October 27, 2009-Relaunched

wingssail images-Judy Jensen
Afloat

We re-launched Wings on Tuesday after 7 1/2 weeks in the yard and it was good to get it back in the water. Judy took some shots of the process.

Click here to see her photos.


Now the big clean up begins.

We've still got to get the new brackets for the wind vane plus the hydraulic panel is not finished and the refer needs some work; oh after the work which was done on the engine it needs a check up before we can start it.

The name needs to be put on the sides.

All of these things can be done in the water.

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Windvane

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New Graphics


In a week we will be sailing.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Phuket Thailand

October 19, 2009-New Paint

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What a shine!

Click here to see the new paint.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings

October 17, 2009-Five Weeks of Boat Work

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Big Tent Over Wings

Inside this cocoon the metamorphosis is occurring; soon a butterfly will emerge.

It's now been five weeks since we arrived at the Royal Phuket Marina boat yard and the work still continues. It was supposed to be three weeks. The rain has accounted for part of the delay, but mostly the long duration of this project has been due to the perfectionist tendency of Oot, the man we hired to paint the boat. Oot and his men have been sanding and fairing for a month. This doesn't surprise us (we actually allowed for eight weeks) or disappoint us; we're getting a good job out of it.

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Latest primer colors

So we don't mind, really, go for it guys!

Well, it might mean a delay in getting out of Thailand and on to Malaysia, our next port of call. The problem is that we can only leave Boat Lagoon, which shares the entrance channel with Royal Phuket, at certain tidal states and this delay means we will probably miss the last window for the month of October, maybe even the first two weeks of November.

But we're retired and we are just chillin' for the moment; and getting some other projects completed while we wait.

Right now the plan is for the new dark blue Awlgrip topcoat to be applied on Sunday, October 18. With all this prep we are anticipating a very smooth finish; we'll let you know in the next update.

Meanwhile we've taken some time to see some of the other sights of Phuket; here is a rubber plantation. Click here for more photos.


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Rubber Plantation

Click here to see the Marinas at Boat Lagooon and Royal Phuket, including the apartment at Boat Lagoon where we are living.

Click here to see the big boat yards on Phuket.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Phuket

October 9, 2009-Thinking of sailing

We’ve been working on the boat for over a month and the end is not yet in sight.

But like a long voyage we know that in time this project too will be over, and then we'll be back on the water doing what we like best: sailing.

I don't usually feature the work of other photographers but this shot by Jean-Marie Liot is stunning.

Jean-Marie Liot Image, from Sailing Anarchy
Sailing

It got me thinking about some of the great sailing images we've gotten over the years. Here are some from the America's Cup, in New Zealand in 2000.

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Nippon

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Adabracadabra

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America True & Nippon Circling

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Eye To Eye

And we've had some good sailing on Wings; these shots captured at Western Circuit regatta in Singapore.

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At the Mark

Takedown Action

Sailing

So, even though these days we are living ashore and Wings is on the hard, sailing is still very much on our mind.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Phuket, Thailand

October 2, 2009-Wings Project Update

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Spotted Wings

Sanding Gets Serious

Oot's boys have been sanding the hull now for three weeks and that's some serious sanding. Today they applied the primer.

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Primer

Rudder Repair

The rudder had bad pitting about 2-3mm deep all around the shaft where the shaft enters the rudder. This looked like a break-point to me (also where Scarlett O'Hara's rudder broke); we wanted some sort of fix. The welders at Luk Engineering built up the shaft and then shaped it to restore the surface. What they also did, which you cannot see, is insert a solid post inside the rudder post tube to add strength where the rudder post enters the rudder itself.

Rudder Drawing


Windvane Rebuild

We also asked Luk Engineering to rebuild the windvane. I built a plywood jig to hold the brackets in the some position as they would be on the transom of Wings and I told the welders what sort of improvements I wanted, and they did a great job. This is how it turned out.

Finished Windvane

Mexican Panga makes it to Thailand

An American guy from San Diego named Britt is importing these Panga's from China and selling them in Phuket. One difference from the version we knew in Mexico is that they have a deck built inside the boat that is high enough so that, with some drain holes, rain water can run out. This keeps them from sinking in the monsoons of tropical Asia (not a problem in Baja).

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Phuket