If you’d like a shorter/summarized version of our posts, read only the “Highlights” section below and stop before “The Captain’s Log“, which is much more detailed, more like a logbook / diary and contains information for our reference as well.
We write the text for our website in English. The multiple language selection feature is an auto-translation by Google. This translation is not perfect; it sometimes uses peculiar words and even expresses things in a very different way than what we actually meant. So, if you’re reading in a language other than English, and you read something strange, switch back to the English version to read what we actually meant to write!
Highlights – the overview
Finally the rain stops for a bit. We arrange a lift vehicle called
The Manitou” to take Wim up to the mizzen mast to remove the old wind generator and prepare for its replacement. The lift operator supplies a safety harness even though Wim will be on a safe platform.
So, let’s go up!
So, let’s go up! And disassemble the wind generator…
He’s down. Our little wind-monster that gave us so much precious kilowatt-hours.
Sher leaves early today. They will start sewing the dinghy covers at the marina office building over the weekend.
She takes the Sailrite sewing machine with her. It’s heavy. We had to lower it down with the main halyard.
Wim mounts the rotor blades for the new wind generator and does all the preparation for mounting it.
Meanwhile, in the marina, Sher is doing a nice job on the dinghy cover with the Sailrite.
In the marina building, the ladies are busy sewing. They’re making covers for 3 dinghy’s: ours, “Bird Song” and “Zee van tijd”. Sacha (she has been a professional sail maker), explains to Sher.
The weather is still crappy. Lots of wind and rain caused by these huge Atlantic depressions. This low pressure system (in the blue circle) reaches from Morocco to Iceland, 2000 nautical miles! And it hit the Portuguese coast with a full blast.
So no one can get their outdoor boat projects done… we need to stay in the boatyard longer, and people are waiting to come in and getting dates postponed.
But there’s a break from the rain and Bird Song dinghy get’s its fitting and the dinghy covers are almost done… just one more step. Our dinghy cover is coming along, but needs to wait for better weather to get fitted and assembled.
A dry moment! We remove the solar panels from the sun tent over the cockpit. Sher is going to make some modifications. She’s going to make pockets for the battens that support the solar panels and adjust the opening around the mast so the halyard doesn’t rub on it.
After we have measured and marked everything we take the tent down.
We have to do some laundry. So, Wim connects the drain hose to the drain of the washing machine, which feeds back into the sewage pit. Life in the boatyard… it calls for compromise and creativity, as well as hard work! To say nothing of the bucket (with lid) at night, so you don’t need to get dressed, climb down a ladder, and walk in the dark to go pee.
The fabric from the cockpit sun tent is a bit dirty. Since it’s rainy and windy all the time, Wim decides to clean it on the bathroom floor. Scrubbing it with hot water and some detergent, it is a big wet party with Wim in his birthday suit 💦😅💦. But in the end, it’s nice and clean! We let it hang on the bar to dry.
We have postponed our launch (was on Friday) again. Thursday, there seems to be a dry afternoon so hopefully the welder guy will come. But after that we will need a number of days with good weather for 6 layers of primer and a layer of Coppercoat. And after that, the Coppercoat has to cure for a couple of days before we can go back into the water.
In the evening, there’s heavy rain. We use a bucket to pee in at night. Sher says, “there’s such a huge amount of water outside, nobody will see if we use our toilet to pee (with lots of fresh water and no paper in the toilet), as it will be flushed away by all that rain, right? 🤫 Wim, with an absent mind, says, “yeah, sure, no problem”. And Sher uses the toilet and flushes. She says: oh, it was good to flush with fresh water because the water in toilet got stinky after all that time. Nice. After that, Wim does the same.
An hour later, Wim is thinking about what a good idea that was, to flush the toilet in this weather… it cleans the hose a little more… the hose?? The hose??? Oh no!!! Suddenly he realizes that the hose is not connected! He had trouble with the hose clamps on the through-hull valve and he has ordered a new, heavy duty one on Amazon! Oops! 😮 We discharged the toilet in the boat under the floor!! 😱 We open the hatches in the floor and there’s a lot of water… it’s late, but we’ll have to clean this now, tomorrow it will smell awful… So, we get the wet vac and vacuum all compartments. We have to take out all the battery cable stored in bags, as everything is wet. We clean everything with detergent and dry everything. The humidity was already high but now the windows are steamy 💦💦 We can’t open a hatch because of the pouring rain so we turn on the heating, the blower, the fan in bathroom and the galley dorade/vent and go to bed. Hopefully everything will be dry in the morning…
We didn’t sleep well. It was way too hot with the heating on.
