Pinoy Boat Yard
Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines
With luck this goes thru on a very sporadic internet connection. Yesterday was a bit trying. Super typhoon Haiyan barreled thru our area with the eye passing just thirty miles to the north of us. We did not spend the day on the boat but perhaps 20 yards away in the upstairs bar here in Pinoy Boat Yard. We were three couples who had boats here along with Zeke the yard owner and several of his workers who were dubbed Hero's. Two other couples stayed aboard and several others moved to high ground at one of the local schools.
During the day the winds veered from the ENE all the way around to the ESE. We have no accurate anemometer reading but a best guess was over 100 knots with higher gusts. Most of our day was spent watching the boats move and stretch there mooring lines. All were secured bow and stern with a minimum of 8 lines. None parted but there was lots of stretch and several trips were made from the bar to one or the other of the vessels to make adjustments to the lines.
Finally by 4 PM things had calmed to perhaps 25 knots and Kathy and Blue Cat returned to the boat. I stayed in the bar having a few beers and perhaps a rum while the winds continued to calm.
This morning we awoke to clear sky's and calm winds, this was followed by a brief rain shower to help wash the leaves that were covering our boat. Next Zeke arrived and directed the workers to start on clean-up. We've all been busy and the entire area is cleaned up and all of the yachts here have been put back in order. It was quite amazing to see everything put back in order so quickly. The entire are is without power and will be for perhaps a week or more. In talking to the workers most have severely damaged homes but all reported that their families were fine. They were all happy to only work a half day and to have gotten paid today and in addition they received a raise. I would expect that most will make repairs to their houses tomorrow and be here for work Monday morning. The Philipino people are very resilient.
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Friday, November 8, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
TYPHOON HAIYAN
Pinoy Boat Yard
Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines
This has been preparation day for the expected coming of Haiyan, meaning the seabird Petrel in Chinese. The Philippine name is Yolanda. We were fortunate in that all sails had previously been removed and stowed away. We began the morning with clouds but calm winds. The yard workers were taking care of the stern lines which are secured to bollard's across the channel, they normally have weights to in the middle to hold them down. These were removed and we added two more. Two more bow lines were added along with running the anchor chain to a bollard. As all the yachts here are doing the same we appear to be in the center of a giant spider web. Anything that would provide windage was taken off and we stored two of our solar panels normally secured to the lifelines, the on deck fuel cans, canvas bags etc.
It's now just after 3 PM and as I write the barometer is 1014 and steady, the sky is cloudy and we have had some light showers but only about 10 knots of wind. All the workers have gone home to take care of there own houses. It's now just waiting to see what will be. The forecast has landfall bout 75 miles to our northeast tomorrow morning with winds of 130 knots.
We along with most of the others here will stay aboard and do what we can when Haiyan arrives. I'll try to update things once the storm passes depending on electricity.
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radio email processed by SailMail
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Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines
This has been preparation day for the expected coming of Haiyan, meaning the seabird Petrel in Chinese. The Philippine name is Yolanda. We were fortunate in that all sails had previously been removed and stowed away. We began the morning with clouds but calm winds. The yard workers were taking care of the stern lines which are secured to bollard's across the channel, they normally have weights to in the middle to hold them down. These were removed and we added two more. Two more bow lines were added along with running the anchor chain to a bollard. As all the yachts here are doing the same we appear to be in the center of a giant spider web. Anything that would provide windage was taken off and we stored two of our solar panels normally secured to the lifelines, the on deck fuel cans, canvas bags etc.
It's now just after 3 PM and as I write the barometer is 1014 and steady, the sky is cloudy and we have had some light showers but only about 10 knots of wind. All the workers have gone home to take care of there own houses. It's now just waiting to see what will be. The forecast has landfall bout 75 miles to our northeast tomorrow morning with winds of 130 knots.
We along with most of the others here will stay aboard and do what we can when Haiyan arrives. I'll try to update things once the storm passes depending on electricity.
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| GOOGLE EARTH OVERLAY WE'REJUST ABOVE CEBU CITY IN ZEKE'S NEW YARD |
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| ON IT'S WAY TOWARD US |
Friday, November 1, 2013
PROGRESS and SOME NEW DECISIONS
Pinoy Boat Yard
Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines
As this blog title says "progress" on the new hard top progresses and with a bit of luck we hope to have it installed sometime next week. We recently added a third worker who does both sanding and painting and just yesterday added a fourth as a result of an important decision that we have just made.
