Log and Journal

February 22, 2008
San Diego, California

Messing with Boats, Part IX
by Gunter

My esteemed navigator and scribe informs me that I never did write about the repairs of 2006.  And I realized that I did not tell you about the second, and hopefully last, radar repair on Pacific Bliss.  So here goes:
After arriving in Telaga Harbor/Malaysia, in 2006, we had WAVEMASTER, a large marine service yard, do a large number of maintenance and repair items; this was the first opportunity to have access to a fully equipped yard for a long while.
We had quite a long list:

In the fall of 2006 we sailed from Telaga harbor to Phuket, Thailand.  This would be our last marina before the long passage across the Indian Ocean and the slog up the Red Sea into Egypt.  We gave Pacific Bliss a good work over again:

 

Pacific Bliss held up quite well—thank God—during our six-month long Voyage Six from Thailand to Turkey.  There was only one major problem: our radar gave out again during our passage from Sri Lanka to the Maldives.  We didn’t miss it out in the vastness of the Indian Ocean, but as we sailed closer to Salalah, Oman, we wished that it would work.  The nearest Furuno dealer was in Dubai, and we found out that it would take them five weeks to ship and clear customs in Oman.  That meant no radar for our Pirate Alley transit.  Fortunately, we were in a tight five-yacht convoy, always within VHF range.  In the port of Aden, luck turned our way.  I noticed that the radar systems on the local Coast Guard boats were Furuno.  I sent our crewman, Chris, over to check it out.  Before long, we had their Furuno technician on Pacific Bliss.  He replaced the Magnetron and the radar worked fine after this.