When we check under the floor, it’s not really dry yet. So, we put 2 fans to blow some air under the floor.
Well, the sun is shining and we open the companionway. In no time, the humidity goes down to 50% and after breakfast, the area under floor is dry.
So, put all bags of cable back under the floor. Actually, it’s nice opportunity to re-organize everything…
In the “Friends of Manoliño” WhatsApp group, we get a message from the German boat “Müggele”. They are anchored in the Guadiana river on the border between Spain and Portugal, and because of all the rain, 2 dams are discharging a huge amount of water. The current in the river has gone to 8 knots and the water level has risen 8m!! They were rescued last night by the maritime police and they are ashore while their boat is still at anchor! How awful!! The situation is dramatic. A large number of boats lost their anchor and are adrift. Lots of big debris in the river (like boats, logs and entire trees) that could hit their boat. Oops… we’re happy to be safely located on land in the boatyard…🫡
Meanwhile, we have been waiting 2 weeks now for the welder guy to come and do some work. This afternoon the weather is reasonably good. We send a message and wait…
There he is! With a colleague.
They immediately get to work! Wim has to switch off all electric systems and disconnect the starter battery quickly! The electric currents while welding on the boat could damage things…
He cuts out a square with the depth sensor pot.
After the outside has been welded, he welds it from the inside.
Then he welds the hole where the speed sensor was. He brought a round piece of 5mm steel for that.
The hole for the new mount has to be a little bit bigger than the old one (from 52mm to 56mm). So, mill it. And finally we’re done!
All right. This work is done. Now, we don’t have to wait for anyone any more and have our own schedule: painting! And that depends on weather…
We celebrate this with a delicious Tandoori chicken dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant in Portimao… Sikandar! 😋
Then it’s back to our projects… Wim assembles the new wind generator base.
Sher works on modifications to the cockpit sun shade. She’s sewing in guides and end pockets for the battens to mount the solar panels.
The weather is horrible! All day rain and wind. Even some thunderstorms with hail! It looks like we won’t be able to start painting for a few days at least!
Wim removes some rust which is under the paint by where the welding was done. He did this before in this bilge and re-painted it. But it seems the rust continues under the paint. Obviously the rust wasn’t removed well enough. This time, we’ll sand-blast these spots. Hopefully that will provide a better adhesion for the primer.
Sher begins fitting the pieces of fabric together for the battens on the cockpit sun shade.
Hm. So that’s why sail makers have such big workshops. 😅It’s hard to lay everything out, especially since we have things all over the place while we have other projects in process, but somehow Sher manages.
Finally it stops raining, and Wim starts to make a shape around the new transducer pot. A nice convex shape has to be made with epoxy filler in order to have a nice flow of water for the speed transducer with no turbulence or accelerations. This will take many layers to build up the correct form.
Also Sacha comes to help Sher work on the dinghy cover and fit it, since the weather is nice. They start sewing the parts that were made from the patterns together.
We put the dinghy on a piece of plastic next to Dione IV to fit the cover. The boatyard ground is very dirty and full of rusty dust.
In the afternoon, the cover is ready for a first fit!
It fits perfect! Well, almost. There’s a lot of work to be done yet and a little refitting on the back pieces, but this a great step!
One eye on the bow serves as a reference for the position.
Then, they start cutting the holes for everything.
Great job! 🤩
Meanwhile, layer after layer, Wim applies more epoxy filler. It’s slow going, and the more he puts on, the heavier it gets and wants to droop down. But Wim woke up with an idea: use plastic to keep the filler in place. We have this agricultural PE plastic foil. Nothing sticks to that. Use duct tape to keep it in place. Yay, success!
Sacha comes again to help Sher with cutting the holes in the dinghy cover. A very precise and delicate job!
She explains how to do the bindings around the holes. That’s the next step.
Meanwhile, Wim prepares the new wind generator. Soldering the wires.
Then it’s back to epoxy filling… Bit by bit some shape forms around the transducer.
There’s still lots more to do. We are extending our time in the boatyard and now, instead of extending week by week, they just ask that we tell them as soon as possible when we are ready, lol! So we’re going to need another post to continue on the progress and tell you all about the additional projects… step by step. That’s how it is when you are in the boatyard. Stay tuned for Boatyard III. 🙂
The Captain’s Log [T588,589,…605] – the complete story
But today, the morning looks fine with no rain and no wind forecasted. They have a nice Manitou lift truck here which can be used for rigging and hoisting jobs. We have decided to use that for exchanging our wind generator. It costs €94 per hour (including an operator) but it saves the hassle of taking our mizzen mast down. So, in the morning Wim goes to the office to request the Manitou. They can come right away! Quickly he gathers some tools.
