Blue Bottom and a Red Stripe

Nine of Cups' bottom is now blue. We finished up three coats between intermittent showers and downpours. The hull was painted black last haul-out and actually we prefer black, but we alternate colors each time we paint her bottom. It makes it easier to tell when the ablative paint is wearing away. Anti-fouling paint, by the way, is a cuprous-oxide based paint (copper additive) which keeps barnacles and other obnoxious critters at bay and hopefully off the hull. Legend has it that a black hull attracts whales. So far Cups has received no amorous advances from horny ceteaceans, but you can't play it too safe.

David has just finished up put two coats of paint on the bootstripe and it's looking pretty fine.

Being out of the water and “on the hard” is always an unusual feeling. The deck is about 10-12 feet off the ground. The boatyard supplied a ladder high enough to reach our swim ladder, so we can board from the stern. This means ducking under the solar panels in a sort of crouch and getting your feet onto the deck in a rather ungraceful maneuver … tough for these old, non-pliable bodies … but it certainly beats climbing up on a rope!

We're the tallest boat in the yard and the birds are certainly pleased with our spreaders and masthead. David has spent quite a bit of time scaring away the murder of crows that seem to enjoy this boatyard habitat.

From our vantage point, we have a commanding view of the boatyard and the public marina. It's amazing how 10-12 feet can change your perspective.

We've got a long list of things to do while we're out of the water in addition to the anti-fouling and red bootstripe. We usually have to scrape, polish and paint the propeller. Last haul-out we used a product called PropSpeed and we're pleased to report that the prop is in great shape with no growth whatsoever. Instead of a product that is toxic to critters, the Prop Speed is too slippery for them to attach. Anyhow … no work necessary on the propeller except to change the anode.

David is changing out the hull zinc/anode as well and, boy, did it ever need it. He's also performing regular maintenance on the thru-hulls, all 13 of them.

We noted that our haul-out lift points were not quite in the right spot and David has put temporary marks at the new locations for the TravelLift straps. We'll use them as a guide for going back into the water. If they're correct, he'll paint them on the topsides.

With any luck, we'll splash in the next day or so. Heavy rain and big winds are predicted for the next few days … we'll see how it goes.

Haul-out in Mandurah

It's time for Nine of Cups to be hauled out of the water for her annual bottom job. We thought perhaps we'd delay this year and do it in South Africa, but the prices here and there were comparable. Additionally, the haul-out facility here known as Mandurah Boat Stacking, is convenient (right across from the club marina) and has a good reputation. There's always a bit of angst when hauling out. What if we get dropped? What if we screw up getting into the haul-out bay? What if the wind pipes up or it's raining hard? Little dragons to sort out and handle.

We planned the haul-out for 0800 … it's usually calmest in the morning. It was calm, but pouring in torrents. We waited till a break in the downpour … about 15 minutes … then cast off the lines and headed around the marina to the outside channel leading to Mandurah Stackers. David accounted for the wind on the beam and made a wide turn into the haul-out pen, knowing the wind would move the boat to port. The wind died then, the boat did not drift to port, Marcie and the dockman could not fend us off and we nicked the rub rail wood on the starboard side. Looking at it later, David noted we've had worse damage than that in the past and it looked like an easy repair. All's good.

We stood in the pelting rain and watched as Nine of Cups came out of the water. She always looks huge when we can view all of her at once (and even larger when we're beginning to contemplate painting her bottom).

Power-washing was the next step and we stood dripping wet, with nothing to do and no place to go for cover. We were already so wet, it really didn't make much difference.

Then Kevin, who was also waiting out the rain, came to our rescue. “Come on out of the rain into my houseboat. Get dry and have a hot cuppa”, he offered. He didnt' have to ask twice. Kevin was a complete stranger, but this is how Aussies are … welcoming and hospitable. On top of that, we'd never been inside a houseboat before, so we were quite pleased with the opportunity.

It took a couple of hours to get the boat from the TamiLift to the hardstands. It was raining so hard, we could barely see from the houseboat windows to Nine of Cups. Finally, we heard the lift's engine fire up and Cups slowly came toddling down the lane and was deposited right beside Kevin's houseboat. It was time to head back outside as we watched the workmen placing the support stands in place.

