It’s been a while since I wrote about the first step towards my own boat. That does not mean I did nothing in the meantime. I actually used the past couple of months to figure a few things out, make some basic design decisions, and exchange ideas with others.

First of all I will have this boat built in China. Not because I am particularly impressed with the quality of work in general here, but because it gives me a chance to supervise the work closely, and select the right people to help me get it done. I had contacted professional boat builders, who have done boats with steel hulls before, in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, Singapore, and Thailand. The builder in China answered right away, but was too busy. The two builders in Thailand answered, but gave me budget figures which were a factor two higher than what I had in mind, and what I have heard to be reasonable from people who built in steel before. None of the companies in New Zealand and Australia even bothered to answer. Business must be booming.

Meanwhile I took the time to look into the main systems, and made some basic choices regarding equipment (engine, electrical systems, mast and sailing rig, main layout, steering system, choice of wood for outfitting, colour schemes, etc.). I am in touch with friends in Guangzhou now for a place to build and outfit the boat. They have boating experience themselves, which helps a lot of course, and it makes this option the most promising so far.

I will order the full set of plans now from Dudley Dix. I still have to figure out where to get the steel from. One option is buying the cutting files, and have the steel cut (preferably laser cut) and rolled locally in China. Another option is to buy the complete kit in Europe, and ship it to China. It will cost more, but the quality of the steel will be guaranteed.

The Times
October 27, 2007
Jan Raath in Harare

When Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, claimed that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff, ministers in Robert Mugabe’s Government believed that they might have found the solution to Zimbabwe’s perennial fuel shortage.

After witnessing her apparently miraculous gift they gave her five billion Zimbabwean dollars in cash (worth £1.7 million at the start of the year but now worth one seven-hundredth of that) in return for the fuel. Ms Tagarira was also given a farm, said to have been seized from its white owner during Mr Mugabe’s lawless land grab, as well as food and services that included a round-the-clock armed guard on the rock in the district of Chinhoyi 60 miles (100km) from Harare, the capital.

More than a year later officials realised they had been duped. Ms Tagarira is now in custody, awaiting trial on charges of fraud or, alternatively, of being “a criminal nuisance”. Details from court papers published this week said that over 15 months, until July this year, Ms Tagarira convinced Cabinet ministers, ruling party heavy-weights and top army and police officers that by striking the rock with her staff she could produce enough fuel to supply the country for 100 years.

The legal firm representing her told The Times that she had been refused bail and no trial date had been set yet.

“It’s an outlandish story but the people in government who believed this are the same ones who believe that Mugabe’s official policy of printing money will end inflation,” said an economist, who requested anonymity.

After 27 years of economic misrule, what was once one of Africa’s most prosperous countries is in a nightmare of hyperinflation, famine and infra-structural collapse.

According to the police docket at the court, Ms Tagarira, 35, discovered a large bowser of diesel last year, suspected to have been abandoned in the hills of Chinhoyi during the country’s civil war in the 1970s.

She laid pipes from the bowser to a point at the bottom of the hill. Whenever she assembled an audience, she would strike a rock and an assistant at the top of the hill would open the tap and lo, fuel would pour out. The bowser eventually ran dry but that didn’t stop Ms Tagarira. “They would buy diesel from lorry drivers and keep it in the pipe on the pretext it was coming from a rock,” the docket said.

By June the Government had decided the claims were plausible enough to warrant an official investigation. However, where a single geologist would have sufficed, they dispatched a large “task force” of politicians and members of the security forces, led by the deputy commissioner of police.

The task force duly reported to Mr Mugabe’s politburo, the most powerful body in the country, that the liquid appearing at the rock had been siphoned into lorries and that they had driven off without problem.

However, it was when a second “task force” of ministers was sent by the politburo a month later that Ms Tagarira’s ruse ended. She “failed to prove the existence of the fuel”, it said. She disappeared and was arrested this month. “It is not the woman who ought to be arrested, it is the idiots who authorised this criminal waste of public money,” said a lawyer, asking not to be named.

I posted earlier about the centrifugal remetalling machine we commissioned in our workshop this year. Last week we had a total of three large stern tube bearings which had to be reconditioned.

First the old white metal (babbit) is being molten out of the steel bearing tube. The most important part of any remetalling job is the preparation of the surface of the bearing shell or tube. The surface has to be absolutely clean and oil free, in order to ensure an adequate bonding between the steel of the tube and the white metal.

After cleaning the tube is being put in an electric oven for the night at about 400 degrees C. This removes any traces of oil from the surface. The next step is the tinning pot, where the tube surface is covered with a thin layer of white metal. This step is crucial for an even bonding. Finally the tube is put in the remetalling machine, where the main layer of white metal is applied.

Now the bonding between steel and white metal has to be checked. We use an ultrasound measuring device, which can detect any ‘gaps’ between the steel tube surface and the white metal layer. In order to provide a smooth surface for the ultrasound probe, the inside of the stern tube bearing is machined close to the nominal diameter on a horizontal boring machine.

When everything is found in good order, the bearing is finished to nominal size. At present we can handle stern tube bearings up to a length of 2.2 meters.

Last week I was in Korea for the Marine Week 2007, which was held from October 24 - 27 in Pusan. There are 3 simultaneous exhibitions in the BEXCO international exhibition centre: Navy & Defense, Sea-Port, and Kormarine. I went to visit the latter, because I am interested to find new Korean suppliers of marine equipment. Korea is still the worlds largest ship builder, and has developed a mature marine supply chain over the years.

Pusan is with 4 million inhabitants the second largest city in Korea, and is home to many ship yards and close to 500 marine equipment manufacturers.

The New Zealand Navy was in town, represented by HMNZS ‘TE KAHA’ and I was lucky to get an invitation to come on board for a visit. The hospitality of CO Andy Grant and his crew was unsurpassed. We had a chance to have a look around almost all parts of this modern and compact war ship. After the tour of the ship we were treated to coffee and cake, and had the opportunity to meet Maritime Component Commander, Commodore David Anson.

The ‘TE KAHA’ and her sister ship ‘TE MANA’ are built on the German MEKO 200 design. There are now ten frigates in the ANZAC class, eight in Australia and two in New Zealand.