Hullo friends and family

We have made it to the end of another amazing Thai experience.

The dirty, grimy, smelly boat yard at Ratanachai is a thing of the past I am pleased to report. But it wasn’t without its moments and herein lies a tale……

We had looked at the yard up a river at Kantang near Malaysia, but haul-out facilities for a cat, the smell of the fish factory and doing a paint job with the flying-around dirt didn’t warrant the cheaper price.

Boat Lagoon where all the affluent yachts are hauled out was out of our price bracket, although the clean orderly yard and swimming pool were a very strong pull.

So negotiating with Ratanachai up a creek on the east coast of Phuket where we have hauled Katrine out several times before was the only choice.

There was no drama in getting her out except that I could distinctly hear her digging in her heels and squealing “Oh No! Not again!”

We had made a long list of “to-do’s” and the minute we had been trundled out and squeezed in between huge towering Chinese fishing boats, the occupants of whom gawked down at little us, we set to it.

It was tricky getting the head sail off the genoa pole but with a minimum of expletives we had the roller furling off. Its plastic had broken and been repaired several times with bostick but the little Thai in the workshop assured us that he could make a stainless steel one “exacerry” the same. And he did. What a magnificent job.

Our new Kubota engines, bigger than the previous ones had caused a small problem with their heaviness. The exhaust outlets were disappearing just under the water surface when we were under way, which could have been problematic later on so they had to be lifted, and the keels had “bommy” damage that needed attention. (From landing on coral out crops) We found more tsunami damage than we at first had anticipated and the bent propeller shafts and the other superficial damage needed to be repaired, davits reinforced for a fourth solar panel to be erected, sissy bar toughened for better protection in big seas, cutlass bearings, and foam pumped into the beams between the hulls for more strength. The list went on and on. And then the painting.

Golf, a painter whom we knew from a previous haul out was determined we needed a paint job. Our first quote from the boat yard was astronomical – totally out of the question, so we had decided to put Katrine on a beach somewhere and paint her ourselves at a later date. But we would have to get a compressor and all the other hassles that not having a big workshop on the farm necessitated, so when he came up with a price of 35,000 baht which included the paint it was a price hard to refuse. (just under a thousand US$) that was for the sides and underneath Katrine – we had done the topsides last year. He would replace our stripes, the name and the dolphin. We were ecstatic. For an extra 2,000 baht he would do the antifouling as well. Don and I set to the inside. A total sanding and complete repaint. You have never seen such a mess; fine white powder covered the entire inside of the boat and seeped into every nook and cranny. We had planned to move into a room somewhere while all this was going on, but we counted the pennies and declined. Besides which living in the boat yard was an adventure not to be missed. And so to get him back I will divulge all.

 The fishermen’s slip yard falls under the “squat and squeeze” toilet bracket, with a jug of water and doors that sometimes latched. More often than not the handle was missing and it was a manual affair. A long piece of string nailed to the inside measured just the right length for the occupier to wrap around his hand and doubled to keep the door closed as well as an aid for balance. Thus teetering on ones haunches one was able to perform ones ablutions and gaze out at the goings on through a sizeable eye-levelled hole in the door where the handle once was. That was all very well for me, but for Don it was a bit more complicated.

His six foot three inch frame wasn’t as much an impediment as was the fact that old injuries had robbed him of a knee cap on one leg and numerous operations to the knee of the other in the years long gone. This led to an unfortunate state of affairs. He wasn’t able to genuflect and in a squat-pan situation this posed a slight dilemma. Squatting was impossible which meant the other option was to sit on the low receptacle. This in turn created even more of a problem. He complained about something to do with old age and pendulous bits and straightened legs that had to be wedged under the door - and that only if there was a space that allowed for it. If not it was a horrible sight. I don’t know all the intricacies, but there were unsuccessful times when he would declare his failure with, “it got stage fright” and other tricky toilet jargon such as “hover and heave”. 

There were three showers. Two were simply short plastic hoses from which a dribble of water emerged. But one had to be the regular 4 foot Thai to lift it above the hairline, or else get onto ones knees to shower with any sort of success.

The third shower needed a bit more pluck. It consisted of a steel pipe that stood vertical at waist height in a veneer-boarded cubicle. The tap turned on full shot water up in a whoosh that hit the dirty ceiling full on threatening to blow it into extinction and returning to earth like a cloud burst that wet the whole cubical including ones towel and clean and dry clothes. But opened to a pre-calculated turn, water surged heavenward in huge globs that fell hard and although the deluge threatened concussion and to disconnect one’s wobbly bits it was heaven at the end of the day for the dusty, dirty and grimy body to be scrubbed clean with unaccountable amounts of fresh water.

But aside from all the bathroom jokes, we had a good few laughs and the other two yachts that were in for maintenance were friends that we knew from Telaga. One, Louis, on his boat Wayout, is South African and between Don and he, the poor German, Helmut, (on a South African boat called Coco de Mer) didn’t have much chance. Happily most of it went right over the top so there were no hard feelings, but a few beers in the evening and they would start.

Its been hard slog, from the early morning siren that wailed loud enough to waken the dead to the final “spirit walk” at 5 pm, when two of the Thai workers would circle the boatyard with a plate each of burning incense to discourage the spooks. (The first time Don saw them pass the boat with clouds of smoke billowing forth from a plate, he commented, “Take a look at this – can’t tell me that curry isn’t hot!”)

We had calculated that the work would take us three weeks.

It took us just over two weeks with a few minor catastrophes; a broken scaffold plank that brought a painter, with all his kit down on top of Golf in a gloop of white paint and another that happened next door.

One morning while Don and I were taking a noodle break under Katrine in the shade we noticed a flying Thai. The big fishing boat in front of us had a carpenter who fell off from a high scaffolding plank to land heavily in a cloud of dust. We were mortified, but there was no sympathy for any of these guys. Before he could get himself up and dusted off the next one had taken his place!

But finally we had finished.

There were a few hitches with the stripes and they have a bit of a wobble in places, the name Katrine is a weenie bit crooked and the dolphin could be better spaced, but what the heck. This is the Thai version and Katrine doesn’t mind. As Louise says, “It’s nothing that you can see from the cockpit”

In keeping with Thai tradition, to encourage the good spirits to stay and the bad spirits to flee, (and to make sure there were no rats left on board,) we hung a string of 2,000 crackers from Katrine’s bow. They exploded in a cloud of red paper as she slid gently back into the water.

And I distinctly heard her sigh with relief.      Me too