Destiny
The story continues,
It is now 2017, she is now back in Port Klang, her home port. It’s time to start preparing for racing. But first, we will need to into the necessary refurbishment of the boat. Destiny is 22 years old in 2017.
Now, where to do it?
What work is to be done?
Insurances, boat registration, MMSI number - ( which is a unique number designated for the boat, in fact, all registered vessels - will have their own specific identity number.)
Although this is common practice, in many parts of the world and is an excellent safety feature, a lot of cruisers still do not have this. The previous owner, did not have it and the boat was not registered in Malaysia. As such there was some documentation that needed to be filled up and to get her registered locally. Sailing and pleasure crafts are not that common in this part of the world and the rules and regulations are closely related to shipping. This does not reflect the actual state of affairs and there are sometimes complications on arrival and departure procedures. It is also difficult to get insurances done, and to cover sailing outside Malaysian waters. Local insurance companies do not have the required expertise to understand the risk and to underwrite the risk. This too, compounds the difficulty for boat owners in Malaysia.
As Destiny was not registered before, it was to be considered a new registration and this took some doing and some leg work from the agent, but it was eventually done.
After this task was completed, then i proceeded to plan the necessary repair works that needed to be carried out.
The list of works - were as follows.
a) All Rigging will need to be renewed
b) The whole electrical system, including wiring will need to redone
c) All through hulls and valves serviced and rebed, and to get the minor leak of Sea water in the boat to be sorted out.
d) The painted area under the water line is to be removed to gelcoat and repainted again. This was done to check for any inherent issues with the hull, hidden by the paint.
The decision was made, due to the lack of proper services available in Malaysia to send Destiny to Phuket for refurbishment. This will be one of the three times over the course of 5 years when she would be in Phuket for repairs. I had to fly into Phuket to search for contractors and finally decided to take her to Premier Boat Yard in the northern part of Phuket and to have works done on her by Precision Shipwright for the rigging and some local contractors for the rest of the work. As I had never taken a sailboat across to Thailand, Destiny had its first international trip being captained by two hired crew from Thailand.
Work began, with the up-slipping exercise at Premier. The mast was lowered, also as all the rigging needed to be replaced. I got Andaman Electrical - Khun Somsak’s company to start the electrical work. These two were the most critical works that I wanted to do. Solving the leak was important.
As it turned out the leak was the most difficult to solve. Even after re-bedding all the through hulls, the leak persisted. Item to note for all potential sailors looking at buying boats, please get a survey done, or , if not at least dive and check the bottom. The previous owner had obviously grounded the boat or hit a reef as the keel was severely damaged at the bottom. The owner had never informed me, despite being very straightforward with him. I did not seek discounts or anything but rather I would have liked him to be JUST honest! Well, sometimes we can only hope to see the best in people! I choose this over being too suspicious !
When they hit a reef, it had also very likely had a serious impact on the rudder and where the rudderstock is in the area in the hull, that is where there was a crack and water was seeping in. It took us a few times to take the boat in and out of the water before finding this crack. We eventually found it, and sorted that out.
The whole repair and replacement of parts took almost 3 months to settle. Once done we sailed the boat back to the Royal Selangor Yacht Club ( RSYC)
At this juncture, all I was thinking about was to get Destiny prepared for racing. I ordered a furling cruising Genny for the boat as it would be easier to manage than a Spinnaker. Of course, it had a fair share of issues, which will be updated in future write-ups.
