John B

I wouldn't worry about that, the boatyard is empty because everyone goes to Whangarei , where every boatyard is full and buzzing, businesses doing well etc etc.

How come sense applies in Auckland, where we're free to anchor in infected areas and are asked to simply check our anchors and collect/ dispose, or dump the weed where we found it, yet in the BOI they just close down the anchorages. In other words Auckland has an educational ,reasonable, workable response, Bay of Islands a draconian one. If there was just one success in the Bay, if they just cleared and opened one of the closed anchorages after all this money and all this effort, they'd have support. But they can't even do that. Not one of the areas closed what 2? 3 ? years ago has been o

The barnacles arrived in Opua in 2016 according to the yard guys and other local boaties. Certainly an eye opener for transplanted Westhaven people like moi. We discovered them in 2017 when waiting for two weeks in the marina to depart. There were late cyclones / named storms in the tropics that year. The slime this year in the BOI is different, you're right. ( above post). It does just wipe off but it is fast to arrive.

YNZ decided to abandon cruising yachties , walk away from us and hand us to some understaffed , overworked VTNZ for boats in the form of Maritime NZ. I have no sympathy for YNZ at all , they can rot in hell, this is just another indicator of just how disfunctional that organisation is.

MNZ, shutting down offshore cruising for Kiwi registered boats. 3 months FFS. I suppose they'll want the third crewmember name that Insurance forces you to have as well. The system is broken , this was an opportunity to deregulate the process instead of putting more hurdles in front of us. I tell you what is funny, the old YNZ Cat system was criticized as difficult and yet it was downright holistic and simple compared to these guys.

The best program we had in 17 and 19 was ovitalmap. What it did was cache whatever you looked at down through the layers when in wifi or cell coverage. I did that at home in NZ for every place I thought we'd visit in Tonga and Fiji. Then I had Google earth with our position on it without using cell or wifi. Unfortunately they were using Google and Bing without permission and they were copywrited out and are now prevented from using it. We went with navionics on our old 2009 plotter and isailor on tablet, funnily enough our navionics was really good but some of the boats with the updated

Is it running on 12 Volts or through an inverter?

I've been in and out of that pass a dozen times perhaps, it's pretty straightforward, Looks like the bommie on the outer western side. We were part of a group swimming and diving the pass a few years ago, some of the guys were resting, standing on that outcrop.A superyacht arrived intending to go in, blew their horn at them to get out of the way.ah, um, we're standing on something very hard... He eventually caught on and did a circle for another go. As he went past and into the pass, several people called out the Fulaga mantra.. stay in the centre and at the end hang close to the rock(

John Mac Farlane did a boating article on colours. As I recall there was a surprising difference even between white and gray let alone the darker colours. Then again , our 49 yr old boat is blue over cold moulded kauri and a boat cloth sheathing, paint job needs to be done ,patches etc, but its 20 yrs old and serviceable. Waitangi is glassed, incidentally.

Reminds me of a certain French production cat owner who went for a swim in Neiafu ( 2017) and thought .. 'thats funny'. one rudder gone altogether , and it had slime on the broken rudder shaft ( flush with the hull).

Check the bearings on the motor, I had the top/ main bearing fail and progressively seize after 20 years and the covid down time. It needed pressing out and replacing with a new sealed bearing. Of course while it's out you'd refresh brushes and go over it or get it gone over . Grease up the gearbox and check the gears and bearings in there too.

^ We cleared in that friday morning after a midnight arrival from Fiji, Essence was lost on the monday . We use Bruce as well but actually left a day in advance of his recommended departure , sucked up the pain for that first two days too. But I'm glad we did and had a little in the bank. NV had left before us but had to return with broken gear, So I think they ended up leaving about the same time as Essence, maybe a day later ?. But they stopped and idled around roughly Norfolk latitude and let it go through below them. I was impressed by that seamanship. I never did discover why they

Its dry and needs grease( as the photo indicates and others have said), either persevere with the cup or remove the cup and replace with a zerk/grease nipple, get a small grease gun with a flex pipe that gets it nearer where you can reach and pump it up. Next step , hose clamp the gun to something like a bulkhead or inside a locker and leave it there. Thats a remote greaser. 30 dollar solution. Or by a Henleys remote greaser ( do they still make em?) you won't regret the investment. I don't believe that lip seals shaft seals should be retrofitted to old installations unless the prop

Does it have a grease cup, most NZ units do. I first gimmicked up a small grease gun to make a remote greaser a couple of feet up and nearer to hand, but later bought a specific device from Henleys to do that job. Ie a 1/4 or 1/2 turn as required or on leaving the boat.

Two thoughts . CorrosionX saved my bacon with a rigging job. saturate it with that. The reefrite company still trades in Kerikeri, you could ring them, see if there's some hidden grub screw etc.