Category Archives: Repairs

New Canvas: Inside and Out

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New canvas!  We replaced all of our interior and exterior cushions when we purchased Sugar Shack in 2010.  Do you remember the horrid teal pleather that was on the boat when we bought it?  The shop in Turkey did a really great job replacing the cushions and covering them.  We replaced the interior cushions with a beautiful, light tan micro suede called Alcantera and the exterior cushions had a sturdy, stainproof, water resistant beige sunbrella. 

Fast forward to today…if you were to look at our cushions from afar you might wonder why we were replacing the fabric…Even I think they look pretty darn good from this shot.

But, when you look closely, the fabric has started pulling away at the seams especially around the bolsters.  Unfortunately, this is not fixable.  I know, I tried and it doesn’t hold as the fabric is too thin and worn to hold the thread and glue.

And some of the cushions have actually worn through the fabric on the sides.

Exterior Cushions

The exterior cockpit cushions are holding up a little better but they are stained and looking a little tired.  They are also retaining water (when it rains the cockpit gets wet) which takes ages to dry out.

Shopping for a Dressmaker

One of the first things that we did when we arrived in New Zealand (Nov.2022) was to look for canvas makers.  We knew this would be a huge job and so we wanted to get on the books early on.  We met with several companies and decided on Masterpieces in Canvas.  The owner, Kim, is very professional, has amazing creative ideas, great suggestions, and a reputation for stellar work.

The Pending Canvas Projects:

  • Replace fabric on interior Cushions (7 backs, 8 bottoms, 1 nav seat, 2 bench seats, 1 round seat)
  • Recover exterior cushions (3 long cockpit cushions, 2 helm seats)
  • New back bolster covers at helm seats
  • Dinghy Chaps / cover
  • Cockpit enclosure
  • Sail Bag Cover (North Sails will provide this)

We selected a new, hardier interior fabric that is a macro-suede in Ash (left photo).  For the exterior, we selected two types of a new (to us) fabric called Sauleda.  The main cushions and helm seats will be in light silver gray called Tandem Piedra.  The new dinghy chaps, sail bag, helm bolsters and cockpit enclosure will be in a darker gray called Tandem Grafito.

The macro-suede is water and stain resistant and can be scrubbed and cleaned.  The Sauleda is waterproof, stain proof and much stronger than Sunbrella.  It has more threads making it a sturdier fabric.

The Big Reveal:

The new cushions came in and boy oh boy are we excited.  They turned out so beautifully that we did not want to sit on them!  The color is perfect, the material is soft and luxurious, and the design is perfect.

Kim has great attention to detail which can be found in all the seams, curves, and design.  Yours truly (Christine) made the beautiful, buttery soft blanket in the bottom photo.

The bottom side even turned out really nice.  She used a beautiful black phifertex, with sturdy zippers and wood on the bottom (so your bottom doesn’t sink into the holes below)

The seat at our navigation table even came out super cool.  We bought a new chair and had Kim recover it to match the cushions.  This new chair is on a swivel so it turns around and will lift up so we can still access the storage underneath it.

Outside Canvas work

The vendor in Turkey did a great job providing us with large, cushy cushions.  All we needed to do was add a little more water proofing and new canvas.  They came out beautiful as well.

Cockpit Enclosure

Matt and I had made our rain and sun shades and they were very tired and did not completely enclose the cockpit so when it rained everything got wet.  Kim and Matt designed our new enclosure that has windows and is completely enclosed.  We will most likely only use the large back panel and the two side panels (not the corners) on a daily basis.

From the inside…excuse the mess but we are still under construction…

A New Dinghy and Chaps

Our amazing Avon 3.4 lasted over 22 years!  She was a spectacular dinghy and lasted way beyond expectations.  She had a deep “V” bottom, a false floor so we had a flat surface to stand on inside dinghy, tall transom, locker with hawes pipe and 3 pontoons.  But she had several slow leaks and we just could not keep up with them.  We thought about just replacing the pontoons because we loved this dinghy so much, but the cost was equivalent to a new dinghy.

