Having A Blast Of A Time

Marine Archeology

Crystal Blues was built in New Zealand over 20 years ago.  Along the way she's had four caretakers, who have all stamped their personalities on her with complex and often challenging refits.

Right now, we're cleaning up some of the mistakes of the past caretakers (and the original builder).  We're making sure that bilges do actually drain properly, and that limber holes exist to carry water away - where ever it comes from !

Most of our work is in the aft bilge area.  Access to this area was non-existant previously, so we cut the base out of cupboards and wardrobes to get to the hull.  What we saw we didn't like.  So Luck Engineering came down and cut two holes in our hull - it almost broke Ley's heart to do this!

For the past two weeks we've been grinding, cleaning, sandblasting and finessing with our trusty Dremel.   Sand blasting really is a dirty word - you can see the proof in Neil's face after a session with the sand blasting gun, a few bags of grit and a powerful compressor. With it all cleaned up we've started re-coating with Jotun paints, and the team from Luck have re-instated the starboard side already.

Affirmative Action

Seeing that our aft bilge created this problem, we decided to remove it and change the way the the lazarette would drain.  We had to drill new drain holes in the steel tank wall and re-plumb that area. This lead to us removing our aft Turtle Pac fresh water bladders and a whole lot more.

We are still on the hard stand, still with one hole in the hull but we are making progress.  Plan is to do it  properly and never revisit this space again.  Stay tuned!