I'm Back
I've given the dogs away, given up the Pig hunting, sold the business and house, brought a boat/yacht called Invererne, (quite a mouth full I know).
Firstly a big shout out to Graham Finagin and Kelly Briggs without their help I wouldn't be sitting here in Opua marina preparing to sail to Fiji with the wonderful Isabelle Gasparini.
Graham Finagin,
Graham rebuilt the D series Ford in the boat, we started with an oil leak in the front seal of the gear box and ended up re-sleeving the motor, bearings, valves etc etc , I spent the whole time in the workshop with Graham (mostly in the wash bay) while watching Graham do what he's good at, Graham is old school, don't mention the metric scale in his workshop, he loves these old motors, loads of torque, 40 Lb flywheel and will run for days at 1000 Revs, giving me 7kts, eat your hearts out Yanmar owners.
Kelly Briggs,
This man fished the west coast of the south Island for 20 years and lived. I meet him in Nelson some years ago, aspire to follow in his foot steps, he has sailed around the world and more, forever optimistic and full of encouragement, when I said I'd sunk my last boat he said "well if you haven't sunk a few boats you haven't spent much time on the water". I ended up looking at a boat in Auckland and didn't like it that much till Kelly informed me it was a sister ship to his boat, the rest is history, he helped me sail it back too the sounds from Auckland and is a never ending wealth of knowledge and encouragement to this day.
So we haul out Monday and start the Cat 1 inspection, couple of Pics below.
Graham pulling Motor out