Jim's blog

After at least a year and probably more, Dovekie has again sailed under her own power.

Sunday morning my friend Rob met me and we motored Dovekie out into Karehana Bay. With the forecast predicting gale force winds in the afternoon we weren't planning to stay out long but we did give the motor a workout and sailed on just the jib for a bit.



I have set up the bilge pumps with a float to come on automatically, to please the insurance company and cleaned up he remaining water in the bilge so I can measure what is actually coming in. We also redid the out-haul and other lines on the mizzen as they were a bit of a mess. I need to figure out the reefing for the main sail too. There are no fittings to ease taking in reefs so I'll need to either set up lashings or install some fittings.

Is open for business again after our good Xmas holiday break. Jo spent a good bit of last week making her special chocolates ready to stock the shelves this week.



Drop by and check it out. 10-5.30 weekdays and 10-4 on Saturday.

I've been home over a week now and have progressed the painting on Dovekie. Three coats of good house paint above the water line - slightly off white, and finally the anti-foul was finished last Monday after putting it off due to the dust raised by the wind on Sunday. I also wired up two bilge pumps with fuses and on/off switches ready for the anticipated seams leaking.





A little nervousness on first powering up the new Volvo Penta 20hp motor but it all started and ran beautifully.





I was surprised at the surge of power when I headed off for my berth. I was even more surprised to get half way down the pier to find and find Peter from the marina office pointing me into a berth halfway down instead of the one I have been paying for. It turns out that the owner of the berth died last week and his family want to get rid of the berth, and his boat which is now parked in it. Peter is locating me an alternative one.



Anyway once we were safely parked up in the new (temporary) berth we sorted out the mooring lines which weren't optimised for Dovekie's size while keeping an eye out for water coming in the seams. There was a little immediately apparent but I spent the night on board waking up several times to check the water level. I pumped out maybe 8 litres, fitted the first of the cleats to the mizzen mast and went home to baby-sit young Sam. Today I went back out and pumped another 10 litres which isn't bad for nearly 24 hours - the seams are pretty tight despite the drying out.

Once we got onto the ferry (target departure time 23:45 on 23rd December, actually departed at something after 01:00 on 24th) and finally made it to Christchurch we had a great holiday. Xmas with Jo's family, a leisurely drive to Dunedin despite the Rakaia river being over the road, to Oamaru, Evansdale Cheese (recommended) and Waikouaiti (historic buildings at Johnny Jones - early Otago settler - old homestead), down to Mavora Lakes - one of my favourite places in NZ, a visit to my sister Barbara, up to Wanaka (wet), Gippston Valley (more good cheese with the bonus of good wine), Tekapo (campground full so on to Fairlie), Geraldine, Rakaia Gorge and back to Christchurch before heading home. Visited a few interesting places, met some interesting people along the way and overall had a good time.



Photos soon.