Second season – launching soon!

Our long winter in the boatyard in Cornwall is slowly drawing to a close.  The days are getting noticeably longer and the daytime temperatures are improving.  With this, our very long list of boat jobs is getting smaller and our excitement at getting closer to moving back on board Cerulean, is mounting.  We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have been able to spend the winter months in this beautiful corner of the world, not only so we can enjoy the environment but also spend precious and special times with Bea and Andy who have been fabulous, generous hosts and company.

We started the winter with a daunting list of boat improvements and maintenance we needed to address.   As we began working through the list more jobs were added and we soon had an insurmountable list which, instead of motivating us, did the opposite.   Using the program, Trello, we decided to break the list down into what could be done pre-launch, what was urgent, what needed to be done by professionals and jobs that could wait until we were back in the water.   This made the essential work a lot more manageable and we took great satisfaction being able to move jobs from one list to the “Done” section!

Just before Christmas our old engine was removed and sold for spares, giving us the opportunity to clean the engine space in preparation for our new one which arrived in early January.   We had a few frustrations due to communication breakdowns and ended up with an engine which was not exactly what we wanted or expected.  This was extremely upsetting considering the amount of time, effort and research we had done, not to mention the huge expense of a new engine.    We were caught in a difficult conundrum – make a big fuss and insist on a new engine, with the result of delaying our launch and complicating our works schedule which had been carefully organised to coincide with the engine install, or bite the bullet and find a solution to the problem we now faced.  The national lockdown allowed one person working on the boat inside at any one time so we had carefully choreographed for people to come to the boat with no overlaps and give enough time for work to be completed by the end of March.   Andy, my Marine Engineer brother-in-law, had designed a new battery management plan for us, improving the way we generated and monitored our power, so we worked with him to ensure the new engine would work well with the plan.   Andy came up with some good solutions which allowed us to proceed with the “not perfect” engine and give us battery and regenerating options which we were comfortable with.   The compromise engine was fitted and in early January we were given our boat back so we could continue with other projects on our list.    A short time later, the riggers re-installed our mast, which had been removed in December and all of a sudden, we were a sailboat again.   It felt like we were making progress.

Getting an electrician to even look at the boat, was proving challenging.   We wanted to move, tidy up and replace most of the battery monitoring and charging units and we had soon exhausted all the recommended electricians who were too busy to complete the work within our two month window.   The same company who installed the engine had originally agreed to do the electrical work but now told us they could not start it until June and the boat would need to remain out of the water for what they estimated to be 200 hours of work.   Once again we felt let down and angry at the mis-communication, but as they obviously weren’t interested in the work and our confidence in them was fast diminishing, we turned them down and started looking for other electricians.   After making several calls for help and recommendations from the sailing community, we eventually split the job in two and found a couple of excellent electricians (Adrian and Richard) who together completed the entire job in less than 80 hours.   In an attempt to reduce the electricians time, we spent days chasing and labelling wires, removing old ones and learning as much as we could about the wiring on our boat.   Richard then continued tidying up and removed more old and unused cables, finding ways to hide some unsightly ones and giving recommendations on how we could improve other aspects of the boat.   As a marine surveyor, Richard has a huge amount of knowledge and expertise we could tap into, which we often did!  

In addition to sorting our electrics, Richard is also installing “Tommy” our heater, replacing the element in our hot water cylinder (currently we only have hot water after running the engine, but in future we hope to be able to heat water in a marina or when we use our generator), repairing our flexiteek deck and gives general advice on maintenance questions.   He really is a trove of information and we are incredibly lucky to have found him.  

While we continue with our boat work, Covid continues to have a devastating affect on the UK, Europe and the rest of the World, except New Zealand, it appears! We have been in lockdown, or certainly had restricted movements, for the last 12 months and any opportunity to visit family and friends while in the UK is fast disappearing for us. We have had close encounters with Covid and experienced the joys of a Covid test, and recently we felt fortunate to have qualified for the first in two vaccinations. The temporary vaccination centre, set up on a rural showground in the middle of nowhere, was run with British efficiency and military precision – we were in and out within 10 minutes of arriving with friendly staff directing us through the many levels of ID checks and information.

In late 2020 my son, Jak (who should’ve been travelling with his gorgeous girlfriend, Juliette when Covid destroyed their plans) proposed to his longtime partner.   They decided to have a short engagement and set the date of the wedding for February so they could go overseas in the middle of 2021.   I was devastated to not be there, as Covid restrictions made it impossible for me to return to NZ for a few weeks due to the managed isolation hotels being fully booked until April.  It is over a year since I have held my children and feel the pain of the distance between us every day, so missing out on such a special and important day in my son’s life was a very hard pill to swallow.   I know there are many other, bigger sacrifices people have made in the last 12 months so I consider myself very lucky to have been able to participate virtually, staying awake most of the night to watch the proceedings and enjoy the union of these two beautiful people.

It is now less than two weeks until we go back in the water and we still have a lot of work to complete.  Fortunately we have accepted an offer of help from a boatbuilding student called David, and we have prepared a list of jobs for him while Steve continues with our maintenance schedule and I start cleaning everything before we begin moving the soft furnishings back on board and making Cerulean feel like home again.   Lockdown restrictions are slowly being eased as the UK vaccination programme is rolled out.   We have decided to stay in the UK until we can have the second vaccine at the end of May as we feel this will improve our chances of having unrestricted access to other countries, so it’s worth extending our stay in the UK for a few weeks to achieve this. 

In the meantime, boat work continues and we look forward to being back on the water to test out all our new toys and systems.  Maybe then we can have a few days rest and just enjoy the privilege of living the life we have chosen.