder with any combination of handbag, gym gear and laptop.

Don't look dooown...

Paddy once had the frightening experience of being up out of the water during an earthquake – an experience he says he would rather not repeat! I had my own brush with an out-of-water natural disaster –  it turned out to be a false alarm, but it was still pretty exciting.

While we were parked up at Evans Bay, on the day I was due to sit the theory part of my practical boating course, Paddy and I were woken up by a banging on the side of the boat. It was the club manager telling us to clear out because a tsunami was due to hit in 25 minutes. In autopilot I threw some clothes on, grabbed Bilgey the (stuffed toy) ship’s cat and jumped into the car. We headed up Mt Victoria (and discovered half of Wellington had had the same idea) and waited…and waited…. and nothing happened, not even a little splash. Which was a good thing of course, but I did end up missing my test (everyone else had ignored the tsunami warning and turned up anyway.)  Luckily I was able to sit it in an empty office. I managed to pass but I did make a couple of really stupid mistakes that I blame squarely on my brain being frazzled by the early morning excitement!

While it was fun being honorary members at Evans Bay, it was an enormous relief to be back in the water. I swear I heard Wildflower sigh with pleasure when she was finally lowered back in. The process of getting her back in the water was quite fascinating, involving what appeared (to me at least) to be a giant mutant tractor. It was quite a process and I have included some pics below for those who are interested.

Taking the boat for a walk
Giant mutant tractor
And I thought reversing the car was scary!
Bombs away!
He made it look easy!
Bye bye Evans Bay

PS – please don’t tell Wildflower I put photos of her bottom on the internet – I kinda want to stay on her good side!

It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it

There's a fridge under here - honest!

Someone once described cruising as “the art of boat maintenance in exotic locations” – and I am in absolutely no doubt this is true. But what they fail to mention is the large amount of work that needs to be done before setting out for more tropical climes.

Evidence of this is The List – a document Paddy uses to keep track of what needs to be done before hitting the waves. Ever since I have known Paddy The List has been shrinking and growing – as quickly as items were ticked off, more were added, but finally now it seems to be on a downward trend.

One of the biggest jobs to be crossed off  The List involved more dust and mess than I had seen in all the grotty student flats I have lived in put together – and that’s saying something!

Sanding and repainting a boat’s bilges is a once-every-10-years job, and unfortunately Wildflower’s 10 years were up.

Before I met Wildflower I didn’t really know what a bilge was. Through pirate insults like ‘scurvy bilge rat’  I’d kind of figured it was something sewer-like and gross, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

The bilge is actually the inside of the bottom of the boat –  (“the lowest compartment inside the hull of a ship” according to fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia). It’s where water that overflows from the decks of the ship collects. When there is too much water sloshing about on deck (say during a storm) to make it safe to walk on, the boat is designed to funnel this water to the bottom where it can be sucked out by bilge pumps (this is a very amateur summary so feel free to correct me!)

The scurvy bilge rat insult stemmed from the fact that, along with water, bird poo, food scraps, and bodily waste from dirty sailors of old, also ended up in the bilges – so it really wasn’t a pleasant place to be. Before mechanisation bilges used to have to be pumped by hand and this rather disgusting job was reserved for junior sailors or those that had managed to upset the captain.

So the bilge is actually a pretty important part of the boat – and because bilge water can get quite acidic and generally grotty, it’s important to have a good layer of paint on the bottom to prevent it from eating through.

While this sounds relatively simple, the 10 year repaint actually involves ripping up the floor of the boat, sandblasting what is underneath to within an inch of its life and twisting your body into all sorts of unnatural positions (a practice Paddy has dubbed Boat Yoga) in order to repaint it.

The sandblasting process involved many long nights and weekends and rendered the boat uninhabitable. Paddy ended up living in a backpackers near the marina (aka the Roach Motel) so he could come and go from the boat during whatever insane hours he needed to. The result was more dirt and dust than I actually thought existed in the world.

While I was more hindrance than help with the sandblasting, I really wanted to be able to do something to help Paddy so I embarked on the biggest cleaning expedition of my entire life. While Paddy was playing contortionist with a paintbrush I turned my hair, clothing and skin grey attacking the dust. For a while it was exceedingly frustrating because for every layer of dust I removed a new ones seemed to appear overnight. But it was an incredibly fulfilling feeling when surfaces began to reappear again. It also makes me feel a lot safer knowing exactly what is at the bottom of the boat and that it’s clean and shiny and newly painted.

I am pleased that particular hurdle is over though – Paddy pretty much exhausted himself – but with a stubborn and determined streak a mile wide, he wasn’t going to slow down until the job was done. I’m sure Wildflower appreciates it though – I know I do.

Emerging from the dusty depths
The galley - before
The galley after
The cleaning lady
Bilge undercoat
boat yoga