Pitufa.at

This morning we wrapped Pitufa in yet another layer of plastic, then the smurf-blue bootstripe was sprayed on and by noon we were allowed to reveal the piece of art–tuh-duh! An almost new Pitufa in white and blue We tore off the layers of foil that we used over the past few days to protect the new antifouling and paint. Negative side effect: we produced… Continue reading »

On Friday the primer was sprayed on, during the weekend we did the first two layers of antifouling, so now Pitufa’s battleship grey and blue. The primer has nicely dried over the weekend, today the painter does some more fairing, tomorrow we’ll hopefully get the paint sprayed on and Pitufa will turn white on the topsides and we’ll do two more layers of black antifouling.… Continue reading »

Today the first two coats of primer will be (hopefully) sprayed on. In order to protect the rest of the boat we had to spread a layer of plastic all around the toe-rail and up to the life lines. Weirdly enough, there’s never enough proper scaffolding in a boatyard, instead we have to pile up differently sized blocks of wood put planks on top and… Continue reading »

We hauled the boat out on Friday and started work immediately. We want to do a new antifouling as usual, but after more than 10 years the paint on the topsides has started cracking in places and so we have decided to have a professional painter spray it newly to get Pitufa all shiny and pretty again. Of course the old paint has to come… Continue reading »

After almost a month of boat projects in Tahiti we’d love to take a few days off, but we have an apointment to haul out in Raiatea on Friday, so we have to set sails towards the Iles sous le vent today. The forecast predicts a stiff breeze, so we count on a rough, but fast ride. Leeloo has already got some seasickness drops and… Continue reading »

Last Monday we thought it’d be a clever idea to quickly add another battery to have 500 Ah instead of 400. The batteries live under the pilot berth which serves as storage, so all those boxes went into the saloon. It turned out that the additional battery didn’t fit into the plastic box we had intended for it, so Christian decided to custom-make a fiberglass… Continue reading »

When we were in Tahanea (atoll in the Tuamotus) we were horrified to see that Copra production had started on some of the few remaining bird motus. Last year we had tried to convince the mayor of Faaite (the neighbouring atoll to which Tahanea belongs) to turn the southwestern motus into a protected zone. No success. This year we met the family who owns and… Continue reading »

Ever since we arrived in Tahiti we’ve spent half of the time running around to get things and the other half to install them. Nothing’s ever straightforward, usually some little missing bit comes up during repairs/maintenance/installation and the next day is spent hitch-hiking to machine shops to have something altered or made. We’re making progress though, even though Pitufa keeps looking like a building site.… Continue reading »