Welcome to the blog of the sailing yacht Sea Bunny.

Friday, May 29, 2015

Republic of Singapore Yacht Club 8-28 May 2015


For what may well be Sea Bunny's last visit to Singapore we found ourselves berthing at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club Marina.  Last visit was in 2008. We were greeted like long lost friends by the Administration Manager, Zeina, who worked there in 2008 and was back there now.

RSYC is a delightful club with old colonial charm and excellent facilities onshore - the pool and moderately priced restaurant were what we used most. With a short walk to bus stops into town.
The Marina itself does have one, fairly major, drawback. It is situated in a very busy part of the harbour, right next door to the jetty used by fast launches servicing the ships out at anchor. These launches create significant wash - they have not heard of "no wake speed". The following video clip shows just over a minute and a half of activity - it has not been edited!

The videos don't seem to work on iPad - they do on (Windows) PC - sorry



As there is no wave break between this jetty and the marina boats roll a lot, sometimes quite violently. You can feel seasick walking down the pontoon. Below is a mild example - should have taken the stern of Sea Bunny!

We got a "single" berth, which meant we were able to secure Sea Bunny in the centre by all four "corners" with springs (ropes that go diagonally from the bow or stern) to stop surging.  While we were not in contact with the pontoon at all the wear on the mooring lines was significant - until we improved chafe protection and deployed rubber snubbers.
Negotiations for a wave break are in hand.



Sunday, May 10, 2015

Unusual visitors to the marina


Two of these arrived in Puteri Marina for an overnight stop at the weekend.

Yours for US$190,000 - we wonder if mooring warp and paddle to move it to the dock included!

Hot and Cold Water

To help ensure that our cold water supply is clean, the tanks are chlorinated every season. This is then filtered when used for drinking.
Easy checked water supply good and drained tanks and spare cans. At this point it became apparent that the marina supply was off for the remainder of the day.
Was this a foretaste of hot water issues to follow?
The immersion heater failed in 2014 but it is not too much of a hardship, when the water in the tank is at 30C, to have cold showers and to boil water for washing up.  So replacing the heater was not a priority job.  It should be a short job to unscrew the old heater and screw in the new.
Domestic hot water on Sea Bunny is heated in a calorifier - a tank which has a coil through which engine cooling water circulates and heats the the fresh water in the tank The calorifier also has an electric immersion heater for use when we are not under way. The circuit breaker feeding the immersion heater blew. It was clear that the immersion heater had a fault. No problem - there's a spare in the bilge (there since we bought Sea Bunny in 1998). But this doesn't fit the new calorifier we bought in 2009!
So in preparation for job a new one was shipped to Langkawi and as most immersion heaters have an octagonal flange with an across the flats measurement of 85 mm an immersion heater spanner was also acquired.
Immersion heater spanner

Access is obtained by lying on top of the engine and reaching over the generator. Richard can then just reach the heater although pipes and other obstructions restrict use of the spanner. However, brute force gets it to turn freely for about half a rotation, at which point it locks solid. Clearly something is fouling inside the tank.  This takes a day.
This is where a "simple" job became complicated. As already stated the calorifier is outboard of the genset, which in turn is outboard of the engine. There is not room to work on it in situ. There is not space to extract it either over the genset and through the engine room access or through the cockpit locker floor. To extract the calorifier requires removal of the genset through  the cockpit locker.  This takes another a day.
The calorifier tank

Once the calorifier is out on the pontoon it is a short job to cut off the connectors for the element and drill through the flange, at which point part of the element fell into the tank with a clunk.
The remains!
The flange could then be unscrewed and the distorted element removed. Tank was then washed, the new immersion heater fitted and the tank leak tested-OK.
New heater fitted in tank
With the genset and tank removed it was opportune to tidy up some of the wiring and piping in the engine compartment. This takes another day.
Refitting the tank was relatively easy. It was connected, filled and tested - we have hot water!
Next was getting the genset in. This is not too difficult - we use a purchase on the boom to lower it through the cockpit locker floor. Lining it up on its mounts is a lot more difficult and required a change to its fixings to achieve.This took two days.
All the above done with good grace between heavy tropical downpours!

Finally it has to be reconnected and recommissioned which we are doing at present.

NB. To replace immersion heater (if you have previous knowledge that part has fallen into tank- which is unlikely) allow one week..

Family time

As always the highlights of our UK trip were the time spent with our children and grandchildren.

Bransgore

 Oldest grandson Josh has succeeded in raising the money necessary for him to take his place at the World Scouting Jamboree in Japan in July- so well done Josh!
A visit to a Japanese restaurant so he could get an idea of some significantly different cuisine found that his brother Jake was the family fish eater!

Give me my ball!
Dog walking was an essential part of the visit both here and in Epsom.
This time on the beach at Highcliffe with lunch at the cafe at Highcliffe Castle.
Grandma gets a fun ride!
Highcliffe Castle


The Portsdown Volunteers.
A visit to Fort Nelson at Portsdown, overlooking Portsmouth, was interesting. It is another of the Palmerston era forts built to protect key military locations from the anticipated French invasion. It now houses the Royal Armouries collection of artillery.

Volunteers dress in the period costumes and conduct a full load and fire exercise at intervals during the day and in all weathers.
Susan promoted from Project director to Admiral

Edinburgh
Making heads from grass seed
In Scotland we were left in charge of Archie and Max while parents Catharine and Steve went away for a well earned break.
We survived!
On the boys "to do" list was to see the movie Paddington Bear and a home from-home experience the wonderful hothouses at the Royal Edinburgh Botanical Gardens - sponsored by Tourism Malaysia!
Pitcher plant - in Edinburgh
Spectacular!



.
Cameraman Archie
As always we had brought a number of things off the boat - some to sell, some to give away. Archie got a digital camera with underwater housing.
This had to be immediately tested!