Teak, teak and more teak!

Don't get me wrong, we love the look of beautiful, warm, freshly varnished teak. However, I spent the first 3 1/2 years of my professional boating career aboard a tall ship that was covered in teak, all of which needed varnishing. It was kind of like a bridge, once you get it all done, you go back to the beginning and start again.

We decided after we had varnished the same item several times over the years, that we would never own a boat endowed with lots of teak. And here we have ended up with one...best laid plans of mice and men I guess.

Whilst researching Marine Traders during the survey and pre-purchase process, I came across the Trawler Beach House blog. Chuck had posted about removing the hand rail and brow teak on Beach House, which seemed like a very sensible thing to do, not only to reduce the required varnish work, but more importantly to ensure there was no chance of water ingress.

So work has begun which is best shown with photos.

The teak is in pretty bad shape having been sanded so much over the last 30 years, so removal really is the best thing to do.

An unofficial name change

I am not a great fan of changing the name of a boat. I am not really all that superstitious about it, but having sailed around the world a couple of times, I have seen first hand what old Neptune can throw up at you, and don't really like to push my luck, even after performing the well documented name changing ceremony.

When we bought the boat she was called Nostra Signora Dei Turchie - Italian for 'Our lady of the Turks' A bit of a mouth full really and has no meaning to us.

So keeping in mind that we didn't want to change the name, we simply shortened it to 'Nostra Signora' or 'Our Lady', presented a suitable offering to Neptune, and away we went.

However at the same time, one or our friends who has the ability to look at a situation from a parallel universe, theorized that because the boat was built in Taiwan and that she is a trawler yacht, the only possible name for the boat was the 'Prawn Cracker'. This has since been shortened into just the 'Cracker'.

So unless we are announcing ourselves over the radio to a marina or some other such official requirement, to one and all she has affectionately become known as the 'Prawn Cracker' or 'Cracker' for short!

Teak Decking

I am a great fan of teak decks. Although as we all know, whilst they are ascetically beautiful, and nice under foot, they can cause major problems if not installed correctly or sufficiently maintained, especially on an older boat.
Luckily the "Cracker" (our nickname for the boat which requires a post of it's own to explain why) has had her decks replaced in the not to distant past. The info from the previous owner was that main decks are around 5 years old, and the upper decks are only a couple of years old.
Not owning the boat at the time, I can only guess at how the main decks were laid, but the construction is made up of 16mm ply with 8mm teak planks laid on top.
Thankfully there are only screws in the margin boards and no leaks in the actual boat, but there is a problem with the edge of they ply where it meets the scuppers. It seems that if the ply edge was sealed at all, the sealant has worn away leaving the bare edge ply open to the water from the scuppers, and has therefore started to rot.
My pre winter job list has consisted of making sure the boat is absolutely water tight before the rains begin, so this decking repair has suddenly risen to the top.

I am a great believer of the KIS method (keep is simple), so I simply sanded the edge of the decking along the scuppers and removed the worst of the rotten ply. Left it to dry over several sunny days to ensure there was no moisture trapped under the deck. Then after taping along the edge of the deck and about 1 cm from the deck in the scupper, using a spatula, I carefully filled the gap with SP Systems 2 part epoxy filler. To create a nice profile I went back along the filler with a half round rubber tool, thus both sealing the exposed ply and creating a nice profile.

Next was to sand the profile, which is a very labor intensive and boring job!

 Finally I will sand the bulwarks and prep for painting the lot with 2 part primer and 2 part Gloss top coat........but that is for another weekend and post!

Near anchoring mishap in Montenegro

I posted this at the Trawler forum but for some reason several readers could not see the images. So here it is for those that could not see them.


I thought people might find it interesting to hear about a close call we had last weekend, how we got into it, and how we got out of it.

It was my wife's birthday on Saturday and we had arranged to have a party at a local beach bar with a jetty that one can anchor off stern too, or 'Med' Moor'.
This is a fairly standard practice over this side of the pond so we didn't really think much of it in the planning process.

Porto Montenegro Yacht Club

Nostra Signora had the honour of acting as the the race committee boat during our recent regatta at the Porto Montenegro Yacht Club.

It was a Blu26 match race held over 3 days.

The club purchased 4 Blu26's last year and we have been racing them very regularly ever since.

Life's ups and downs

Just when all is going well in life, perhaps too well, all of a sudden reality kicks in and you can suddenly, tragically and unexpectedly be blindsided.

After the delivery of the boat to Montenegro, I arranged for her to be lifted and anti-fouled.

This all went without a hitch and the following Saturday NS was sporting a brand new painted bottom.

Delivering the new boat - Italy to Montenegro

Time rolls on as time tends to do, which is my way of saying even with the best of intentions to update this blog on a regular basis, I have not been so diligent.
So 5 weeks after the delivery from Italy to Montenegro, here is the account of it as best as I can remember.

Myself, JS and AS arrived on the boat at 2030 after a flight from Montenegro to Slovenia and a 2 hour drive to the boat, only to be greeted by the engineers who where madly trying to finish off the jobs that should have been completed weeks earlier! All in all though the guys did do a reasonable job and we had no major issues on the trip.
The provisions went aboard along with several cases of Italian wine that is so hard to find in Montenegro. Systems were tested, the spotlight rigged up to a spare battery (this was essential for navigating out of the narrow channel from the marina to the Adriatic sea), fuel was delivered by jerry can with the help of a couple of great friends who also had a boat near by (thanks guys!), a pizza eaten, immigration taken care of, 101 things madly stowed, and we were away by 0200.
After a slow meander through a very narrow channel on a moonless night where the spotlight came into its own by illuminating the post that were spaced every 100 meters or so, we headed out into open sea bound for Croatia.

Heading for the Adriatic