Mai Tai Repair and Family Reunions

We are already in July 2025 and I realise we haven’t written any blogs since last November. Family reunions and major boat repairs have kept us incredibly busy. We hope this finds you all in good health and in as good spirits as we are, despite all our trials and tribulations.

Our motto is to “keep smiling and keep positive no matter what the weather”.
Let me start with our arrival back in Monastir which is where our last blog left off and we will show you the other side of this “living the dream” lifestyle, that we have chosen.

We were happy to come back to Marina Cap Monastir, Tunisia for a second winter to join the dozens of other cruisers from all over the world, a place sailors can leave their floating homes safely to travel home, and get regular maintenance or repairs taken care of. It doesn’t take long for all sorts of social gatherings to be organised and the local bars and restaurants at the marina were keen to make us feel welcome. There was something for everybody from karaoke nights, pub quiz nights, Friday night drinks, weekly Sunday barbeques, darts evenings, bridge club and yoga sessions, walking /jogging groups and always time for impromptu coffee meetings at local cafes.

So, yes we were enjoying our time here, but we were still not sure just how extensive the damage was from the storm incident in Montenegro back in July so we needed to investigate further. We made arrangements to haul out at the small local yard in the marina and do a more in-depth check.

The damage was pretty extensive but it was repairable. Luckily, Lane had bought everything he needed to re-fibreglass the area when we stopped in Malta as we realized we may not be able to find everything in Tunisia. It was really important to reinforce the damaged area to give her back her original strength. We were so fortunate that Mai Tai had been built so strongly 62 years ago. We believe that many of the more modern light weight boats may have suffered more extensive damage.

Lane began by grinding the area around the area of impact and it soon became obvious that to repair the damage we would need to grind back a few layers of fiberglass that showed surface cracking, Then, once down to solid fiberglass, add new fiberglass layers using epoxy.  The crack in the rail would be ground back and any holes filled with expanding foam, which can be easily sanded smooth and would form a strong backing for the new fiberglass to bond to.  We ground the fiberglass back just enough, cutting in about halfway across the side deck.  This would allow us to lay the new fiberglass across a wide section of the side deck to ensure a strong structural bond, then up over the rail and down the outside of the hull to just above the waterline.  To achieve this, the whole area needed to be carefully ground back so the new fiberglass could be faired into the boat with no lumps showing. 

After the grinding was complete and the area cleaned completely, we cut the fiberglass cloth in manageable sized strips about a meter wide that we could lay with an overlapping pattern to give the maximum strength to the repaired area.  Using West System Epoxy we laid a total of six layers of biaxial fiberglass cloth across an area of almost 6 meters along the side of Mai Tai.  We carefully rolled out all the little air pockets as we went and covered the area with peel-ply to achieve a smooth surface.

This part of the job was critical to the overall success of the project.  We spent several days carefully grinding the hull and deck while balancing on old wooden planks laid across what they call scaffolding here in Tunisia, which is basically a few pipes welded together.  No guard rails here.

We then moved to the interior of Mai Tai and removed the cabinets, ceiling panels and settee on the port “damaged” side.  Once this was clear and we were down to the bare hull we began grinding the damaged fiberglass tabs on the bulkheads and the hull to deck join, where there were signs of delamination.  The grinding work was difficult because of the small spaces and the fiberglass dust was everywhere even though we covered everything we could with plastic sheets.  Laying the fiberglass was difficult because most of it was laid on the ceiling and then down the hull.  The fiberglass, heavy with epoxy, keeps wanting to fall off when you put it on above your face.  In the end we worked out a pretty good method to get it to stick to the ceiling and the job turned out well.   

We brought marine plywood with us from Malta and it is safe and dry in our marina apartment.  We will work on building back a new portside interior when we are in the next phase of the project.  See Part 2 – coming soon.   

Poor Mai Tai. It was obvious that we could no longer live on board until these repairs were complete, so we moved into an apartment right at the Marina. We emptied Mai Tai into the tiny apartment until the entire contents were stacked up in every square corner. We even found room for our 2 outboards under the staircase. All our cushions, books, pots and pans, everything. I set up my sewing machine in order to do some major repairs on my canvas covers, plus make an entire new set of cockpit cushions.

With the huge amount of work ahead of us, we needed to move Mai Tai to a bigger haul out yard a few miles down the coast called Port de Peche (Fishing Port). This meant a 3 Kiwi dollar taxi ride, a half hour walk along the picturesque seaside, or better still, we were kindly lent a couple of bikes.

This yard deals mostly with the large fleet of local fishing boats and the huge tourist “Pirate” ships, so the equipment is very basic and very old. But they made room for Mai Tai alongside a few other cruising yachts also undergoing major repairs. And this is where I left Lane to rebuild Mai Tai while I headed home to visit with my family in New Zealand and Australia. We will give a full report on these repairs in our next blog, coming soon.

I had planned to fly home to New Zealand as, having turned the ripe “old” age of 75, I had to renew my driver’s license, and this could only be done in person, in NZ. I would have to leave Lane to deal with all this work on Mai Tai for the next three of months. So I planned to visit with as many of my family and friends as I possibly could. My journey began in the South of France to visit my family who live in the Alpes Maritimes behind Nice.

Then on to Lausanne, in Switzerland, to meet up with one of my oldest friends from Whangarei, New Zealand. Now living in Lausanne we shared lots of laughs, and took a ferry across Lake Geneva to Evian, in France to visit a wonderful art exhibition there.

I then took a train to join my daughter Francoise, who now lives in Zug, in northern Switzerland.

I was wrapped against the freezing cold to enjoy all the pre-Christmas festivities in Bern, Lucerne, Zurich and Zug. Thank you Francoise for the snug jacket.

My daughter, Francoise, then joined me on our long flight to Melbourne, Australia, to meet with our family there, and joined by Loic and his girlfriend, Lauren, who had flown over from NZ to be with us. My darling brother David passed away one year ago, so it was a particularly special occasion to spend time with all of his loving family. Thank you to each and every one who helped make our short stay so meaningful and special.

Tomorrow we head for the airport for the next stage of our Family reunion in New Zealand.