Maintenance at Hamburg

“Time passes and you must move on, half the distance takes you twice as long.” - Glen Frey

Ariadne was scheduled to be sailed to Finland in May. Before that, I should get the spring renovation done - myself - because I would have been immensely suspected if someone else would do all the job and convince me that everything was fine.

In January, I also went to Hamburg on a work trip and spent two days at Ariadne. The car drove more than well, 12,000 km still not felt in any way in the C-Series touring. I kept my residence with the previous owner couple. They lived in a half-hour drive from Hamburger Yachthafen - Gemeinschaft e.V. the marina which I understand was the largest in Hamburg. The two days passed quickly, one day with a yacht inspector. He himself had a wooden Dragon. After wondering and photographing for some time he said “I like your boat” while sitting behind the wheel. Was it a tasting of a paying customer? Hard to say with certainty, though said that it is no custom of saying so. He has reportedly seen quite gruesome cases. Well, practically the whole day went to the inspection, and when the guy left, I was left to take stock and wonder. The next day, I began to outline in more detail the work to be done that would be enough for a few years. One task was to ensure fuel supply, as there was no information on the content of the integrated 300l of fuel. Old Mr. H.B. though said that “we never had any problems with the fuel.” Hmmm ………

The first gig with Pösö

The time of the first actual renovation gig was 14.3 - 20.3. I went thru different modes of travelling to Hamburg and finally ended up driving there by car, my Pösö. First to Turku early in the morning on March 14, on the Viking Line to Stockholm, in the evening out of the ferry and from there towards Denmark. The night went surprisingly well awake, certainly it was a requirement as I was driving to Hamburg alone. A few stops for walking and refueling and one hour for short sleep.

In the morning I drove along the big bridge from the Swedish side to Copenhagen to say hello to my friend and then towards Germany. In the afternoon I arrived at the previous owner where I had agreed to stay again.

There, the service was great. I stayed in an old office space, there was a fridge in the corner with snacks and local beer and Lisa refueled the thermos every early morning to a full coffee, excellent! Communication was in German and sometimes ein bischen in English.

I started the renovation work at the propeller shaft area of the bilge by cleaning it from rust. The shaft in the maschineraum had dripped for several years and thus some steel had had to change to rust. Cleaning two rows of bilge out of rust turned out to be quite a hard task. Partly because I wanted the cleanest possible surface, secondly because the space was a bit cramped, and thirdly because the temperature in the space rose quite a lot, as did the amount of dust in both the air and the face.

The blade in the angle grinder effectively removed rust. The Fein and saw blade combo also proved to be good at getting the rust off. I had designed Inerta epoxy paint as the topcoat. After spotting a Zinga can by one of the boats, I ended up researching the data for that zinc coating in the evening. It looks good, especially when it was not the actual paint but more zinc mass. Where can you get it? In Hamburg, too, you would think there was such a store, but where …. hmm ……. The old familiar online store, ie svb.de, said the paint was on the shelf. hmmm ….. It’s not more than 1.5 hours away, in Bremen.

In the morning I turned the bow of my car towards Bremen. The SVB was found painlessly with the help of a navigator. To the store with a shopping cart. Zinga and its topcoat were easily found. Yeah, I could probably take few International Schooner varnish jars.  Zum Teufel! this costs 21,50 ??? The same jar costs 45 in Finland. That is what the common EU market does. I loaded four cans to the cart. Further on in the store, I grabbed Raymarine VHF and a NMEA box that could handle to download from several NMEA0183 interfaces and NMEA2000 and pass NMEA0183 messages out to two ports, WLAN and USB outputs. It would connect the AIS GPS data to the VHF and the GPS and AIS data to the navigation computer, in some time in the future.

When I got back to Ariadne, I cleaned the bilge even cleaner and got more dirty myself, and finally painted Zinga in the bilge. After that, I started sanding varnished surfaces, cockpit, scandeck and ruff walls. The purpose of the varnish was not to get a immaculate 9 layer type surface,  but to stop the cracking of the old varnish and to protect the wood from water and sun with a few coats of varnish. The so-called TJ refurbishment. After grinding, I looked at the clock and found that I did have some time left. I quickly sanded the walls of the cockpit and ruff. A quick look at the clock, 7 p.m. The hall closes at 8 pm so I still have time to varnish some more.

I drove completely exhausted through the junk food restaurant to the cabin and went to sleep.

The overhaul program included dismantling the toilet, making a septic tank model, and adding zinga and varnish. I finished the cardboard model of the septic tank on the 19th at noon and then it was time to go to Stockholm.

20th of March

I was in Stockholm at 6 in the morning and stayed in line with a few other early motorists for a ferry ride. In the evening I was home again.

March 27

To Suomenlinna by car, Jess! I took the sails for inspection to Meripurje in Suomenlinna. Another option would have been WB-Sails in Lauttasaari but apparently it would have been too easy. The sail maker was in the Viapori dock area, of course, upstairs in the old hall, so the carrying of the sails with my own hands and feet (there was an elevator there ??) several floors up to the attic of the big hall was a brisk gym workout. After breathing heavily for a moment outside the door to equalize my breathing, I stepped in, took off my shoes, and exchanged a few words with Tom about what should be done to the sails and, most importantly, what could be done to them. Tom promised the sails would be ready in a couple of weeks, just right for the next overhaul gig.

I sipped the cardboard model of the septic tank to Arifin in Inkoo, whose blacksmith promised that the tank would be suitably ready just before the time of my next renovation trip. I had also outlined about a 40l day tank for fuel to which fuel could be pumped from the main tank by an electric pump through the filters. Good idea.

April 11

Pick-up of sails from Suomenlinna.

Another Pösö gig I already started the 15th day with the loading of car. The goods supposed to be including: -42l fuel tank, fitters and electric pump, sails, brand new Webasto, own sailing gear, crew’s five sailing gears, 100l septic tank, AIS transmitter / receiver and tools. The only empty space in the car was the driver’s seat after I had unloaded Webasto from the box and placed its parts around the car.

I turned the bow of a fully packed Pösö towards Turku on the 16th morning. I drove to the ferry and wandered around the ferry for the day. The ferry arrived in Stockholm on schedule and I drove on the already familiar E4 to Gothenburg and Malmö. There were fewer stops this time than last time.

April 17

I was in Hamburg around noon on the 17th and drove straight to Ariadne and started emptying the car. The unloading took few hours and after that I painted Zinga topcoat and did some more varnishing. The guard came to the hall at 19.50 and told me to leave and so I did.

At the residence, there was a small salty piece of food and a beer. The topics of discussion were e.g. immigration and politics. More than tired I went to sleep.

April 18-20

On the 18th morning I drove via the hardware store to Ariadne. At the hardware store I grabbed some steel on which I thought I would put a septic tank. Day 18 passed far too quickly. The launch was scheduled for the 21st morning and all the work took more time than I had originally planned. On the morning of the 19th, I picked up the pieces of pipes, the drain pump and the valves needed by the septic from SVB, after which I continued to install the septic tank. The original plan to install the fuel day tank fell into the future. Day 20 went to misc work to get to a state where the boat could be lowered into the water, batteries and engine inspected, mast out, new wires to it and the entire mast ready for lifting.

Dinner at the local