Jarcat stored

The Jarcat will have its home away from home in a storage place 1/2 hour from home. It's in storage for a few weeks until I get time to arrange registration.
It doesn't look too flash but it'll keep the boat dry and safe.

Preliminary checkout and To Do List

Once home and the family and I had checked out the boat, I tarped it up (I had measured the tarpaulin size previously) and waited for the weekend.

On the weekend, Don, a Jarcat guru conveniently living 30 minutes away from me, had a look at the Jarcat. With his help and over the next few weeks I compiled the To Do list:

1. Remove the tiller and discard it. It's way too low and can't steer without hitting either the outboard motor or my knees. It's also built like an afterthought.
2. Remove all the rudder gear and remount the rudders 25mm higher for port and 50mm higher  for starboard. This will either be by moving the Pintle mounts on the transom or moving the gudgeons lower on the rudder boxes.
3. Remove the pintles from the transom, align, seal and remount. They are not aligned correctly. To compensate for this, the top pintle mount has been left "loose" - not OK.
4. Seal the rudder box insides. Apparently they should have been fibreglassed during assembly but the cracks where wood joins wood are clearly visible. I will have to dribble thickened epoxy into the joins. (I have already bought Bote-cote epoxy and a sample pack of Aqua-cote paint).
5. Modify the transom so the motor can tilt. After test fitting the motor we found that it could only tilt when put "hard over".
6. Rework the rudder cross arm height to ensure that the motor in its tilted position clears the rudder cross arm.
7. Remove all tracks from the boat and epoxy the fasteners in. They are only sealed with a tiny bit of silicone currently. The front "Tacktrack" has the job of holding the front mast stay -so it's important it doesn't fail. The Jib tracks and main traveller aren't quite as critical but they should be properly installed.
8. Seal front and rear docking cleats and anchor cleat with Sikaflex 291. Currently they are sparingly sealed with silicone and feel weak. I won't epoxy these in as I may well change them for 6" Stainless Steel if I don't think the current 5 1/2" nylon cleats are strong enough.
9. Cut the rearmost trailer roller mounting down. They extend 150mm below the trailer at the moment. I reckon I have put a gouge in a few places (driveways) going to and fro getting the boat ready.
10. Fit Jib blocks and cam cleats. I'll have second Jib blocks near the cabin as per Don's setup.
11. Once the rudders are back on, build a whole new tiller setup.
12. Extend the chainplates (they hold the mast backstays to the boat). They appear to be the right length but there is only one 3/16" bolt holding them inside the hulls. I think the length below the deck was lost to a slightly higher combing above deck. I will drill the hole out to 6mm and add an extension piece of SS (using that bolt) and more epoxied hardwood to hold it in place. Then another 6mm bolt through the hull. I will tension the join to the main chainplate 6mm bolt when fitting the extension SS.

There's more - and more detail - but that's about the crux of it.

Picking up the Jarcat from MIRRAT (Port Melbourne)

After lots of ringing around and emails, I had decided to bring the boat from Perth to Melbourne via sea. The ship bringing here got delayed so the Jarcat spent about a week sitting in the terminal car park at Freemantle. Finally I got news (after pestering them) that the boat was arriving and would be ready for pickup today.

It's amazing the stuff that goes on that, until you have a need, you just don't know is happening.
Take MIRRAT - Melbourne International Rollon-Rolloff Automotive Terminal, for example.

The guys at MIRRAT appeared to all know about the "Jetcat". The paperwork I submitted said "Jarcat", but somewhere along the way the boat got a lot faster... I imagine they thought the Jet engines would be fitted later. Anyway, after watching a 20 minute indoctrination (safety) video and doing a questionnaire I was allowed on site. The Jarcat was sitting all alone in a very large warehouse awaiting pick-up.

My MIRRAT guide and I connected the trailer up to my tow-car and tested out the lights on the light-board (detachable trailer lights that mount on the back of the boat during towing). The right indicator started smoking then went out - other wise all was well - my adaptor purchased a few weeks earlier FITTED!. After I got out of the MIRRAT complex I stopped in a large parking bay and checked everything out. Sure enough the right indicator globe glass envelope was broken. No spare, so no right indicator for the trip home - unless I could find a service station along the way. I checked all the tie downs and ropes then started for home - what a stressful journey that was!

The Jarcat is 2.5 meters wide and has to be the scariest thing I have ever towed. Our caravan is 2.2M but the extra 300mm makes a big difference. On my trip home I managed to miss getting on the M1 Freeway and ended up going up St Kilda road - an overcrowded road near the CBD of Melbourne. The traffic lanes there were just a tad narrower than the Jarcat trailer. At one stage I had one wheel running along the kerb and the other running over the cats eyes between the lanes. I managed to swing a right turn near the Melbourne War Memorial and after a few more stressful moments (remember no right indicator) was back on the freeway. It was better from that point on.

I was very glad to get home unscathed.

Your Boat is on its way

The seller, Roy, had gone overseas for a few weeks over winter so we both decided that we would leave getting the Jarcat to Melbourne until he was back and settled. This would give me enough time to chase various shipping options.

The Jarcat was picked up from the sellers home in the outer suburbs of Perth today.
It will be coming to Melbourne by ship.