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Our time at Dinah Beach CYA
Dinah Beach Cruising
Yacht Assoc. caters for all yachties, cruising or
not, and is a great facility for boat building in close
proximity to central Darwin. Along with loads of friendly
people it has the “Song Saigon Bar” and great
food on offer. This was our home for 10 months.
Ready To Go At Dinah Beach
A Sailing Story is incomplete without tales of times in
shipyards! Whimoway spent the first two weeks on the pegs
before being craned onto the wharf. We cleaned her out,
a task in itself as she was full of mould and other assortments.
Even in that time it was evident that she needed more
work than we initially thought! The real surprises came
when we started digging around the hull. For a time it
seemed that we would smash her all apart but we found
good steel eventually and then proceeded to re-cement.
New steel was welded then chicken wire tied in. We used
a product called Emaco to do the repairs. Her transom
was replaced as well as a vast part of the deck and several
other spots including a large hole starboard-side under the
waterline.
We chose a Ferro-cement yacht over timber for this trip
as the tropics are too harsh on timber boats. Ferro is
cool and needs minimal ongoing maintenance and to do the
vast repairs like this on a timber boat would have taken
a much longer time and many would not bother.
Running rigging was replaced and sails sourced from several
places. The hatches were re-set with new frames and then
she was painted and made watertight before the first rains
of the wet season. The motor wiring was replaced and the
whole boat rewired inside, or enough for us to have a
few lights plus the necessary navigation equipment.
Mike built a large fridge-freezer, learning as he went,
and lining was fitted as well as a temporary galley, chart
table and saloon. Mike managed to put into place a bit
of some Tasmanian feature timber including some beautiful
myrtle above the galley; the rest of our timber is still
stacked in the aft cabin! Finally we acquired more than
enough ground tackle (anchor gear) which we consider to
be essential.
We made some great friends there and we had a fantastic
going away party at Mica Beach on the other side of Darwin
Harbour carrying 25 of our family and friends across on
Whimoway along with a generator, amp and speakers, all
camping gear and Rex’s dog who got waylaid in Darwin.
As we went to leave the first time our fridge compressor
blew up so we were delayed for a week or so, but, after
a little more boat building at Dinah Beach, we eventually
headed to Gove which is our first real Sailing Story.
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