The Virtual Reinhard
Created | Updated Jan 11, 2007
How did it happen that two landlubber computer programmers, on contract in the far corners of the world, decided to exchange their perfectly good if somewhat hectic lifestyles for the uncertainties and trials of bluewater cruising?
This is the tale of the how. The why you can figure out for yourselves.
Wear and Tear
A season of sailing, and a season of guests, all took their toll on our nice shiny boat. Inside and out she started to get a bit ragged around the edges, and we began to notice obvious scratches and stains in the fittings, and wear and tear in the equipment. It was time to call a halt to the festivities, and do some maintenance.
Up the mast
One of the problems that we'd had right from the start had been with the 'close-hauled indicator', an instrument that tells you where the wind is coming from. In actual fact, that didn't bother us greatly because it isn't particularly useful in ordinary sailing, because you can get the same information from the wind arrow on top of the mast, the telltales (our wedding ribbons!) flying from the stays, the state of the water, and so on.
The real purpose of the close-hauled indicator is to feed wind direction information to the autopilot. Our autopilot has two modes; one where you simply give it a compass heading and it chugs along in that direction (useful under motor), and the other which is supposed to emulate a self-steering windvane (a kind of extra sail and rudder which you find on proper cruising yachts). The idea is that you can set the sails and then tell the autopilot to always maintain the same angle to the wind, thus giving you a break from steering.
This still isn't critical for anything, but it's an expensive piece of broken equipment to carry around and, in any case, since the sensor is at the masthead, it gave me the perfect excuse to climb up the mast.
There are a number of authentically nautical ways of going aloft, but I already have a perfectly good climbing harness which I trust implicitly to keep me safe while abseiling down waterfalls in the Blue Mountains; if I was going to climb a fourteen-metre mast, then I wasn't going to mess about with unfamiliar techniques.
In actual fact, 'climbing' is a bit of a misnomer. You wouldn't want to put your dirty great feet on the expensive aluminium spreaders and the mast itself is shiny and smooth without much in the way of finger-holds. No, what you do is assign a likely-looking crew member to the winches, attach the main halyard (and the topping lift as backup) to your harness and lie back in luxury while they winch you to the top.
Buffing and Polishing
Our yacht is made of fibreglass. We had naively assumed that this was a fairly indestructable material that would look good with nothing more than the odd hose-down now and again. However, in the marine environment, the gelcoat discolours and even oxidises. Add to that the roughening impact of endless guests and their bags and the deck and the inside of our cockpit began to look decidedly shabby.
I tried to buff the deck myself with a 12 volt sander and a sheep's wool pad, but it was impossible to get a good finish. We engaged the services of our friendly local shipwright and the weekend after a phone call telling us the 'she was as good as new', we popped out to the mooring expecting great things.
Sadly, it was not to be. The yacht, which we had recently cleaned inside and out, was absolutely filthy and the cabins were full of dust. The deck was, if it were possible, even more matt than before, and the various old oil stains and bird droppings had apparently been ground into the deck with a power sander. The cockpit itself, which had been our main concern and the reason for getting the job done in the first place, had not been touched apart from to fill it with a layer of dried paste and some old rags. We were not amused.
After some quite energetic discussions, the shipwright agreed to waive the bill and we looked around for somebody else to do the job. The general consensus among local people was a company called 'Reflections', who agreed to come aboard during the week and sort it out.
After their phone call, I rode straight from work to the marina, got in the Zodiac, and rowed out to have a look, preparing myself for the worst. When I got to the boat, I almost didn't dare set foot aboard. Somebody had apparently taken our yacht away and replaced it with a new one; it was an incredible transformation. In addition to spotless, shining decks, our teak flooring, which had always been a sort of beech grey, was suddenly a rich golden colour. I rowed straight back to shore, headed for their office and willingly gave them a pile of cash. What an incredible job!