The Manitou operator supplies a safety harness. Hm, Wim thinks: not best one… although these will prevent you from falling, it will break your ribs and if you’re not rescued very quickly you choke because you cant breathe. We have a much better harness ourselves, with legs and back support.
But okay, nobody is going to fall down from a well protected platform today 😅
So, let’s go up!
And disassemble the wind generator.
He’s down. Our little windmonster that gave us so much precious kilowatt-hours.
And disassembled to go to the recycling.
With the grinder, Wim cuts away everything from the base that is not needed any more.
And this is what’s left to mount the new windmonster on!
While Sher continues her preparations for the dinghy cover.
In the afternoon, Wim finishes the lazarette working lights.
A real improvement. Some painting has to be done yet.
January 31.
Sher leaves early. They will start sewing the dinghy covers at the marina office building today.
She takes the Sailrite sewing machine with her. It’s heavy. We had to lower it down with the main halyard.
Wim mounts the rotor blades for the new wind generator.
They are stainless steel bolts and nuts. Bummer! the second nut seizes on the bolt! It takes a lot of trouble to release it and after that, the thread on the bolt has to be restored and the nut replaced. For the other bolts, Wim uses anti-seize-paste.
With the bolt hand-tightened, Wim checks the balance of the blades. On our previous wind generator, the blades had to be balanced using extra washers so Wim checks it very carefully. But there is no unbalance at all! These blades are perfect!
The M8 bolts have to be tension-ed to full force according the manual. 25nM. Wim has to use the large socket wrench to do that.
The rotor is ready now. We will paint the steel galvanized base with a special paint for galvanized steel (Spanish stuff, bought on Amazon). The galvanizing isn’t done really well so it will get rusty in no time. That’s why we’re going to protect it with white paint.
Meanwhile, in the marina, Sher is doing a nice job on the dinghy cover with the Sailrite.
February 1.
The weather is still crappy. Lots of wind and rain. Like we wrote before, it’s caused by these huge Atlantic depressions. This low pressure system (in the blue circle) reaches from Morocco to Iceland, 2000 nautical miles! And it hit the Portuguese coast with a full blast.
And zooming out, the next one is already cuing up… We’ll get that one later this week.
Warnings from the Portuguese weather institute. Because of the constant strong westerly winds, the ocean builds up a huge swell. Up to 11 meters!
Not only the coast suffers, inland there’s risk of flooding.
Because of the rain, Wim paints the rotor mount indoors.
This is the paint for galvanized steel we bought on Amazon. Let’s hope it’s good…
In the marina building, the ladies are busy sewing. They’re making covers for 3 dinghy’s: ours, “Bird Song” and “Zee van tijd”.
Sacha (she has been a professional sail maker), explains to Sher.
The first one (“Bird Song”) is almost ready.
One last piece to do!
February 2.
A dry moment! We remove the solar panels from the sun tent over the cockpit. Sher is going to make some modifications. She’s going to make pockets for the battens that support the solar panels.
After we have measured and marked everything we take the tent down.
We have to do some laundry. So, Wim connects the drain hose to the drain of the washing machine.
And leads it back to sewage pit.
February 3.
The weather is still crappy. Sometimes a little sunny spell but there’s a lot of wind and rain showers. Sometimes, this combination results in a rainbow!
The fabric from the cockpit sun tent is a bit dirty. Since it’s rainy and windy all the time , Wim decides to clean it on the bathroom floor. Scrubbing it with hot water and some detergent, it is a big wet party with Wim in his birthday suit 💦😅💦. But in the end, it’s nice and clean! We let it hang on the bar to dry.
In the afternoon, Wim paints the new wind generator rotor with another layer. It has 4 thick layers of paint now. That should do it.
February 4.
A new storm passes. Strong wind and lots of rain. The wind is southwest/west and we have some shelter from the city of Portimão. The wind is very gusty, in gusts 30-40 knots.
Since it’s pouring all day, we stay inside and do some computer work. Sher does some sewing on her new pajama and she prepares the cockpit tent for its modifications.