Avon no longer makes small dinghies (they just make gigantic dinghies) so we could not even replace her with another one just like her.  In fact, we had a lot of problems finding a dinghy we liked.  We wanted a 3.6M dinghy, with a deep “V”, false bottom, tall transom (for our long shaft outboard), and hypalon pontoons.  But, New Zealand does not sell dinghies with hypalon pontoons because they are too expensive and they don’t sell.  So, we had to go with a pvc version which just are not as strong or sturdy.  What can you do? Just means the life span of this dinghy will be maybe 5-7 years tops.

We sell our beloved Sweetie along with our old 8hp Mercury outboard.

The gorgeous new outfit for Sweetie 2.0

And we get new chaps made for the new dinghy to protect the pontoons.  Sweetie 2.0.  The far left photo has shadows from the trees – the bow is actually perfect.  Kim added two beautiful pockets and the craftsmanship around each cut out is simply amazing (lower left photo).

Here is a photo of Kim and Roger (our sailmaker)

Events from this blog occurred between April-May 2023.  Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual events. We replace all of our ceiling panels, ceiling lights and update the master bath in our last blog.

Leaks: Drip, Drip, Drop

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Maybe that is a bit of an overdramatization…but we do have several leaks that recently started.  The fun part is trying to determine the source without tearing the boat apart.  But sometimes you just have to tear it apart to put it back together.

Same problem causing multiple leaks.  We were seeing leaks at each corner of the boat.  Originally, we thought it was caused by the seam between the deck and hull.  Then we thought it was where the stanchions meet the deck.  Next, we checked the drain area where our lines originate.  Ah ha!  There it is.  The angled 90° drain, that connects to the drain hose, needs to be replaced in all 4 corners. 

It took Matt months to find the right size angled drain that fit the 19mm hose and had a 31mm drain opening.  He ordered 4 and replaced the largest leak at the starboard bow first while we were in Fiji.  Being in New Zealand during this unusual rainy season has moved the leak project up to the front.

The top white drain is the original defective drain.  The larger white drain is the replacement that works in the two bow locations.  Unfortunately, the larger white drains are too tall for the aft cabin drains so we went on a hunting expedition to find new ones.  We tracked two new drains down in the South Island and had them shipped up to us in the North island (grey drain).

Both angled drains are leaking in the back and both are over beds.  The one in the master leaks right over Matt’s head and the one over the office leaks over the corner bed.  Fun!  These two locations require us to tear down the ceiling panel to access the drain.

Master Cabin Leaks

We removed two of our ceiling panels and found three leaks.  The main leak from the drain, then another leak coming in from a new solar cable we installed a few years ago (they didn’t seal it properly) and the third leak was coming from the ignition panel.  The good news is we could access all of them.

Cyclone Hale

Just after we removed all ceiling panels, we learned a cyclone was coming.  This is good and bad news.  Good in that we will see exactly where the leaks are coming from, but bad because it’s a cyclone for goodness sake!

For those of you who don’t read weather systems, here is another visual of the flooding.

Cyclone Hale changed directions a little bit and ended up over Coromandel.  Basically, we received a lot of rain and winds of about 40kts.  We are pretty protected in the marina so we felt relatively certain we would be ok.  Dressed in our foulies.

But other parts of New Zealand (like Coromandel) did not fair as well.  Once Cyclone Hale passed, we resumed our leaky project.

We replaced the angled drain and put epoxy all around it.  We then resealed the solar cable and we resealed the ignition panel.  All three leaks in the starboard master cabin are considered done!

Port Office Cabin

The port office cabin leak is the same leak as the master bedroom cabin  Ah ha!  There it is.  The 90° angled drain.  So, we removed more ceiling panels to see the source.

Wowza, evidently there has been a slow leak here for awhile as it was pretty moldy and gross.  Matt had to break away the thickened epoxy (without damaging the hoses).  It was a dirty job that is for sure.  Once we replaced the drain, resealed everything back up and called this project done.

