Blog

Another full day spent getting things organsed for our worldcruise.

Wetsuit
We collected the custom made wetsuit from Coral Wetsuits in Cape Town today. This company gave us no hassle getting sorted out with a wetsuit. About 10 days ago, we went there and ordered an custom made wetsuit. They took lots of body measurements, told us to come back in 10 days for fitment. We went there yesterday and everything was ready as promised. I got into the wetsuit while the manager/owner made marks, nipped and tucked. We were told that the wetsuit would be ready for collection today.

SAMSA
We finally manged to get the yacht registration and safety certificates from SAMSA today - one year overdue! What can I say!

Collect the last of our goods
We collected the last of our goods which must go on Revelations from our good friend Brent Gray. Brent, thanks for the storing our goods and all your assistance!

Shipping back home
We also crated another box (bigger than a adult man size coffin) of stuff which have no place on Revelations. this will be sent back to our home in Johannesburg.

Arrange suppliers
We also telephonically spoke to a number of suppliers and made arrangements when they need to visit Revelations to do their work.

We are on the map - so-called officially!

This is another small thing which took ages to sort out - but that is all forgotten now. We now have an official yacht stamp for the various documents we will be preparing and printing. A small thing really, but steeped in tradition and in some countries, a stamp like this means a lot. It kind of carries more weight with the officialdom. A document with an official yacht stamp means more than an ordinary piece of paper. It's all mental bullshit of course. So for those who need some mental bullshit, we have the right stamp for you!

You will note that the stamp says "Revelation 1" and the website says "Revelations". Well that is another long story. We have always named and called our yacht "Revelations", but SAMSA refused to accept that name. "Eish ... that name Revelations is a problem. Because why, there is another boat called Revelation. So you can't have that name Revelations - but you can have Revelation 1. That one is right." A stinking argument did not sway the official, so our yacht was finally registered as "Revelation 1", although we refer to her as "Revelations".

Today was a productive day and we managed to get some important things done.

Freezers
A couple of months back, we bought and installed 2 x CRUISE INOX freezers (90 Liter) - Read Here - but when we moved on board, we found that they were not working. Rather, the compressor motors were running, but the freezers did not at all get cold. We considered the probable cause/s of this - from incorrectly wired - inadequate ventilation - no refrigeration gas, etc. We spoke to a very helpful Cobus at National Luna, the distributor, who asked a number of questions and by process of elimination, conferred that it had to be refrigeration gas.

A few days prior to this, Sue made a booking with Lionel's Refrigeration to come and check and if required, refill the freezers with gas. So Lionel arrived this morning, on time which is most unusual for business in Cape Town. A damn nice guy who knows his business and seem to have his head screwed on the right way. He sorted us out in no time and now the freezers are working perfectly. If your fridge or freezer needs gas refilling in the Cape Town area, don't waste your time farting around with amateurs - contact Lionel at 084 7364394 or 073 5824351. He will sort you out pronto!

Revelations COF
We also met with Dave Alcock, SAMSA approved yacht surveyor who did a complete Category A inspection of Revelations. The whole operation went smooth and we were well prepared for this COF (Certificate of Fitness) inspection. As last time, we were quite pleased to hear Dave compliment us on the condition and sea worthy state of Revelations. He was impressed and so were we. We are happy to announce that Revelations passed the SAMSA and SA Sailing requirements and we were issued with our yearly COF.

Blackwater Pump
We found that the impeller of one black water macerator pump was damaged. Jacque Basson stripped the pump, took it home, replaced the impeller and installed the pump again today. We had no time to test the pump today but will do so tomorrow. Hopefully everything will work and I will soon be able to drop the overdue turds I have been carrying around.

Cleaning and sorting the yacht
In the interim, Sue is continuing sorting and cleaning Revelations. On the face of it, it seems a small and easily accomplished task. No so at all! In yachting terms, Revelations is a large yacht with hundreds of places for storage, some easily accessible and other quite difficult - everything must be unpacked and cleaned (spotless if you know Sue), then packed in a orderly fashion whilst making notes of the location for every item onboard. It is a HUGE and never ending task! But Sue is slowly but surely making headway on this formidable task.

Spearfishing and diving gear
Later this afternoon, we went to a spearfishing shop for diving gear and kit. I managed to find most of the stuff I was looking for - OMER spearfishing fins, snorkel, dive knive, bags, float, fish stringer and a couple of other things.

It is that time of the year again - getting the yearly COF (Certificate of Fitness) for Revelations. This yearly COF thing is really a damn hassle as it involves getting a SAMSA approved inspector to come out to Houtbay every year to come and do a physical inspection of the yacht. Every time it involves turning the boat upside down and unpacking everything for the inspection.

Why not do it every two or five years? Or is it about more about making money of out all of us. In South Africa items needs to be inspected at ridiculously short intervals - flares are only valid for 2 years, fire extinguishers are valid for 1 year, smoke signals are valid for 2 years, etc. Are these manufacturers really unable to manufacture products lasting longer than one or two years? Then, I'm sure if the Government have their way, we will all pay licenses to breath air, have a bath or visit your own shithouse. All this adds to the red tape, bureaucracy making things difficult and inaccessible for people to become part of sailing.

Anyway, we are unpacking and sorting out Revelations for this COF thing tomorrow morning. whilst all this is going on, we are also cleaning, sorting and packing the yacht for our world cruise.

For a South African vessel to sail in International waters (or outside of South Africa), South African law requires your yacht to be SAMSA registered and a permanently afixed carving plate must be bonded to the yacht. Here is the stainless steel carving plate we recently had manufactured sporting laser engraving. Although we are all legal now to leave South African waters, it does not mean that we won't be smuggling some goodies!

Revelations sailed back to Houtbay on 1 september 2013 and unlike the trip going there, this trip was uneventful and quite boring. But in sailing terms, this is good and fortunately there were no mishaps nor any breakages. Today, we received SAMSA's carving plate papers. It seems like Revelations is finally registered with SAMSA and there are only a few more things we still need to do to make this complete. We need a carving plate manufactured (a metal plate with the yacht registration details) which then needs to be permanently epoxied onto the yacht. Once done, the SAMSA inspector must come and inspect this carving plate and finally sign off. Once done, Revelations will be fully registered with SAMSA and licensed to sail internationally!