Wim prepares the new junction boxes for the wind generator cables in the mast top. But mounting these will probably have to wait till after the weekend… It will be stormy the next couple of days.
We have postponed our launch (was on Friday) again. Thursday, there seems to be a dry afternoon so hopefully the welder guy will come. But after that we will need a number of days with good weather for 6 layers of primer and a layer op CopperCoat. And after that, the Coppercoat has to cure for a couple of days before we can go back into the water.
In the evening, there’s heavy rain. We use a bucket to pee in, at night. Sher says: there’s such a huge amount of water outside, nobody will see if we use our toilet and it will flush away by all that rain, right? Flushing with a lot of water and no paper. 🤫 Wim, with an absent mind, says: yeah, sure, no problem. And Sher uses the toilet and flushes. She says: oh, it was good to flush with fresh water because the water in toilet got stinky after all that time. Nice. After that, Wim does the same.
An hour later, Wim is thinking about what a good idea that was, to flush the toilet in this weather… it cleans the hose a little more… the hose?? The hose??? Oh no!!! Suddenly he realizes that the hose is not connected! He had trouble with the hose clamps on the through-hull valve and he has ordered a new, heavy duty one on Amazon! Oops! 😮 We discharged the toilet under the floor!! 😱 We open the hatches in the floor and there’s a lot of water… We’ll have to clean this now, tomorrow it will smell awful… So, we get the wet vac and vacuum all compartments. We have to take out all the bags with cables, everything is wet. We clean everything with detergent and dry everything. The humidity was already high but now the windows are steamy 💦💦 We can’t open a hatch because of the pouring rain so we turn on the heating, the blower, the fan in bathroom and the galley dorade and go to bed. Hopefully everything will be dry in the morning…
February 5.
We didn’t sleep well. It was way too hot with the heating on.
When we check under the floor, it’s not really dry yet. So, we put 2 fans to blow some air under the floor.
Well, the sun is shining and we open the companionway. In no time, the humidity goes down to 50% and after breakfast, the area under floor is dry.
So, put all bags of cable back under the floor. Actually, it’s nice opportunity to re-organize everything…
…and make a drawing so that we exactly know where to find a specific cable.
Problem solved! We did it in good cooperation with no drama 😃
In the “Friends of Manoliño” WhatsApp group, we get a message from the German boat “Müggele”. They are anchored in the Guadiana river and because of all the rain, 2 dams are discharging a huge amount of water. The current in the river has gone to 8 knots and the water level has risen 8m!! They were rescued last night by the maritime police and they are ashore while their boat is still at anchor! How awful!! The situation is dramatic. A large number of boats lost their anchor and are adrift. Lots of big debris in the river (like boats, logs and entire trees) that could hit their boat.
Oops… we’re happy to be safely positioned on the hard…🫡
We have been waiting 2 weeks now for the welder guy to do the job and this afternoon the weather is reasonably good. We send a message and wait…
There he is! With a colleague.
They knock hard on the boat and immediately get to work! Wim has to switch off all electric systems and disconnect the starter battery quickly! The electric currents while welding on the boat could damage things…
He cuts out a square with the depth sensor pot.
Turn the pot inside out.
And weld it from the outside.
He’s using an electrode and a small inverter welding machine like we have.
Almost done…
After the outside has been welded, he welds it from the inside.
After that, he welds the hole where the speed sensor was. He brought a round piece of 5mm steel for that.
This what we wanted: one hole, horizontally positioned.
Flatten the welds with the angular grinder.
After grinding, Rui sees some welding spots that need some re-welding. Grind it again and it looks perfect!
The hole for the new mount has to be a little bit bigger than the old one (from 52mm to 56mm). So, mill it.
Finally, an adapter flange for the wind generator has to be welded on the existing one.
All right. This work has done. Now, we don’t have to wait for anyone any more and have our own schedule: painting! And that depends on weather…
We celebrate this with a delicious Tandoori chicken dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant! 😋
February 6.
Wim assembles the new wind generator base.
While Sher works on the cockpit sun shade.
The weather is horrible! All day rain and wind. Even some thunderstorms with hail!
February 7.
The juggernaut of depressions rolls on. While we have a storm and a lot of rain today, the next one will hit us Tuesday and the next one after that will hit us Thursday.
That looks like no painting outside till at least Friday…
36 knots with gusts up to 50 forecasted for today.