But don’t let me over simplify everything.  These projects took months to complete.  Partly because we had to wait for spare parts or wait for things to dry (as it often rained in Whangarei).  But mostly because these were all really huge jobs.

Also, the removal and replacement of the ceiling panels is a massive job.  It takes great patience to remove a single panel (to ensure you don’t damage it) so we can use it as a pattern to make the new ones.  Then it takes several days to remove all of the old glue and glue residue from the ceiling so that you can adhere the new panel.  The glue and glue residue all have to be removed if we plan to reuse panel.

I thought about doing a blog post on the ceiling panels as it is such a huge job but man that would be boring!  This is what our poor forward cabin looks like as we do all the work in the office.

Cyclone Gabriel

Seriously, we came to New Zealand because it is “out of the cyclone zone” but here we are – again faced with a much larger cyclone aiming for the north tip of the north island  – right where we are located.  Evidently, this is the fist cyclone to actually hit land (cyclone skirted around NZ, but never technically hit land).  The bottom image is the wind speed that Matt tracked during the cyclone.  Topped at 55kts which is the worst winds we have ever seen.

Everything flooded all around us with the tides rising over 3 meters and covering the streets, walkways, and pontoons.

Roads were shut down with damage, collapse, landslides and fallen trees.  A week after the cyclone over 400 people are unaccounted for and the death toll is climbing.  We were lucky in that we had no damage, but Matt was well prepared.  We removed anything that could be ripped off by the winds and stowed it all inside.

Events from this blog occurred in mid-January 2023.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  In our last blog post we rebuilt the windlass – do you know what that is?

Rebuilding the Windlass

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Our windlass is a vital part of our boat as it controls our anchor and anchor chain.  It allows us to use the motor to raise and lower our 100 meters of 10mm stainless chain and 33 kilo spade anchor.  We replaced the motor, gaskets and a few other small pieces in Costa Rica 2019, but we have not taken the top portion of the windlass apart for some time.

We were having issues with the windlass as it was drawing too much power to operate.  Something was causing friction or issues making the motor work too hard which then overloaded the batteries.  Never a good thing to have the boat shut down as you are trying to bring up the anchor.

Getting Started

In order to work on the windlass we have to disengage the anchor chain.  However, we did not want it to drop into the marina water so we ended up securing the anchor and chain to the bow roller.

We ordered new gaskets, o-rings, a sure clip, and a bearing from Lewmar (which took forever to arrive).  As Matt was taking everything apart he realized that the spacer had rotted.  Well shoot!  For some reason, Lewmar has stainless and aluminum pieces put together which is odd as these two materials don’t like each other.  

End of Year Delay

New problem. This spacer was not available anywhere in NZ, USA, or Europe!  Evidently Lewmar would not be manufacturing more of these pieces until end February (it was December when we discovered the problem).  If we were to wait, the part would not get to us until April or May. That would mean that we could not leave the marina as we would have no means to anchor which was simply unacceptable.  So, we decided to take it to RH Precision Engineering to have a new one fabricated.

Rob at RH Precision was wonderful!  We dropped the sad little spacer off on Friday before Christmas and he called us on Wednesday 28 Dec to tell us it was ready!  And on top of that he only charged us $100NZD and 2 beers!  We would have spent hundreds of dollars more had we ordered it from Lewmar.  And it is beautiful and works perfectly!

We discovered the culprit was a rotted cord deck which held the spacer.  Sea water had seeped into the wood, rotted it out and kept the spacer wet.  So, Matt had to dig out all of the rotted wood, let it dry out, then filled it with epoxy.

We were finally able to complete the windlass project after 3 weeks, mostly waiting on parts.  Now, we should be able to anchor without putting too much stress on our batteries.

Events from this blog occurred in late December and early January 2023.  Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events. We upgrade Sugar Shack with lithium batteries and Starlink in our last blog.