New address for photos

Oh dear it has been a while hasn’t it?  So, all the photos of our trip can now be found here:
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/115175406968458943880

Which as you can see, isn’t actually working - bear with me while I work out how to get a link to my google photo archive!

Sorry guys! 13/02/21

Please update your bookmarks

The Asterie blog is now non functional, we'd love you to follow us as we embark on a new adventure, this time aboard the gorgeous Namaste V.
The new (and the only current ) blog is at:

Living our Dream

I can't quite bring myself to delete Fully Involved's blog, so I will keep it here without updates for sentimental reasons, and hope that our following for the new blog lives up to expectations.

4th July update

We can now report that Fully Involved is now fully repaired J ....It took 6 Months to the day but it is all done.
After many Man/Woman  hours of polishing, washing, scrubbing with various chemicals, the yard at last saw sense and got in a professional cleaner to put right the white residue staining damage done by them when they tried to remove the rust staining they did when drilling out the rivets on the goose neck. Now I guess you are all wondering what the magical cleaner was that put things right.....Well it was good old house hold Jiff cleaner, the white one not lemon!

We will be having a new Bimini and dodger made next week as we still have the original fitted and it is looking very tired. We will retain the side curtain and clear window set up, it will take some time to do, but will make her look fantastic.

The previously Bimini mounted 85W solar panel has now been relocated and will live permanently on the rear arch. I had to move around various GPS antennas to make room for it. I also added 2 stainless steel bracing struts for the rear facing radar to help relieve strain on the support welds.

So that ends that saga, all we need now is some decent weather to go sailing.....Or more likely, we will put her on the market and go get another yacht but take longer over the trip, any offers on a brilliant IP420????.......

Keep watching.......Mike.

Repair update June 7th

At last all repairs relating to the lightning strike have been completed J   We had the back stay with the HF insulators on replaced on the recommendation of “Ronstan” and tested the SSB radio, the Iridium 9555 Sat phone was the last item to be fitted due to a shortage in supply.  We now need to take her sailing to ensure everything works for an extended period and for us to learn how it all works. There are some pictures in Picasa of the new look instruments.

One of the reasons for the long delay, we were told, was that on the night of January 4^th 2012 just over 100 boats suffered damage from that same storm here in Perth and with limited tradesmen to carry out repairs, things dragged on and on...

Unfortunately we still have the yard people making good on the rust staining they did to our deck. As we are not on the hard stand we are ‘out of sight out of mind’ again and it is a weekly battle reminding them to fix it!!

A swam of nesting flies have made the outboard home for now, we have a flock of Welcome Swallows in a feeding frenzy every morning filling their bellies with the things. We kill thousands with fly spray each evening, but next day there are more, will we ever win????

Mike.

Repair update April 21st

Our repairs are still ongoing. We now have the 240/115 volt conversion finished except for the water heater conversion, so no more power cords in thru hatches with extension cords everywhere!!

 But it is looking like 2 steps forward and 1 back....

The test sail has been completed to set up the autopilot, unfortunately the electronics engineer decided to go on holiday for 3 weeks so we wait for him to return to programme the AIS and input the MMSI into the radios.The wind speed anemometer and new Tri colour light need installing.    We are still waiting for the battery charger to be fitted, this was found to be not working once the boat was powered up. The new battery monitor only showed we had 0.27Volts in the batteries so will be replaced with another new one. The goose neck fitting was cracked when it was re-riveted to the mast after re-bushing, so that has been replaced with a new one, unfortunately the guys allowed the metal shavings to fall on the deck and have now rusted into the GRP, so that damage will be repaired. We were on the hard stand for 2 days while the new earth plate was installed as well as the Raymarine transducer for speed/depth, unfortunately during this work someone put a solvent soaked rag on the varnished cabin sole on the master cabin and lifted the varnish, so this will be repaired.The rigging has been set up and tuned, unfortunately on advice from the manufactures, the 2 SSB radio insulators will need replacing after the lightning so we need a new back stay making up.  

The yard who are supposed to organise everything are useless, considering the percentage  of the repair bill they are taking, we are having to organise tradesmen to work and inform them of what is going on !!!

But we have made some good progress in the last Month, so maybe by next Month we will be out sailing someplace, fingers crossed!!!
Mike.

Oh yes, Jan now has a Thermo mix on the boat...... Happy Jan J

March 18th update.....With pictures

The mast has been removed and all rigging checked, no further damage was found. The mast goose neck was removed for re-bushing and new correct length bolts. The bolts were found to be too short with the threaded portion inside the castings; this is what had caused the castings to wear out. The mast was re-wired, new TV and VHF antenna installed and the lightning rod extended by 200mm so it is now taller than the VHF antenna!!!  The mast is now back on the boat awaiting final rigging tension. As we will need lifting again for the transducers and earthing plate to be replaced, the rigging was not fully tensioned  as we will need to remove the head sail furling gear in order for us to fit in the lift rig.

All the damaged electronics are out and at this time all the old multi strand B & G / Raymarine wiring is being removed to make room for the new Raymarine single wire “Back Bone” . We will have all the latest Raymarine equipment complete with touch screen chart plotter, wireless auto pilot control and colour instruments as well as new Icom VHF & HF radios.

The boat is now mostly 240Volt. It was found to be easier to do this than try to get new 115Volt stuff out of the USA. Even the onboard generator has been converted to deliver 240V. The Air conditioners will still run on 115Volt as I bought a converter from the US before departure for this very reason, much cheaper and easier than converting them to run on 240V!!

So if you think it is hard living in a house when the builders are there doing your additions, try living on a yacht when all the electrical and electronics are being repaired/modified/added to !!!

Mike J

Damage report....

Fully Involved was lifted out on the 11^th to make sure there was no damage below the water line, there wasn’t any.  On the electronics side, so far we need to replace...... Chart plotter and card, Nav pod to accommodate a wide screen E120 Plotter, 48 Mile Radar, wind, depth speed, autopilot, AIS, both VHF radios, HF radio, both hand held VHF radios, Iridium phone and docking station, 4 Amp solar panel, solar controller, Nav station repeater  display, all nav lights, all associated antenna, hull lightning discharge plate, speed and depth transducers.  On the 115 Volt side, only the inverter is damaged so that will be replaced.

 At the same time as all this work is going on, we will have her converted to 240V ( via the isolation transformer we previously bought in the USA) change the Microwave oven and water heater to 240Volt. In a Marina we can plug in 240Volt use all our 240Volt equipment as well as the US 115Volt stuff.  Away from shore power we will have added a large 240V pure sign wave inverter so all the 240 Volt equipment works and have the Generator and battery bank, via the new 115V inverter, to run the Air Conditioners and battery charger.  

It has been recommended that the mast will come out not only for a thorough rigging inspection but also to make it easier to replace all the electrical wiring in the mast as it runs up rather like a U trap bend under a house sink.

So there it is, unfortunately we won’t be going anywhere for a while except maybe up the Swan River to the City once the mast is removed!!

Mike.