In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we continue moving forward with our boat jobs but installing the cutlass bearing isn't one of them. Can you guess where our cutlass bearing is this week?

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Mr Tea - Rondo Brothers

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Oceans Rivers Canyons - ELPHNT

Transcript:
It's hot, we're sweaty and we don't

want to do this job. But we're doing the

job! Here's why

Those of you who've been

following us for quite some time, if

you cast your mind back you'll remember

that we had a bit of a saga with our

autopilot. The one that came with the

boats the orginal one, that gave up the

ghost and it was fairly old, so we got a

Raymarine guy in Turkey to replace

it with a Raymarine ST 6002 and it

all went well until we went on a

shakedown cruise and about halfway into

the shakedown cruise the autopilot died

That's what shakedown cruises are for really

Then we took it to Marmaris to

get it repaired and the nice guy Nail

repaired it fairly quickly and we

reinstalled it and sailed off into the

sunset and ended up in the Greek island

of Ios. Then we were anchor there for

maybe 10 days and just one day when I

switched on the systems just to transmit

our AIS signal the autopilot just died

all by itself, Well not the whole autopilot,

it's actually just the control

head. So we sent the autopilot control

head back to Marmaris with our friend

Jim and

Nail hooked it up and said "nothing

wrong with it mate, there you go"

So the autopilot then went from Marmaris back

to Kaş, then from Kaş Jim's son

came over from the UK and he took it

back to Scotland. From Scotland it was

mailed to Australia because we were

expecting the arrival of our son within

a few months for a holiday visit; he

couldn't make it, his plans changed quite

dramatically, so he then mailed the

autopilot from Australia to Greece

where we picked it up here

just before Christmas.

So the autopilot's actually been

around the world twice

So now is the time to hook it up

and see if it actually functions

So we've already emptied the locker as you

can see ... nice job to do on a hot day ... and

Baz is going to do an even nicer job

aren't you Baz? You're going in a hole. Again!

Well at least this hole is a bigger hole.

True!

What gets me about this whole wiring

system here it's that it's just been

MacGyvered to hell and to be honest with

you I don't know which bits go to which bit

All I know is that this bit goes up

there to that there

Which is that there

So I haven't really checked any cabling, all

I've done is plug the old cables back in

We're actually just gonna power up all of the

navigation systems the first time in

eight months, so let's see what happens

Right, get ready to put the chart plotter on

Okay. Can you see our position? Yes

That's the boatyard where we're at, not

far from Limni. That's a good sign

So the autopilot control head has

powered on. That's a good sign

GPS speed - well obviously you're not

moving. Depth might just come on. We have

a wind direction

which is the yellow line

We have a heading or a course which

is obviously not correct because it

keeps changing

I find it odd that we have no depth

343 magnetic. (AJ - Could it possibly know that we're not in the water?)

347 course over ground

Yeah maybe the maybe the

depth transducer needs to be in water

Let's see what happens when we push Auto

something engaged

Let's push one degree

[Soft mechanical sound]

hmm

[Soft mechanical sound]

[Each time Baz pushes a button,

there is a soft mechanical sound]

Back to stand-by

So it's disengaged

So let's just centre that rudder

And go back to Auto [Soft mechanical sound]

and let's go ten degrees [Soft mechanical sound]

and ten degrees back [Soft mechanical sound]