The supporting frame work was finished on the boat, and our original plan was for me to brush the final top coat rather than dealing with the difficulty of masking a significant amount of the boat and having it sprayed. I managed two coats but we found that the new color was quite a bit different than what was on the existing cabin top and would never look good. Kathy and I discussed what options we had and then made the decision to go ahead and do a complete paint job even though the cabin and decks were done just over a year ago. This of course leads to budgetary questions and has an effect on the timeframe that we had previously planned on for leaving the Philippines. More talks and we have now decided that we will most likely stay here in the Philippines for another year getting projects done. The costs of getting work done here is so reasonable in comparison to anywhere else in the world especially back in the states we need to spend the time here and get it done. An example regarding wages this past week our workers compiled 117 total man hours, the labor bill will be 8,900 pesos or just over $200 US. that's and average of $1.76 US per hour.
The yard was on holiday schedule today, All Souls Day, so we had only one worker, Jing who sands and paints. He did the final sand and paint of the frame work and then managed the first coat of finish on the top side of the bimini. The other side was done previously so it should be just one more coat on each side and then installation.
We continue to come up with more projects for Lando our carpenter. Kathy bought a teak drink holder perhaps ten years ago and we have been storing it ever since as we could never figure out how to best mount it. It took she and Lando about ten minutes to figure the solution and the bracket has been made and after several coats of varnish it will be installed. Lando is now working on redoing a cabinet top and the navigation station top in the same manner as we had done for the saloon table. We have several more projects lined up for him.
Our plan is not to spend the whole of our extra time in the Philippines here in the the boat yard but for now we'll be staying busy here.
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radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
Port Carmen, Cebu
Philippines
As this blog title says "progress" on the new hard top progresses and with a bit of luck we hope to have it installed sometime next week. We recently added a third worker who does both sanding and painting and just yesterday added a fourth as a result of an important decision that we have just made.
The supporting frame work was finished on the boat, and our original plan was for me to brush the final top coat rather than dealing with the difficulty of masking a significant amount of the boat and having it sprayed. I managed two coats but we found that the new color was quite a bit different than what was on the existing cabin top and would never look good. Kathy and I discussed what options we had and then made the decision to go ahead and do a complete paint job even though the cabin and decks were done just over a year ago. This of course leads to budgetary questions and has an effect on the timeframe that we had previously planned on for leaving the Philippines. More talks and we have now decided that we will most likely stay here in the Philippines for another year getting projects done. The costs of getting work done here is so reasonable in comparison to anywhere else in the world especially back in the states we need to spend the time here and get it done. An example regarding wages this past week our workers compiled 117 total man hours, the labor bill will be 8,900 pesos or just over $200 US. that's and average of $1.76 US per hour.
The yard was on holiday schedule today, All Souls Day, so we had only one worker, Jing who sands and paints. He did the final sand and paint of the frame work and then managed the first coat of finish on the top side of the bimini. The other side was done previously so it should be just one more coat on each side and then installation.
We continue to come up with more projects for Lando our carpenter. Kathy bought a teak drink holder perhaps ten years ago and we have been storing it ever since as we could never figure out how to best mount it. It took she and Lando about ten minutes to figure the solution and the bracket has been made and after several coats of varnish it will be installed. Lando is now working on redoing a cabinet top and the navigation station top in the same manner as we had done for the saloon table. We have several more projects lined up for him.
Our plan is not to spend the whole of our extra time in the Philippines here in the the boat yard but for now we'll be staying busy here.
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radio email processed by SailMail
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| PAPER & PLASTIC TO COVER EVERYTHING |
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| LOTS OF MASKING PREP |
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| TRYING TO LIMIT OVERSPRAY TO OTHERS |
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| MIXING |
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| NOTICE EDDIE'S OSHA APPROVED T-SHIRT RESPIRATOR |
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| BOTTOM SIDE OF BIMINI |
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| LANDO AT WORK |
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| OLD FORMICA TOP IS GONE |
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| FITTING OF THE NEW TOP |
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| A NEW TOP FOR THE TABLE AND NEW PANELS FOR THE REST |
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| MOST WORK IS DONE WITH A GRINDER |
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| OR A CHISEL |
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