Xena: the Warrior Princess: Five Days to go

It was the evening of the day.... sunset over IFC 2, Jing's office.
9th April after the Pursuit Race. Note the guy fishing in centre
(click to enlarge)

[Update 18 April: some photos of the MOB practice from Cess, with thanks!]
Last I posted was two weeks ago, goodness me, where has the time gone?
Well, part of it getting out and about with son John, who is back on Term break, from the UK. Walks in mountains with dogs... enjoying Hong Kong's great food.

But, back to Xena, the sum of last few weeks: [for all photos click to enlarge; click again for further enlargement].
Scrutineering
We were given the full check by Mike Westlake on the 6th April, and passed all on first run-through. When I went to hand in the papers, Sailing Manager Alex Johnston informs me that we've won a prize. "What?", sez I, "you're kidding, right?". No, he wasn't. Turns out he's instituted a prize for first completed scrutineering... pour encourager les autres.... What prize? dunno, but maybe a bot of wine if we're lucky. Trust that's an omen...

Practice
We went our for a bit of a cobweb blower on Saturday 9th. Some safety training followed by a fun pursuit race, the Hong Kong Volunteer Royal Navy Vase, which our club site says

History of the HKRNVR Memorial Vase The Vase was presented to the Club more than 40 years ago by the local Royal Naval Volunteer Reserves with the proviso that "the course should take participating yachts into waters patrolled by the HKRNVR." The HKRNVR is now defunct but the trophy continues to serve as a reminder to yachtsmen of when amateur sailors played their part in the security of Hong Kong.

Safety training now covers MOB (man overboard), liferaft practice, fire, emergency steering, radio check, storm sails use and first aid review.
We also had a morning out, last Tuesday 12th, with Stevo, Michael, Jono and myself, to try out the new Staysail and get the sheeting right on it. Flies well and -- was it my imagination? -- seemed to go faster with it. Mind, that's not saying much, given the state the bottom and keel was still at -- see below for some horrifying piccies -- parental warning on those ones... We did a bit of inadvertent "man" overboard practice, when we accidentally let a spinnaker sheet drop over the side; Michael did his best "keep pointing at the MOB", we downed sails and went back to pick up, only to find, alas, that the "man" had gone to davy jones' infamous locker...

Satellite Communicator
We have now installed the equipment, which is sold via Predict Wind, which allows us to download emails while on the race, with updated routing info (all legit, as based on publicly available info. Here for more info on that). So far so good, and seems is going to be very useful. There's powerful Routing software on the site, and the on-board hardware seems robust and easy to use. From the PW site, re the Models.....
Select between the PredictWind Models or the GFS (Global Forecast System from NOAA) / CMC (Canadian Met Centre) models. The PredictWind models are initialised from the GFS/CMC observations, but we run our own proprietary model. In most cases you will get a more accurate forecast using the PredictWind models! The GFS/CMC models are provided as a comparison, being used by many other weather sites. [ref]

A big shout-out here for Jon Bilger of Predict Wind in New Zealand, who has been indefatigable in his help, in getting us online and making sure that everything's working well. Actually, as I write this, we're in email comms, to sort out the Boat Tracking feature. When that's done, we're there and family & friends can follow Xena whereever she is on deliveries and regattas. (for the SFR, there'll be special race tracking equipment, which will be notified on the San Fernando Race site, in due course).

This is where we put the Sat Comm aerial -- it's the white square one, far right
(other items, BTW: are, L to R: EPIRB, inflatable "Dan" buoys, AIS aerial)

Liftout

Xena alongside at Royal Hong Kong, a lady downtown

We lifted Xena on Wednesday and she's just going back in today. Needed a bit of extra time, as we had to replace a couple of seacocks, and also add one seacock for the generator, to separtate it off from the engine one, which had been sharing and causing some heating problems with the water pump on the genset.

Boatyard Foreman Mr Yip Man Tai

With the reclamation, the travel hoist is out of action,
so the government has provided this 160-tonne crane to the Club....

....and lifts Xena into the special cradle designed by Ian Mann

The bottom was horrible! We could've started a Marine Park in the coral.... That's from the King's Cup, so about three months of growth. We washed and then sanded with 400/600 grit yesterday. Still, is going to need a full workover, anti-fouling, of bottom and keel when we're back, either before or after the Koh Samui, depending on time.

Aaargh.... then... water-cleaned by yard and sanded by Noel

Premier Class
A couple of our division competition arrived for final preps at the Royal Hong Kong in the last few days....

Rob Stanley's lovely Swan-55, Sunshine
bought in New Zealand and delivered to HK in October '10

Andrew Rickards' Warwick 54, Moonblue.

The RHKYC Moorings

Couple of piccies showing what's going on at Causeway Bay. Basically, the government is digging a tunnel for a highway bypass, and these are some of the barges surrounding us...