Well that is encouraging

Not sure why we're not

getting any depth reading at the moment

I don't know whether the transponder

needs to be in water to actually

function so if you know something about

depth transponders leave a message in

the comment down below and tell us

why we're not getting any depth

From this angle you get a better

perspective on some of the holes that

need filling here. There's one right here

and here and here and although they're

not very deep they're just another

purchase point for where sea life can

get ahold and grow on the keel so we're

gonna smooth these out as best as we can

with some filler today and

see what it looks like

The filler we're going to be

using is from the same manufacturer as

the epoxy primer and the anti foul paint

so we shouldn't have any issues with the

various liquids not talking nicely to

each other. This is a two part filler and

it's got a pot time around about thirty

minutes in the current temperature which

is around about 23 degrees Celsius

Never worked with this before like all of

these products I'm using, so we'll see

how we go. Oh and the mix on this one

is one to one

I mixed up 100 grams of component A

and 100 grams of component B for this

epoxy filler and it did say on the tin

that the life of it before it goes off

is about 30 minutes. I would suggest it's

probably a little bit less than 30

minutes so it's probably best to mix up

smaller amounts, use it and then mix a

fresh small amount and use it. I got most

of the holes I wanted filled filled to a

certain extent. This is our big one where

our bilge fiberglass area is behind here

and I've left that pretty rough looking

because I'm gonna have to sand that back

and then put another layer on there to

get it smooth with the surface of the

keel but all of the other little spots

are all quite nicely done and whited

This product says it's also ready for

sanding in about three to four hours

but just to be on the safe side I'm

going to leave the sanding until tomorrow

and then of course I will put a final

filling flattening coat

on this big section here

But yeah it's okay just mix

it up in small amounts and use it before

it goes off because once it starts going

off it gets really really tacky and it's

hard to smooth out

So that's another stage in getting the keel

prepared over and done with

It is the following day after using the

epoxy filler and it's time to break out

this bad boy onto the keel because we

need to smooth out the bits that were a

little bit rough by the time we got

close to the 30 minute mark where the stuff

started to go off and it was very

difficult to smooth out.

So lesson learned there let's see how

it goes with the sanding

A couple of days ago I put epoxy filler

into some of the more obvious and larger

holes on the rudder and I had some spare

epoxy primer over yesterday so I just

whacked it on the on the rudder and it's

exposed quite a lot more things that I

didn't initially see, there's lots of

little round holes here, there and

everywhere that obviously need a bit of

epoxy filler in them, so I'm gonna tackle

that today and also I'll be putting what

is hopefully the final coat of epoxy

filler on here and I'll let that dry

and then send it down so it's perfectly

smooth and then, then we can start adding

more layers of epoxy primer

Well now I've used the epoxy filler you

can get a better perspective of the

little round holes that I had to fill

on the rudder, obviously leave that to

dry overnight 24 hours and then come

tomorrow and give it a sand down and

then we can start with the epoxy primer

layers

And learning my lesson of how

quickly this epoxy filler goes off I

only mixed up half the amount that I did

last time so it was 50 grams of each and

once again it was a rush to the finish

line trying to get this last bit out of

the container and onto the keel before

it became so unmalleable that it

would be unworkable

anyway what we'll probably have to do is

mix up a very small amount and when it's

really liquid go over that and smooth

it off after we've sanded it tomorrow

Well here's an update on the cutlass

bearing saga. About a week ago I spoke to

the lady who runs the boat yard here

Evgenia, and asked her to call the Speedex

courier service head office in Athens

and she did and they said oh yes

okay we've got that package here the

reason why it couldn't be delivered was

because it didn't have a phone number

attached to it - which doesn't make sense

because other things have been delivered

and they've had no phone number

attached to them

Anyway moving on, they said well can

you give us your phone number - that's

Evgenia's phone number - and we'll

send it back out to Chalkida and they

will deliver it to Limni and they'll

phone you as soon as they're ready to deliver

So that was done.

Not 15 minutes later

Evgenia comes to the boat and says oh

there's something wrong, Speedex

don't have the package they sent it back

to DHL so we need to phone DHL

So we called DHL in Athens and they said

Oh yes it's been returned to us from Speedex

We have it here, it couldn't come

because it didn't have a phone number so

we now will take your phone number and

we'll send it back to Speedex and Speedex

will deliver it to Limni

So that was a week ago

and I was a bit surprised

when they didn't turn up last Thursday

or Friday which is the usual delivery

day for Speedex here and just half an

hour ago I got an email from Thomas at

Exalto UK, the bearings manufacturer

in the UK, he said he's just received a

return notification from DHL and the

bearing had actually already been sent

back to the UK. So Tom very kindly has

said look I'm going to get this out to

you either today or tomorrow at the

latest and we all send it at no cost to you

So he now has Evgenia's phone number

and that will it be applied to the

package so fingers crossed it should be

a couple of days before it comes to

Greece and then sometime in the next

week probably Thursday or Friday, fingers

crossed, Speedex will finally

deliver the cutlass

bearing to us in the boatyard

You can't make this stuff up can ya?

Anyway, I'm off for a beer now

Bye guys

Ah my friends go to Skiathos.

Skiathos is a beautiful place

Yeah. All is good!

Is that James Bond here? James Bond?

James Bond? Yeah. Yes!

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you next week on Sailing A B Sea

stay safe and healthy