Meanwhile, back at the "coal face."

August to November 2015

The extensive list of things 'to do' continues.

One of the biggest selling points of this rather beautiful boat, is the vision afforded, from the complete comfort of the main deck cabin, either, from inside or from the cockpit.
It has massive windows.

The downside is, that now I totally understand why tomatoes and other plants, grown in green houses ripen,  and why northern hemisphere dwellers build glass sunroom extensions. It gets bloody hot under all that glass.

lowering the tone of the neighbour hood with cheap tacky temporary tarps

Although K'Gari has both tinted windows and some shade cloth exterior panels over the glass it is totally insufficient for equatorial sun. The need  to keep the sun off the windows and indeed the cabin roof as much as possible, is paramount. For a quick fix, whilst deciding the long term solution , some cheap tarpaulins (blue one side and orange the other) had been purchased and rigged . They helped!
In deference to the fact that the marina was almost on the flight path of KK International Airport, these were rigged blue side up,  on the assumption  that the airline pilots would get heartily sick of seeing the orange side.Orange is an internationally recognised sign of maritime distress, albeit with a black V usually, but orange alone will also work.!

I had found a business in KK, that was happy to manufacture what ever design was decided upon. During our conversation, it came to light, that it would be far more cost effective, if  the chosen product came from  Australia, when next I returned.
So now back in Australia the decision was between two materials. In the end I went with shade cloth. Not waterproof, but effective against the sun. 90% UV protective and allowed as much air as possible to circulate.

Simple and incredibly effective-easy to rig!

 I freely admit to using the design that had been used by my fellow Seawind owners, who had been the font of knowledge for the lay up procedure. Simple but incredibly effective.

The next mission was to find some effective insulation material for the inside of the cabin windows. there are blinds in all the cabins but something was needed to reflect the heat away.  Eventually it was found, available in the small quantity required, at only one hardware store, in the 500km between Brisbane and Gladstone, at Gympie. All the other chain stores were happy to sell 30m rolls, but I only needed 2m, off a roll.

The return trip baggage is starting to look quite a lot already. A roll of shade cloth 3.6m x 12m literally took up one duffel bag and the window  insulation material, rolled as effectively as possible, was going to take a big proportion of another. Add to that the few kilos of replacement anodes that had just been ordered, other useful bits n pieces like a toaster, electric kettle (which believe it or not, are considerably cheaper than buying in Malaysia, with the added bonus that there is no need to change plugs for the Australian outlets which K'Gari came with. Phew, wont electrocute myself there then!). The all important, but not light, nutri bullet,-hadn't seen one of them anywhere in Malaysia! Assorted other useful tools, the replacement cartridge bowl, for an issue that was on going with the installation of the watermaker, and in no time 30kgs of baggage, has been assembled on the lounge room floor.

Friends will be flying up in December , so they too are burdened with more "essentials", 20-25kgs of manuals and books and other kit, are distributed amongst them.