Itchy feet
We are still in Hong Kong. But rest assured, we have itchy feet. We are keen to go.
I haven’t posted for a while. A sure sign that I am super busy and that things do not run as smoothly as we wish.
Hong Kong licenses
After having spent days, if not weeks, at the Marine Department we finally have operating licenses for Hong Kong waters: 6 months license for ETERNAUT and one year license for the tender.
But rest assured, MarDep is doing it’s best to discourage any new boat being licensed locally. Their website about required documents is not updated: Every time you walk in to hand over the papers they let you wait for up to three hours. Then an officer will approach you and ask for something you did not prepare. They do this one by one! They do not give you a full list! This requires you to travel forward and backward multiple times. Additional required documents which are not mentioned on the Mardep website are:
- photo of engine number plate
- photo of tender number plate
- number plate on photo shows EU certificate and not CIN? – request a new number plate from the factory
- original of builder’s certificate – oh, lock down at the factory due to Covid? Then you have to wait until the postal service works again after lock down
- date of the original builder’s certificate does not match due to the office closure during lock down? – request a new builder’s certificate with an old date which matches the invoice date
- provide seating plan for tender
- imported tender being carried on board of mother ship? Provide proof it had been imported!
- insurance cover letter states “Alu RIB”? – Operating license declined: “It is not an aluminum boat, it is an inflatable boat” the officer at Aberdeen Mardep said. She did not know the abbreviation of “rigid inflatable boat” – RIB. Solution: visit a different Marine Department office
- officer cannot decide whether vessel is sailing-, motor-, or even fishing vessel? Await outcome of safety department’s survey
Cruising Hong Kong
Let’s start with the good news: We had some nice cruising days in Hong Kong. Just look at the photos: stunning!
Rita captured some really great shots. You will find updated photos much faster on the Instagram account (eternaut.blog) than on this blog. I am just too busy. (Could this become new term for old or lazy?)
Engine room temperature
The Gardner engine has a big six cylinder block. Despite the large volume intake- and exhaust fans it becomes quite hot. We witnessed up to 42 degrees Celsius, eight degrees above the outside temperature.
The fresh water tanks are located at the side walls of the engine room. This gives your refreshing cold shower a water temperature of 36 degrees!
The rig
Darbi from CarboTech worked on our rig and sail plan from Mondays afternoon to Thursdays lunch time.
During that time we were allowed to come alongside the dock at RHKYC in Causeway Bay.
Nothing is free in Hong Kong, so this comes at an additional charge. But it made our shopping and dining a bit easier.
The work took much longer than expected. Initially we had calculated one week… at the end it were three weeks. The last bit, the winches to make raising and lowering the tender easier, are yet to be installed.
The new sail plan works much better: actually the way SHM had set it up only allowed for downwind sailing without any control of the sail. Now we can adjust travelers on main and mizzen sail.
And now we have proper ropes for furling the head sail. A 10mm furling line is easier to handle than the flimsy 6mm SHM had equipped the boat with.
Yesterday we gave it a first try. It was fun to use. The ten knots true wind on the beam gave us 1.5 knots speed increase. And as emergency rig the same wind gave us 2.5 knots speed over ground. Enough to limb into the next harbor.
Safe vs Seahorse Marine “sufficient”
This is how the newly installed Selden furler compares to the original from Seahorse Marine. The small Schaefer unit might just be able to cope with the size of the furling sail on a small boat. But it would not be capable to cope with the winds and size of our boat. One of a bunch of uncountable items we had to replace to make the boat safe
The Marinco search light
Since the beginning the Marinco search light had not been working properly. It had it’s own ego and had decided to co-operate on a few selected occasions only. OBMG had tried a different wireless remote – no help. Then we had installed a new wire up the mast and a new wired remote control: still no help.
At this moment the search light is at the OBMG work shop for follow up. I hope to be able to claim warranty. Honestly: I would not purchase a Marinco search light again.
Malfunctioning Mastervolt charge regulator
We were cruising happily into direction of Hebe Haven when all of the sudden the engine alarm horn requested our attention. All engine instruments showed normal indications: what was wrong then?
