The way it is now

Seems to me we lost a very decent drying out space against this wall but the kids are happy any way.

R McB

1967 Singer Chamois gets a new side window rubber

It starts out as a simple task,the old side rear window rubber has been cooked by 44 years of our sunshine,its actually bonded to the glass and the body,so required it's  removal with a sharp chisel and a Stanley board knife and a new blade.

It was fine seventeen years ago when I re fitted it,the other side of the car is near perfect but I had to buy a pair of new rubbers,as they are only sold as a set.

This rubber has long since become another product,we are really fortunate that The Imp Club

http://www.theimpclub.co.uk/ sells them,they are made in Australia I believe.

With the original glass cleaned off with a razor blade and the new rubber fitted to it,we are ready to re fit the glass but first that paint job needs doing.

Check the quality,mind you with postage from the UK there was very little change left from R600 per side.

Of course when the new rubber is offered up,it does not cover the existing paint line,so a re spray is in order,one thing leads to another and before we know it,the entire rear wing is being prepared. After a bump received when the car was parked in Cape Town, It was never really finished well by a local Hout Bay spray shop,you can see all the high spots I have sanded down.

The picture shows what is in effect a weeks work,there were two rust holes in the rear opening window frame channel,plus another one in the drivers door cill,nothing much really but as an epoxy coating will solve the problem I went that route before any polyester body filler was used,this takes time but does make the repair last.

The base coat I am using is a matt finish,the clear gloss and top coat will follow next day after the base coat has dried properly.

This is nearly an acceptable job,thats just one coat of clear twin pack applied. The only issue is the mixed paint is a few shades darker than the rest of the car,I now need a new paint mix so the panels can be matched!

How hard can this be,why not try it!

R Mc B

KD860 catamaran loading

This was ready for collection once the glass,micro balloons and fused silica arrived,the trucking company were taking good care of loading,thats 31 items,plys,wood,epoxy,all the materials required to build one boat.This materials pack will go by road to the Johannesburg area,normally a three day period,we can ship world wide as well,plans are direct from the designer at http://www.ikarus342000.com/KD860pic.htm

Drying out alongside,Hout Bay style

We once had a great and a quite free facility,we also had permision to use it from the then Nature Conservation Chief Director,himself a yachtsman and owner of a steel yacht in the RCYC Small Craft basin.

Yacht Water Witch having a bottom clean alongside by her two owners,that is the Howard Davis you can just see behind her.Water wise,there is quite a drop off just aft of  Water Witches stern.

Our nice clean drying beach,well it was back then,with high tide of around 1.8 to 1.9 meters,a bit of planing and we could do all sorts of jobs,check annodes,re pitch a Max Prop,fit a new skin fitting,even re antifoul when were really fast,one side per tide was quite easy.

The beach disapeared after the reconstruction of the end of the pier took place,some bright spark decided to fill in under the harbour wall at this point,before then it was open to the beach and the waves on the other side.This had two benefits,it kept the harbour a lot cleaner and it brought in the clean sand,now we have deeper water and a derelict hull lying there.

Progress? No.

R Mc B

Toylander dash panel

Its the small things that catch the childs mind,knobs,switches,handles and keys fit that bill.

Stocking up a yacht for cruising,Hout Bay style

Another set of pictures from the archives,these must be about 28 years old now?
The yacht is an Endurance 37 named Ocean Planet,from the moulds at the Knysna Boat Yard and with a plywood and epoxy deck fitted. A hull with stringers fitted cost R4500 and the GRP cockpit fitted and with two bulkheads just R920,now thats a nice price!

Note,a suit of nine sails from Elvstrom Sails (now north sails) were quoted at R4750,an anodised mast section 14.7mtrs long,with a welded mast head and cast heel shoe and deck plate from Bellamy Masts was R1300,this was why we could afford to build the boats we did back then?

Now where have I seen that Duckling dinghy recently.

The guys from Pick and Pay were a pleasure to work with.

Pic and Pay was the store of choice,the one in kennilworth I remember,they not only provided a free delivery service,the gave us the GST tax back as cash in an envelope on delivery to the Hout Bay Harbour.

                                   Jean says, and you want me to pack all of this in our small boat!

All pictures taken by R Mc Bride,this one and the first one with a 200mm Canon tele lens on a Canon FT film camera.The yacht was last seen in Ibiza,Spain.

R McB

Canon MP560 Pixma low ink warning light

The Canon MP560 is a very nice scanner and printer,it does colour prints to A4 as a pro finish,if you can afford the cost of the ink pods that is.

