BIAK AND MORE MAINTENANCE

19 January 2025

Once again, I have maintenance jobs mounting up.  This light weather sailing with frequent squalls is taking its toll on the gear, sails and running rigging.  Biak is a good place to do this, the anchorage for the most part is fairly calm and only transient squalls upset the equilibrium. 

The priority jobs this time are to put chafe protection on vulnerable lines, replace the traveller turning bloc supports and fix damaged webbing on the mainsail slugs.  The traveller blocks are the most challenging, but I am confident of getting some good quality mahogany timber here which will be stronger and more durable than the previous blocks.

Repairing the mainsail webbing was a straightforward task.  Just time consuming installing new webbing and sewing it up.  This is a bit old fashioned now as mainsail mast track has become much more sophisticated.  But, simple is sometimes good and the repairs are cheap and easy and no need for expensive spare parts. 

 The preventer lines are becoming frayed where they rub against the standing rigging.  This only occurs when the mainsail is fully out on the beam with the wind astern.  I could reroute the preventer outside the stays but its too much of a hassle to keep moving the preventers around.  The wear and chafing only really occurs in light winds when the boom is jiggling around as the sail fills and collapses. 

I wanted to put some rope cover on the preventers as a chafe preventer.  Unfortunately, the old rope I have is well worn and hard, the covers just don’t fit over the preventer rope.  I decided to use the core as a chafe protector.  I didn’t know if this would work but its was the only thing I had to hand.  When the job was finished I had even more doubts that it would work. 

Surprisingly, it actually works quite well and is protecting the preventer rope from further damage.  If I do this again, I will twist the core material to get a closer weave before sewing the ends.

The almost constant slamming and jiggling of the boom in light winds has revealed some weakness in the base for the traveller turning blocks.  The timber is starting to split and that will only lead to water ingress and faster degradation.  I have decided to replace them with hardwood blocks, I can get mahogany here which should be more durable and last many years to come.  This is quite a big job as the mainsail will be out of action until the job is complete.

I removed the old blocks and after cleaning up the base I gave it a treatment of epoxy to harden everything up and make it watertight.  After a few hours of cutting and shaping I had the new blocks ready to install.  As I had only one chance to get this right I spent some time measuring and dry fitting to make sure everything fit well before committing to final assembly with thickened epoxy, bolts and screws.

The finished product looks a bit rough but will look fine once it is tidied up and painted.  The main thing is that the blocks are sturdy, providing a long-term fix.

Every couple if days squalls come through the anchorage, most are not too bad, just some strong wind for a few minutes and a heap of rain.  One particular squall was a bit bigger and longer than the rest and kicked up quite a nasty sea.

This squall resulted in a broken snubber.  Its not often an anchor snubber breaks and when this one broke it was as if a cannon had just gone off.  I was in the cabin at the time and it scared the daylights out of me until I realised what had happened.  However, thinking about it the snubber had been in use for a few years and taken some punishment along the way.  Maybe over time the ultraviolet light had weakened it.  We now have a new snubber in place but unfortunately the snubber hook has gone to Davey Jones locker.

Ashore in Biak I came across a small store near the port selling all sorts of marine gear.  Mostly aimed at the fishing and commercial boats in the area it nevertheless had a great range of goodies.  There is a back room that the customers are not allowed into – but from there the shop assistant was able to produce all sorts of hard to source items.  I love these kinds of stores. 

There is a World War two museum in Biak centered on a cave system that was used by the Japanese in their fight against the mainly American forces.  The cave system is said to be extensive with a few kilometres of tunnels.  I was informed that the American troops rained down fire into the system and over three thousand Japanese troops perished.  Scattered around the grounds are relics of jeeps, kamikaze planes, munitions, armaments and other war related stuff.  Quite a sobering and thought-provoking place. 

The time came to depart Biak, when I tried to weigh anchor I found the chain was fouled by something on the seabed.  No matter how I pulled and finessed the chain I could not free it.  After a couple of hours I gave up.  I needed a diver.  Fortunately, the Nirmala resort is close by and a diver soon came out to have a look.  It took a while to free the chain which had become wedged under some coral.  According to Ahmed the resort owner, this was the first time a chain had become fouled as I had anchored in the safe position provided by the resort.  Just my luck!  Anyway, I re-anchored and rested a while.  My enthusiasm for sailing had now disappeared and I decided to sail the following morning. 

The next morning was flat calm and I motored out of Biak as the sun came up, a glorious sunrise and beautiful morning.  I am looking forward to the next leg of the journey as I feel I have turned the corner, heading out into the pacific again and new adventures.