Historic Woolwich Dockyard: Preparing for the annual haul-out and other big ticket items

We are preparing Lucey Blue for her annual haul-out and antifoul. This year will be a big one with the port rudder carbon fiber shaft, steering quadrant and bearings due to be repaired by Noakes Shipwrights at their Woolwich Dock site.









I am not sure how the shaft was damaged, but I guess over 30,000 nautical sea miles and a loose steering quadrant might have something to do with it!!!!

We will also take the opportunity to replace the lower oil seals on the Volvo Penta sail drive legs, the stainless steel standing rigging on the mast and repair the cover on the starboard sail drive well while we are out of the water.





Noakes are one of the best shipwrights in Australia with a long history in rigging repairs, composite construction and Sydney to Hobart Maxis. The Woolwick dock site is also pretty spectacular - carved into the solid sandstone cliffs by labourers between 1897 and 1901.









We've also got the Sydney Boat Show on this coming weekend, so a great chance to source various bits and pieces that we have been looking for.

Winter escape on Sydney Harbour

Well, it is still getting to minus 5 degrees C in the mornings down in Canberra, but our Sydney getaway weekends on Lucey Blue remind us that summer is just around the corner. On the boat the kids didn't seem to notice the cold and continued to play water sports.











Even Sam only needed a beanie in the morning and by the afternoon everyone was in shorts and T-shirts and the cockatoos came to play (we kept a close eye on him and his big chewing beak).....







After mucking around in the sun, Emily and Sam inspected our new steering idler only to find a large pool of rain water which needed to be bailed out by hand. Emily went into the void under the cockpit floor to bail, but soon wanted to escape the confined space.......





The source of the rainwater was a bit of a mystery for a while, but turned out to be the locker under the cockpit table which had been jam full of inflatable dinghy and overflowed in the rain!!!!

While the girls were playing, Ryan and Dad explored the front bow locker for a suitable place to install a salt water deck wash system and larger sullage tank as ours is currently only 40 liters. I am always amazed at the size of our bow lockers when we get a chance to empty out all the bits and pieces. But then I remember that one of the previous owners used to have a spare single berth in one and a toilet in the other - crazy!!!!!







Despite the long drive and short time onboard we all love the time away from Canberra. One minute you're swimming in work-related tasks and the next you're in another world.

Calling Cards and T-Shirts

It has been very quiet in here hasn't it? It is so cold at the moment (minus 6.7 in Canberra on Tuesday morning) and we just haven't had the time or inclination to go playing on Lucey Blue (although I am still sitting on a stack of photos from our long weekend up there a few weeks back...once my hand thaws out, I'll think about posting them ;-).

I have also been sitting on some pics of our new calling cards:




I ordered these cards through Vistaprint and they cost about AUD18.90 for 250 of them, including postage. That price also included the upload of the personalised image, full colour on the front and greytones on the back (it would have been about AUD8.00 cheaper with a blank backside), and gloss cardstock.

They arrived here (from Belgium I think) in about three weeks (which is pretty much standard O/S postal timing for us). I love Vistaprint for things like this. I have used them a fair bit previously, for partyplan-type advertising gumpf, and they have never failed to deliver. You do need to sign up for the special/cheapest online deals...and then you will get bombarded with 2-3 emails per week....so I'd supply an email account that wasn't your day to day one if you despise spam.

We also splashed out on some Lucey Blue t-shirts:


They cost us about AUD15.00 for two cotton t-shirts and upload of personalised design, plus some small amount of postage. Even the smallest size is dress-like for the kids...but they'll grow in to them...eventually!

The photo is one of Lucey Blue in Musket Cove, Fiji. It was taken before we owned her, but is one of my favourite shots of her so far. I am sure there will be many more to come.

Well, I'm off to chip the ice off the windscreen hope it is warmer wherever you are.

Sam.