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Blog 7 - Occupational Health & Danger
I am again at my paid job working away to fund the continuation of the yacht project.
Looking back on the past two week break and work on the yacht, following is a recount of what happened and memorable moments.
First three days were stripping out the aft end fittings bellow the water line, followed with meetings and picking up supplies. While waiting to lift out the motor, I decided to start the job of adding drain holes under the stringers (see pics of hull for example). Adding holes is so that any water in the bilge sloshed around would not be trapped in the stringers, then sit there and cause rust. Friday before Christmas after waking up late with only 25 minutes to spare to open an account to hire oxy-acetylene gear, I did a swifty and pulled it off. 
With oxy gear in hand I made my way down to the yacht for a late start. I set up the oxy gear, spent an hour practicing cutting out holes with scrap steel and then transferred the oxy set aboard the yacht. With oxy gear set up on the yacht and fire precautions in place. I cut holes in two of the stringers; they turned out to large and messy. While using the oxy touché I discovered that all of the stringers do in fact have drain holes that were pre cut into the stringers prior to the original construction. The drain holes are very small and I did not see them due to all the crap in the hull from the original fire and rust scale. So now I have two new ugly holes that I made that need to be welded up, as well I am trying to find an excuse to use the oxy set so I don’t feel so stupid for not looking harder in the first place.
Next we finally lifted out the motor. All I can say about lifting out the motor is I am sincerely sorry to you I did not have the video camera set up to record the antics. Since there is no video evidence, I don’t want to tell you all about it and dob us in. What I will say is this; I now understand the terminology of synergistic effects when certain chemicals are combined and their potential to cause great amounts of heat and smoke. Secondly Yanmar motors are very robust and handle a roll over very well, all good fun and probably best the video camera was off.
The last jobs of my break were; commenced cutting out the stern tube
. Degreasing in the hull and bilge, which is never a pleasant job especially in the Australian summer heat. It was 38 degrees that day outside the steel yacht and much hotter within. Looking back I completed 65% of the work that I had planned to for this break. And about 80% of the work that was practical, due to working alone and being Christmas.
Thanks to Peter the Naval Architect for his comments to the blogs. I will reply to the one that mentions I may have problems with a shortness of recourse. As this is very true, I need to get help with the project and employ trades people to do some of the work. One of the main jobs is removing the current stern tube and replacing it. I have started to cut the tube out and handed over the remaining work to a marine engineer to take care of while I am back at work.
This is enough for this blog as I will be writing another blog updating the next plan of refit action. You can expect in the next blog some technical details about replacement parts and equipment being used in the refit. The yacht was only built a decade ago but there is some great new gear on the market such as PSS Shaft Seals which is a drip less stern gland.
Welcome to 2011, your wanna be skipper