Recently the lack of black ink in the main ink pod that serves for normal letter printing became empty.

That brought on an orange (red?) warning light which was advising of this situation.

With a spare Canon printer hooked up,that resolved the ink issue but then left me with a printer/scanner that would not scan,the default was the lack of ink and the warning light just stopped any other function.

So how do we disable the warning light on the Canon MP560,its in the user manual of course but takes a while to find,see the red button to the right hand side,you keep that pressed down for at least five seconds,the low ink light will then go off and you can use the scanner function then.

Warning,Canon will accept no damages to the printer head should you try and use the printer in this mode.

Tell me why are new ink pods so expensive?

How easy can it be to sell them cheaper?

R McB

The Hout Bay pictures circa 1990

Yacht Ocean Cloud,as seen on the old section of the HBYC marina and after it had returned from a year long cruise.The boat was away nearly two years as it was left on moorings at the TTYA in Trinidad for a half year.

The TTYA ( Trinidad and Tobago Yachting Association) is the second last bus stop on the run out from Trinidads Port of Spain and just before Chaguaramas,which is now a very large yachting center and the main port to clear in at in Trinidad,not at Port of Spain these days.

More from the Hout Bay Harbour archives

Seen here on the HBYC Marina, is a fellow members yacht named The Road,thats Taffy Bowens, Lavranos 40ft with the stripes.Next to it is Ocean Cloud,an Endurance 37 that was just back from Trinidad by way of Brasil.This was back in 1992? all of twenty years ago,give a month or so?

Picture taken by R McBride,using his Canon FT with a 50mm lens,using 35mm film.

Taffys yacht is now on a trip to Thailand by way of Australia and the Pacific Ocean.Ocean Cloud was last seen in December 2010 and in FBYC,Simons Town. The boat on the right with the orange stripes is a Peterson 33,I have no idea of its name.

R Mc B

Hout Bay Harbour,the way it was.

Some changes are of course for the best,it will always depend on who's side you happen to be on,so bias may creep in but to land fill the small sandy beach inside the Hout Bay Harbour was senseless,when we look back at the total under use of the dirt space that exists there now.

Picture by R McBride using a Canon FT SLR film camera,I would guess about twenty years ago?

I am going to post some older Hout Bay YC pics,in this one,see if you can recognise a young Mr & Mrs Batley,was he the HBYC Commodore back then,I think so.Jean Mc Bride (paarman) is there too,so is Janet! Can you spot Mr & Mrs Turner ( not our founder member and club president)

The small beach in the harbour was a huge loss to the community,it came about when mass floods on Chapmans Peak caused stones to close the roads,the issue was to get shot of the tons of stones without just pushing them over the cliff.

The then Chief of Nature Conservation,decided to use them to fill the harbour beach in,it was a mistake in my view but he told me the idea was to have the commercial side of the harbour on that side and the tourist side on the side were they are now.

Hind sight is a wonderfull thing?

R McB

Toylanders,how young can you start with them?

The very first time Luke saw the yellow Toylander it was his first birthday,right away he was in the cab and playing with the steering wheel,today he is two,just check how he gets on with his Toylander.

A year later in recent weeks Luke has seen his sand pit as a star attraction,now the Toylander is back together,thats history.

Even a two year old likes to play with things they can undo,then re fasten,its quite amazing to watch this.

Stripped then re painted and re assembled,this Toylander is ready for fun and play.

Open and shut case.

The Toylander,build it yourself and pass it on to future generations of your family.

Also available pre made.

A quality build deserves a quality paint job,the materials to paint this Toylander will have cost around R1500,about U$180 or so.

Luke aprooves,why not build your child or grand child a Toylander,it will be with them for many years to follow.

How hard can this be ( rather simple really)

R McB

PD Racer,why not build one yourself.

Chris is doing just that,he will sail it on the Vaal Dam,we supplied the epoxies and filler materials,he found his plys locally.

Plans are really (very) cheap, designed Mike Storer and available from us,at U$25 only we will not see you on the water in a decent self built dinghy cheaper.

We can of course supply this design as a CNC cut kit for you.

This is the hull standing on edge,your viewing the curved bottom.

Quick to build and easy to sail,you can even make your own sail for very cheap input.

Another sail plan option,this I like.

How hard can this be.

R Mc B

Caulking teak decks

There are a number materials suitable for teak deck caulking,some are less successfull than others,some require a primer which is a bit of a pain,some are quite happy to bond to wood,steel and alloy with no primers,which makes more sense to me.

