6) Chaguaramas, Trinidad

February 9, 2005

Woke up sore this morning from walking around so much yesterday at Carnival.  Walked past the boat on the way to the Internet café and saw a worker scraping the paint off the bottom of the boat preparing it for the new bottom paint.  They decided to scrape off the old existing bottom paint, sand, prime and then paint.  It’s about a 3-day job at the good yards in the U.S. Since we are here on an island and there is definitely an island time theme going on, I think it will take them at least twice as long.  That means it will probably take six days spread out.

I spent one hour in the café and on my way back to the room I saw Jeff and Joby on deck getting ready to run halyards.  There is no running rigging (ropes) on board because they were removed for long term storage getting them out of the sun.   The boat was purchased in Germany and brought here with the intent to have the deck re-surfaced with new teak as it is rumored to be done cheaper here than in the U.S.  Unfortunately, the boat has been in the hands of the yard for at least the last 6 months and with an absentee owner back in California it appears not everything had gone as planned.
 
There are messenger lines (thin white ropes) running up the mast and it should be fairly easy to do the work.  Walking away I heard Jeff say to Joby that all the labels on the lines are gone.  A little side note, all lines on sailboats are different and serve different purposes.  They have different stretch and strength characteristics, lengths and identifying designs in the threads.  Missing labels makes it a little harder.

As I walked up to the boat I noticed that the bottom paint worker was gone.  Well, it appears that during the one hour I spent in the Internet café the worker spent one hour working on Jeff’s boat.  At this rate it will take about a month to do the bottom paint.  Jeff asked me if we could scrape the bottom paint off ourselves and “how hard could it be?”  

While scraping you need to avoid scraping too hard and digging into the fiberglass and creating divots.  I know how hard it can be to scrape the bottom.  If you have ever done sheet-rock on a ceiling imagine that, but harder.  You are in a boatyard working off rickety scaffolding, scraping off toxic blue paint, it’s tropical hot and muggy, it’s physically very demanding.  Jeff paid the boatyard to do all this work and he is rightfully upset that they are not doing it in a timely efficient manner.  

There is so much that needs to be done that it’s hard to find a place to start.  We personally have no tools, workspaces, materials, specs, etc. to even consider starting on something that is halfway done.  Some of the manuals are in German as expected and are useless to us and there are many missing pieces and parts. 

The macerator is inoperable.  I guess it only matters if we need to discharge the holding tank.  There's a lot to be said about holding tanks and discharging directly overboard.  I find it incredibly difficult to swim in a crowded anchorage because I know the truth.

Some of the navigation lights are inoperable and need to be replaced as well as each bulb should be duplicated and stored as spares.  It's really only a safety concern if you want to be seen at night.  Even though there are rules of the road it is easier to say bigger always wins and it is best to be prepared.

Upon inspection of the boat I found a cracked stainless upper-shroud inner-stay attachment plate.  The stainless wire shroud passes through a stainless metal plate with a hole in it that has a design that allows it to capture and hold the wire.  This wire is structural in nature and by association the plate is also.  The only risk of a compromised rigging structure is the mast coming down.

The anchor chain is only 160' due to its large size which makes it very heavy.  The windlass accommodates this chain link but will not accept a smaller link or rope.     

 

            The mainsail is very old and in tatters in some areas which makes it potentially unusable and/or non-repairable.  It's a bit risky to attempt an approximately 5000 mile trip from Trinidad to Marina Del Ray with one poor-quality mainsail.

             There is no way to attach the stay-sail forward of the mast and there is no try-sail for aft of the mast so collectively there are no storm sails.

             There is no drogue or series of lines that can be dragged for slowing the boat down in following seas during a high sea-state condition.  In the unfortunate event that high seas are encountered these boats with no sails up can reach speeds that force the boat to surf down the face of the waves and punch the bow through waves being overtaken.  Pitch-poling can result in the worst of situations. 

             The starboard main-sheet winch is inoperative;  it spins with tight spots and will receive a winch handle but will not engage. 

            
             This boat was run aground on a reef in the Caribbean after its delivery from Germany and resulted in a destroyed rudder.  An entire new rudder was manufactured but there is still possible bearing/race and steering quadrant damage.  Another recent grounding removed a substantial amount of lead from the lower leading edge of the keel resulting in fairing removal at that area and the fairing along the keel to hull connection.  There is possibly structural damage to the tabs in the bilge.  

 

                                                                       

With what I now know this image is a precursor of things to come.  The owner is in the picture.  He put the sign on the boat and is adamant that all who board this boat remove their shoes.  I noticed over time that he was the only one wearing street shoes all over the boat.  He actually said to me that when the boat goes in the water he was going to make us crew leave our shoes onshore because he didn’t want the boatyard debris on the ground tracked aboard.  I am a boater and I wear street shoes across the boatyard and carry my boat shoes in a bag.  I religiously change shoes.  How do you point out to the owner that it is him tracking the dirt aboard?  

The thing about leaving shoes onshore bugged me quite a bit.  There are no slips or docks available and when this boat goes back in the water it will have to anchor out or attach to a mooring if one is available.  Basically, if you tie to a dock and your boat is there then it is safe to leave your shore shoes on the dock and not on the boat.  If you are away from shore and you leave shoes onshore you can pretty much count on them disappearing. 

I even noticed that the workers on the inside of this boat would leave their shoes on the ground, climb the ladder and work barefoot.  I am fully aware and convinced that there are those among us who lack global awareness of their own environment and actions. 

Many times I found refuge at the dock restaurant and tuned out.