We have some shelter from the city, for these south-westerly’s. We see max 30 knots. But Dione IV is shaking in her jack stands…
Wim removes some rust which is under the paint. He did this before in this bilge and re-painted it. But it seems the rust continues under the paint. Obviously the rust wasn’t removed well enough. This time, we’ll sand-blast these spots. Hopefully that will provide a better adhesion for the primer.
With a hammer and a sturdy screwdriver he removes the rust scales. That will make sandblasting easier.
February 8.
First layer of primer for the wind generator.
February 10.
The weather is still awful. Rain or drizzle all day!
Wim goes on painting the wind generator mount. It has 4 layers of Interprotect primer and 2 layers of high gloss Perfection Pro.
Sher continues working on the cockpit sun shade.
Another small job on the list is a gas spring on the engine hatch. The hatch is made of heavy anti-resonance plywood, heavy sound proofing material and heavy carpet tiles on top. All together about 40kg.
We had a 70kg’s gas spring left over from the time we replaced the gas spring under the aft bed by a 100kg’s one.
We re-use some parts of the old TV/monitor arm!
The result is good: the hatch hovers “weightless” now. 🙂
Because the 70kg spring is pushing hard, we have to an extra hinge to support that.
While Wim has the engine hatch de-mounted he can have a look behind the engine. Bummer! The exhaust water lock has a small leak! A bad weld. A drop of salt water leaks out. This has to be repaired…
February 11.
Fitting the pieces of fabric for the cockpit sun shade together.
Hm. So that’s why sail makers have such big workshops 😅
February 12.
After 3 weeks of rain, today is a sunny day!
Sher continues to make pockets for the battens on the cockpit sun shade.
Now that it’s not raining, Wim starts to make a shape around the new transducer pot. A nice convex shape has to be made with epoxy filler in order to have a nice flow of water for the speed transducer with no turbulence or accelerations.
This is going to take time… The temperature is about 15ºC and the curing time of the epoxy filler is about 1 day in that temperature.
The part of the bilge (half under the shower floor and the drawer cabinet) is unused. We decide to make a little floor in it so that we can use it to store pots of paint.
First, Wim glues 2 wooden bars to support the shelfs (using Sikaflex).
February 13.
The shelf in position.
Because the access is pretty narrow, the shelf must go in 2 parts.
In the meantime, Sher continues her work on the cockpit sun shade.
February 14.
This is the reason why the weather has improved. The Azores high pressure has been way south of the Azores in the past 4 weeks. That gave the depression train room to go more more south and hit Portugal. Now, the Azores high is back in place (the blue oval). That pushes the depressions more to the north, to Ireland, Scotland and Norway. Here, at the Algarve, we stay out of these depressions and we get more influence from southern weather systems.
We ran out of the epoxy filler we had on board (Polyservice stuff) and Wim buys a new 2-component filler at the Sopromar chandler. West System 105 Epoxy Resin, West System 206 hardener and West System 403 Microfibres. The resin+hardener is a thick liquid. To make it a more solid filler paste, we add Microfibres.
The problem is, Wim can ad only thin layers. Else, the filler drips down. And it cures slow. It takes a day at this outside temperature.
Hm…🤔 This might need 10 or 20 layers like this… 10-20 days??🤔
Today, Sacha come to help Sher work on the dinghy cover. They start sewing the parts that were made from the patterns together.
We put the dinghy on a piece of plastic next to Dione IV to fit the cover. The boatyard ground is very dirty and full of rusty dust.
In the afternoon, the cover is ready for a first fit!
It fits perfect! There’s a lot of works to be done yet but this a great step!
One eye on the bow serves as a reference for the position.
Then, they start cutting the holes for everything.
Great job! 🤩
February 15.
Wim woke up with an idea: use plastic to keep the filler in place. We have this agricultural PE plastic foil. Nothing sticks to that. Use duct tape to keep it in place.
Now, Wim can use much more filler at once. 125grams per layer, solidified with Microfibre.
And put the little 500A heater to have a better temperature.
Now, he can do 2 layers per day.
Sacha comes again to help Sher with cutting the holes in the dinghy cover. A very precise and delicate job!
She explains how to do the bindings around the holes. That’s the next step.
Wim prepares the new wind generator. Soldering the wires.
It’s funny how thin the wires from the generator are: 2.5mm2. While our cables in the mast, down to the rectifier and the MPPT are 16mm2 for 3x 25A, to have a minimal voltage loss. Luckily, they are only very short.
First layer of heat shrink tube.
Second heat shrink tube, with glue.
Stay tuned for Boatyard III for more progress and the rest of the projects!
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