PACIFIC GETS A TICKLE UP

Happy New – todays the first story for 2023 and Pacific is a very fitting woody to welcome in the new year with – during the winter of 2022 Pacific sent time on the hard having some delayed maintenance issues addressed and some creative comforts added. I’ll let owner Nathan Herbert tell the story:

“Bit of an update is due after Pacific’s most recent haul. In past attempts, the prop shaft wasn’t able to be drawn out more than 150mm so I had always been nervous about the situation up there. This time with the help of Seagar Marine and The Slipway Milford, we by brute force and a makeshift large slide hammer removed the shaft. It was found to be pitted, and then very badly pitted in one section where she ran in a highly noble bronze bush about tube centre. Three bearings were subsequently rammed out; one lignum vitae, one fibrous and one bronze. The Tube was found to be thin walled gunmetal and had almost completely de-zinced to mush. The mystery bitumen bath on the keelson was found to be a crude repair some decades old, hiding bad corrosion. A boring bar was made from the old 3.6m tail shaft extended to 5m and with unholy effort the remnants were removed and the hole gradually bored out to accept a fibreglass stern tube. This tube was epoxied in, with two Vesconite and one rubber  cutless bearing installed, topped off by a Chatfields  blue water dripless seal. 

Interior works included re-configuration of the saloon to cater for modern(or at least 1970s) needs and finished in kauri and honduras mahogany. A lightweight cradle was made for the RIB when in commission, and a Francis  searchlight fitted to the bridge deck.

There are always extras attended to along the way such as minor/insidious leaks but they fade in the memory compared with the newfound smoothness of a new, dry drivel ine”

2021 saw major updates to the zoom zoom – link here https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/01/27/pacific-the-105-year-old-woody-get-a-new-heart/ https://waitematawoodys.com/2021/02/03/pacific-sea-trial/