Left click the pictures for a closer look at the details.

A new laid teak deck we supplied all the materials to,this was fairing compounds,epoxies,marine plys to BS1088 and the kiln dried teak,which was imported specially for this boat.The deck grooves have been filled with the black deck caulk,which will take some days to cure prior to sanding clean.

New teak decking,even with the black caulk sticking up looks good,this cruising boat will soon be on its way to new places to drop anchor in.

This laid teak foredeck was not an easy job,check the bend of the planks moving forwards,the bend is too tight,so each plank had to be cut from a wider board to make the radius,its then edge scarphed into the plank behind it.

How hard can this be (just try it)

R McB

Stolen Time,a novel by Al Noteman

Soon to be released as an On Line book,Stolen Time is an action packed story that starts in Cape Town and takes you across the Atlantic Ocean to Brasil and beyond.

Al Noteman,author aboard his own yacht.

An extract from the book.

It took three days to get Chameleon ready for the trip up the Amazon. Stevens ordered all the food and equipment that would be needed for a two and a half thousand mile trip. Some of the equipment had to come all the way from Sao Paulo by special air delivery.

It was late evening on the third day that they left the river at Jacare and headed out to sea on a course of 020 degrees that would take them off the coast and onto a direct heading for the Brazilian owned Atoll of  ‘Rocas’. Here it would be possible to find some shelter in the lee of this tiny Island, should the weather turn nasty. From Rocas, they would turn to the Northwest on a heading of 289 Degrees and that would take them clear of the North Eastern coast of Brazil and into the mouth of the mighty Rio Amazons, a distance of some 1350 miles of open sea.

‘It’s going to take us the best part of a week just to enter the Amazon then we’ll have to use the tides or the jet drives to get up to Sao Jose which is as far again,’ Sam said.

‘No one said we should kill ourselves on this trip,’ Lex interrupted. ‘Why don’t we just take it as it comes and have some fun?’

‘I agree! Pete said, ‘ this wasn’t in our contract and no one has said we’ll get paid any extra for it so I’m all for stopping at Rocas for the day to do some snorkelling.’

‘I know some of the guys on the Atoll, they are all scientist working for the Brazilian Government,’ Stevens explained. ‘They come out for three months at a time and live like hermits, they’ll be glad to see someone like us with luxury provisions on board.

‘That settles it then, we’ll head directly for Rocas,’ Pete voiced their wishes.

four hours and by late afternoon the following day Sam sighted the few palm trees that was Rocas.

‘There it is,’ she shouted excitedly, ‘bang on course just where it should be.’

‘I can see trees but where’s the bloody Island?’ Lex asked incredulously.

‘It’s less than three Metres above sea level,’ Pete explained. ‘You don’t see the land until you are almost on top of it.’

‘Shit, it’s a bloody good job it’s daylight, we would never have seen it at all in the dark,’ Lex replied, ‘where are the buildings?’

Sam handed him the binoculars and he scanned the sea around the trees then made out only the rooftops of what looked like garden sheds.

‘Is that it?’ he asked.

‘That’s it mate,’ Sam confirmed, ‘I’m going to try to raise them on VHF. I’m sure they will have seen our approach. Pete head her up to the North East of the Atoll out of this current will you, we should be able to anchor there for the night.’

Sam got through to the scientist on the Atoll and found there were four of them, two men and two girls, very convenient and very Brazilian, she thought.

They granted permission for Chameleon to anchor for the night and said they would come out to the yacht at first light in their rubber duck.

‘OK we’re cleared to anchor, Pete lets get her into the lee here,’ Sam instructed when she finished speaking on the VHF.

They motored into the wind and found a spot where the big swells had been calmed by the affect of the rocky Atoll sticking up in the middle of nowhere.

‘Drop it there,’ Sam shouted as she saw the depth sounder indicate nine Metres.

Laying of teak decks in Hout Bay,South Africa

We have imported special grade teak for decks for a very long time,while we do not lay them ourselves we know others who do,we supply the materials and they supply the labour.We have had yachts sail from as far as Brasil and England to have their decks relayed in Hout Bay,costs being a lot less here,its seen to be worth the trip

New laid teak deck to this standard of quality adds life and value to any boat.

This boat is steel,it required a full UHP water blasting and repaint prior to the deck works,we are agents for the company who do UHP works. ( ultra high pressure) They errect suitable screens around your boat in a local yard,strip all the old paints and apply all the new ones,its a single fix that works.