Once Cups was securely in place, we began wet sanding her bottom. We couldn't have gotten much wetter and, in fact, the rain aided in the process of the wet sanding. Believe it or not, by Noon, the rain cleared and the sun came out. This is how the weather has been going here lately … cloudy with showers in the morning, then drier in the afternoon. We took advantage of the dry sunshine. Marcie masked between the boot stripe and the bottom and the blue bootstripe and red bootstripe while David began sanding the red bootstripe which we've determined needs repainting. We had it all sanded and prepped by the end of the day … ready to start bright and early tomorrow morning with the anti-fouling.

We're not allowed to live on the boat while on the hard here, so we reserved at an equipped, self-catering “chalet” about a 20 minute walk from the boatyard not far from the Mandurah foreshore. We loaded our backpacks with clean clothes, toiletries, the laptops and all the ingredients for making dinner including wine. A good day's work, a hot shower and … a TV! Wow! We're living it up. Hopefully tomorrow, no more rain.

The Blue View - An Updated Provisioning List

I recently finished an article for Ocean Navigator on our favorite tablet and smart phone apps. It was a fun article to write for a geek like me as it gave me an excuse to buy and try a bunch of new apps. There were a few gems out there, but sadly, most of the apps I tried were either not very useful for our life aboard, or were just totally worthless.

One app I was particularly interested in finding was something that would improve how we do our provisioning lists. Marcie wrote a blog post a year or so ago on provisioning and in it she described the spreadsheet we use to generate a provisioning shopping list. We have been adding to and editing the list for years, and it is now quite comprehensive. It includes not just food, but everything we consume – from canned corn to Band-Aids to sunscreen.

The spreadsheet has a column for entering how many of an item Marcie thinks we will need for an upcoming passage, another column for entering the on-hand inventory, and a third column that calculates the quantity to purchase. The trick is figuring out how much of each item we will need for the passage.

Our upcoming Indian Ocean crossing will take 3-4 months. How many cans of diced tomatoes will we use? How much salt and pepper, how many rolls of tp, and how much flour will we need? Some things can be replenished along the way, but the selection will be limited and the prices higher, so it's best to get as much as we can while we are here.

Marcie has been doing this for a while now, and once she figures out our needs for a passage, she saves the spreadsheet. She now has spreadsheets for passages of several different durations – 1 month, 3 month and even 6 months. When we provision for a new passage, however, the list always requires some tweaking. Our tastes change, the things that are available in different countries vary, and corrections are made. This provision list will be for 4 months, and since Marcie would have to modify the spreadsheet anyway, I thought I would check to see whether there were any great new apps that might do the job better

I looked at dozens of apps. Some were for pantry stocking, some were inventory control apps, some were meal planning apps, and I tried several that were list-generating apps. My conclusion was that most wouldn't be as good as what we were doing now, and I was unable to find anything that would be an improvement on our spreadsheet approach.

I did come up with a few improvements to our spreadsheet, however. I removed the column that Marcie previously used to enter the quantity needed of an item and added two more columns. One of these columns is for an estimate of our weekly consumption of the item. We might use 1 pound of pasta, 1 pound of rice and 2 liters of UHT milk per week for example. It is difficult to calculate weekly consumption for some items, however. A case in point is mustard. We don't use a lot of mustard, but we do want a jar on hand and the other new column is used to optionally enter a minimum quantity for an item. A third addition was to allow an entry for the number of weeks the passage will take. The spreadsheet now multiplies the weekly consumption of an item by the number of weeks, compares this result to the minimum quantity desired, and subtracts the on-hand quantity from the larger of the two. If the result is a positive number, it is posted in the last column, and this becomes the shopping list. It sounds a whole lot more complicated than it is.

One big advantage of this process is that all the entries can be made on her laptop and then the file can be downloaded to our iPad. We have an app loaded, Numbers, that works much like Microsoft Excel. It accepts an .xls file and allows us to modify and edit it. We can take the iPad shopping with us and edit the on-hand quantities as items are purchased.

Now if I can only find an app that will actually stow the 4 months of supplies for us.

If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet as well as the formulae used, email us and we will happily send a copy to you.