Renovation of Moonlight 265

During the summer 2005 we were more and more convinced of, that Moonlight should have an overhaul, a bit more than the usual aft season doing. It wasn't just an easy task, as the boat has its mooring several hundred kilometres away from our home.

A crane was ordered and Moonlight was by tortuous roads, - to avoid certain bridges, - driven to our home and craned over the hedge and put on the lawn.......and the overhaul could start!

The planned overhaul developed and rapidly we were in progress with a much larger renovation.

Ole, our son, who serve his apprenticeship as erector, though with Catarpilar and Mak engines as speciality, meant that the cylinder heads on our Perkins surely needed to be looked after.

The cylinder heads were removed. With free access to pistons and cylinders, a micrometer revealed that the cylinders were worn oval, which they of course shouldn't be, and this told us quite a deal about the condition of the rest of the engine. A co-operation was began with a workmate, who was apprentice at a company, which amongst others co-operate with Perkins. Both engines had to be removed from the boat. This wasn't possible unless parts of the glass fibre bars was cut away, which meant, that after renovation, we could assemble the engine and test run, and put them back into the boat, still assembled. By the way, one of the 4 bolts supporting the engine, was broken.

The engines were totally disassembled and all parts went through the cleaning machine. It turns out to be high time, 5 piston rings lay in small pieces in the grooves, which in worst case could result in major engine breakdown. Many parts is replaced, valves and guides, atomizers, cylinder liners, water pumps, oil tubes, generators, as well as all bearings. The engines is assembled using new gaskets and is spray painted. The cost of this operation is 45000.-Dkk (about 6000€) in spare parts plus some "ice and pizza" to the two youngsters, who spent many working hours on the project. But then again, it sounded really good when the engines were restarted in the test bench!

Now, as a great part of the boat was demounted, the scene was set for renovation of many other things and it fast spread.  The entire cockpit was emptied for all parts which were able to be unscrewed, cut or torn off, things was grinded, filled and sprayed. 99% of all wires to instruments, engines, lamps and extras has been shifted....the only ones which isn't is the wires under the ceiling lining in fore- and aft cabin. (for your info: it takes about 250 m of wire for a Moonraker, when you "economize" a bit). New  fuses, instruments and lights are mounted. Price approximate 18000.- DKK (about 2400€).... and it takes a long time!

With the engines removed, there's plenty of room in the engine compartment, so the old copper tubes for water and gas can be changed, grinding, cleaning and painting, it all is sound insulated, and a crane lifts the renewed and newly painted engines back into the boat.

In the forepeak, the anchor locker has been made larger, so the chain now problem-free can run in. Some shelves have been made at top of the sides as well as new side covering. The old black plastic plates and doors for instruments and fuses have been replaced with mahogany stain and satin lacquered plywood. The ceiling lining in the cockpit was renewed, and new throttles and 5 new Morse cables is mounted.

The shafts had to be lined up, the one ran out of true 3mm, so the stern tube packing had not to be tight, which it wasn't. The o-rings in the rudder bearings has been replaced.

At the outer side almost everything stainless is demounted and electro polished, at a price of 2500.- DKK (330€), but then it looks almost like new. I dropped to unscrew guard rail on aft cabin and handles on cabin roof top, or else I had to demount the ceiling linings inside.....I had to stop some place.

The entire free board and superstructure is grounded, filled and sprayed. The vessel has on an earlier stage been lacquered with one component paint, which normally means, that you can't use an two component paint unless you remove all the old paint first. This is huge task, which I wasn't quite crazy about. I poured out my trouble to a Blake's dealer, who claimed, that if the old paint had been on the surface for 5-8 years, it is all right to spray two component upon after a thoroughly grinding and sanding!  I had a try and it seemed true, nothing happened! The vessel then had grinding and filling and was sprayed with Blake's "Poly best".

Regarding the circumstances, I think I succeeded quite well. Filler, primer, paint and miscellaneous aids approximately 7000.- DKK (930€).

The biggest problem, not the one which took the longest time, but the thing which caused the most speculations and also made me a bit sour, was probably the windows, that engineer who has invented the alu profile for the Moonraker, hasn't thought decades ahead nor just to the moment the first pane crashes.  The entire framework has to be demounted to shift just a pane! So I had to demount all frames, cleaned out old silicone and rubber gaskets, grinded and painted the profiles, which wasn't so bad, but assemble a 3.5m long window frame on the lawn and put in place, without the whole framework slips so much, that it become leak, to make a success of it is not an easy task! Which not all the way succeeded, neither 100% with the large front windows, so it has to be done over again,  preferably before next summer. I have considered several solutions and I think it all ends up with changing the alu profiles, so the frame is mounted before the pane is put in place.

Now, when the hole thing is over, I have almost forgotten we didn't came to sea 2006 and almost have forgotten how many hours we have spent on the project. It's really great that our lovely old Moonraker is in tip top shape without murky wirings and ditto pipes and tubes.

With the whole family's efforts it succeeded to test sail a week before the summer holiday's start, of course some things had to be corrected, which was done, and an early Sunday morning, in good weather conditions, we leave Esbjerg harbour, up the West coast of Jutland, and 9 hours later we entered Thyboron harbour.  The a lovely trip - in mixed weather - through the Limfjord, in to Mariager Fjord, Aarhus bay, and 3 weeks later, 400 miles and approximately 700 Litres of diesel, we enter our mooring in Middelfart.

We have been sailing the summer through and discovered the things, which have to be corrected: The windows have to be tightened, the old propellers were so worn, that it wasn't possible to get them equilibrated and should have been replaced. Port engine is dripping some oil from so the rear oil ring on the crankshaft has to be replaced. A set of gaskets is delivered with similar packing boxes for both engines, which won't do, as the one engine is contra rotating. Luckily it's a guarantee repair.

We also intended to refurbish the pantry, and a holding tank stands ready for installation, things we didn't got done before launching. It's nice to have some things to do during the winter!

All in all including flybridge tonneau, bolsters, carpets, flying bridge mast, cables and boxes, echo sounder, gas fittings and 100 other bits and pieces it all ends up to 125000.- DKK (16500€) plus an unknown number of working hours.

Now we are just looking forward to the next summer,  where the weather surely will be much better than it was 2007, (it can't be much worse, can it?) so we all can have a decent sailing season and may be meet some place out there.

With sailor greetings, Anna & Henning ”Moonlight”

11/2007

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