Distinctive smell of an electric fire
I opened the door to the engine room and the distinctive smell of an electric fire greeted me. It was that strong that even Rita who stayed at the helm smelled it and shouted: “there must be an electrical fault“.
Engine was shut down and I looked for the origin of the smell. The search was unsuccessful and as we slowly drifted towards some rocks I restarted the engine. The warning horn blared again and on idle power we steered towards open water. I continued my investigation when I realized that the engine instruments started fogging up and behaved irregularly. I nearly burned my fingers when touching them. So I opened the engine instrument panel and disconnected all instruments. Although they were not the cause of the problem, at least now they could not start a fire anymore.
Only then I changed my investigation away from engine towards the electric components, I discovered that on idle power the engine start batteries (and the engine control circuit) were loaded with 29.7V while engine running a mere 450rpm. How much voltage did the engine alternator produce on 1,200rpm? How much damage had the over voltage done to the system?
Of course I could have clicked through the menu of the Simrad touch screen to find battery voltage info on the Simrad display through NavNet integration. But honestly: that is not intuitive when a warning horn starts blaring. Lesson learned: install an old style analog voltmeter at the helm station!
OBMG and Gardner saved my day
Thankfully Jesse from OBMG answered his phone immediately when I called to report the problem. On his suggestion I disconnected the field of the malfunctioning charge controller. Luckily the Gardner engine is controlled completely manually: this allowed me to disconnect all electricity from the engine system.
At this stage we are awaiting a replacement of the faulty charge controller. It does not stop us from cruising: The engine start battery is not damaged. Emergency wise I could also start the engine on the generator battery or charge the engine battery through AC power.
Aberdeen trouble
ETERNAUT had been moored in Aberdeen typhoon shelter for quite a while. We were unable to cruise around as the boat had been delivered with heaps of problems.
Paint jobs
The latest issue where bad work from Seahorse Marine becomes apparent is the paint.
Previously I had reported that paint in engine room and fuel filler are not diesel resistant and started dissolving. To make things worse Seahorse Marine even never finished the paint job in the bilge underneath the engine.
In the meantime the paint problems became worse: More bubbles and cracks show up on the main deck. Additionally I discovered a lot of paint blisters around the bow area. If we are lucky it is just delamination. If we are unlucky it is rust forming underneath the paint.
Actually a shipyard in Aberdeen was assigned to look into the paint problems. But we have a valid reason to stay away from Aberdeen.
Aberdeen typhoon shelter:
Not that our spot in Aberdeen / Ap Lei Chau was appealing:
- industrial sewage is dumped straight into the water
- dead fish and the occasional dead rat float by daily
- maggots try to board your vessel from the water (we never found out where they came from)
- black foot prints from neighbor’s boat repair guys on foredeck
- irregular Sampan service (with curfew at 10pm)
- rocky nights due speeding boats – no one cares about 5kts speed limit
But Aberdeen / Ap Lei Chau offered following advantages: within easy reach for OBMG and the Seahorse Marine appointed shipyard for the paint issues. Ap Lei Chau is also the place of a handful reasonably stocked chandleries.
Anyway, we decided not to go back:
Being threatened by Seahorse Marine partner / friend
After more and more paint issues arose the foreman of Seahorse Marine suggested: the shipyard should pay for our mooring in Aberdeen due to ongoing required work on the boat. As the new rent was due we kept asking Seahorse Marine how to proceed. And Stella from Seahorse Marine agreed: They wanted to deal with the owner of the mooring directly.
Well, we do not exactly know the deal between the shipyard and the owner of the mooring. But we know they are kind of friends / partners.
What happened next was that the owner of the mooring called Rita: He yelled at her on the phone. He wanted us to pay for the mooring! He did not want money from Seahorse Marine and he did not want Seahorse Marine to reimburse us.
Why did he not talk to the shipyard about it? It was their offer!
He even went further and threatened us: “I know bad people! And bad people can do bad things!“
Some days later he tried to call again and say we should forget of what had happened. But honestly: We do not want to stay there anymore and face him very day. We do not feel safe!
At anchor
So, at the moment we are at anchor. We cruise a bit around and test the equipment. A lot of work items can be delayed until reaching Philippines. We will try to hurry the important items and leave this unwelcoming place as soon as safely possible!