Sailing Around Australia; Fortunately, Unfortunately

Location;  Lincoln Cove Marina, Port Lincoln, South Australia

This week aboard Easy Tiger on our sailing around Australia Adventures, we have been looking into all our maintenance and repair issues.

We did want to be out exploring the Joseph Banks group of Islands, or Tumby bay as Zofia has, but we have had a few issues to sort out first.

One item on our list was anti fouling. This involves getting Easy Tiger out of the water and giving the bottom of the hulls a scrub clean then applying a coat of anti fouling paint. This means that barnacles, weed and other such things cannot attach themselves to the boat and cause resistance in moving through the water.

A ring around of the local slipways revealed that the cost of this service in Port Lincoln was through the roof and bordering on the ridiculous. Nearly four times the price it was at Fremantle! Plus facilities are great if you are a 2 hundred tonne steel fishing boat. We are a 9 tonne fibreglass sailing boat. They did suggest that they could pull Easy Tiger out by balancing it on a sea container.

Fortunately, we do not have to do it straight away. We discussed this on the jetty with other “boaties” and it was suggested that we dive under the boat to scrub off what is there. That would mean we could leave the coating of anti foul for somewhere cheaper and more catamaran friendly.

Unfortunately, we would have to get someone to do this for us as there had been a nine foot shark seen swimming around here a few weeks ago. Three or four boats advertising shark cage diving experience are parked nearby in the marina. I don’t want that experience and definitely not without the cage!  Plus the water temperature is very cold so not wanting to copy the brasss monkey was another reason I wasn’t going in anytime soon. A couple of divers who could do the work were recommended to us.

Fortunately, a few hours later, a guy wearing a wetsuit and carrying hooker hose wandered along the jetty. “Do you dive on boats?” I asked. Unfortunately he said “no, he was just doing his own”. I said I just wanted to see if there were barnacles on my prop’s. He said if he had enough air left he would have a look for me.

An hour or so later I heard the bubbles under Easy Tiger. Fortunately he had had enough air left and as he came up, blue from the cold, he said that fortunately, there were no barnacles on our props. Unfortunately though, he found that the starboard side propeller was loose on the shaft and needed attention.

Fortunately, the guy we had diving under our boat was Hayden McFarlane, a partner in PSE who are specialists in marine engineering. Unfortunately for Hayden, he offered to help fix our propeller and had to spend another half hour in the chilly water trying to tighten it up. Unfortunately it didn’t want to tighten up. Hayden came back the next day to remove all the parts, so that we could determine the problem.

Unfortunately, particularly for Leanne, the cause of the problem was found to be the fishing line she wrapped around the propeller at Two Peoples Bay before Christmas. It had got into the rubber hub of the propeller and worn it away, meaning the propeller needs to be replaced.

Fortunately, this meant that we might as well look around at all the different propellers on the market and see if we could find something a bit better. We have two blade folding propellers at the moment. A three bladed propeller could give us better maneuverability and maybe give us an extra knot of speed under motor, but the advantages of these does not justify the price.

Unfortunately we will have to replace the existing propeller and not have some nice new fangled go faster ones. Fortunately, Hayden will be able to fit the replacement with the boat in the water.

Unfortunately we are stuck in the marina for at least another week so we have started work on the list of things to be done. Fortunately, the weather is raining, bleak and cold, so it’s not so good for sailing any way.

Leanne took these great bird shots at Memory Cove.