Crtd 06-01-20 Lastedit 15-10-27

Rain Yes, Brains No and a Planer May Be
(Draft version, this week I had only 40 min. of leisure to type this)
 

In the weekend, I was invited by Mandjit Singh, the owner of Hotel Tilapia, to play with a mzungu guitar player, Alan. We had done some exercize, but we were not doing too well. However, the public was pleased, I had free dining and drinking, and the rumour went that our brand new duo band (Tilapia Jazz Scavengers) would be taken to Mandjit's tourist lodge in the middle of Serengeti the coming weekend. Fortunately this somehow got postponed, I hope for a few weeks, until after I moved in my boat. Alan is good company, he reads music, so, though we do not know when, we shall become very good, we tell each other. Swedish trainee Erika made a picture and mailed it to me:

Photo: angle bar triangles, advised by Benedict, ready for mounting.
Two 3D bars (one shown right) are for the corners at the stern, my personal initiative

My pickup with metal box was designed for dhow building, one and a half year ago. Now it is indeed the indispensible engine of progress: transport and safe store for hardware, paint and tools, and worker's bus, leaving from the airport road, near Daniel's house at saa moja. Watches run ten minutes or more apart, not surprising for who is not interested in an hour, a day, or even a week. But Gabriel gets interested in the idea of univesal time. He even proposes that I take it from the internet to synchronize everybodies watches!

Tuesday: Rain, welding, bottom starboard red oxide painting #2 and #3

Tuesday started with an incident: heavy rain. At wakeup I switched on my cellphone. Daniel has a cell phone, and Gabriel has even my own old one. No calls. Saa moja I arrive on my halting place. Noone. I call. Gabriel is switched off, Gabriel does not answer. No change for half an hour. I drive up to Daniels house, where Gabriel is also sleeping. I shout: Daniel! Gabriel! Noone. An unknown man on the compound points at the unlocked gate: they left!
I go home. Two hours later, Daniel responds. He is home. With Gabriel.
Give me Gabriel.
I explain I am disappointed.
Do I want them to come? Gabriel asks.
No, I say. I am just disappointed because I meet any agreement if I am not informed otherwize. So I stand at seven on the agreed place in the rain. They should not take there own decisions, but call me and share.
Gabriel apologizes. It seems a brand new idea.
We shall get in touch later.
I try to do some jobs in town. But shops are closed and artisans are off. During rain, African life comes to a complete standstill. I visit a shop claiming to deal in gas cooking hardware (for bottled butane gas). This is a "new technology" in Tanzania. The shop just opened. There are no gas burners in stock yet. Their arrival date is unsure. May be two weeks, may be two months. Rain, you know.
But with Benedict I succeed to buy timber for the addition to the keel. He is even prepared to lend me a very long 14 mm drill bit I am told we need for mounting the triangles (triangle operetta #1).
Three o'clock. Rain. I call to arrange a meeting at our staff bus stop.
They will be there.
We discuss some technical problems that help me to shape my thoughts and edit my shopping list.
After having dealt with that, the rain diminishes sharply. I ask: what's for the rest of the day? Do we wait for tomorrow?
No, the rain is down, let us go and do something.
Don't you want to come home first to change? I ask, seeing there neat clothing.
But they want to go. Right now.

Photo: Rain

At the shipyard, they put on the wet clothes they left in the boat.
As if called by phone (they were not) all workers appear and the starboard bottom gets is layers #2 and #3 of red oxide.

Wednesday: turning ship, caulking 6 lines bottom port

The next day should start with putting the boat on its starboard side, to allow for caulking the port bottom.
Everybody knew.
The boat now weighs 5 to 7 tons, I roughly estimated.
The first attempt to lift the boat was by using a mninga beam as a lever. This of course started to crack after the sixth person came to add his force.
We need a jack! Daniel says to me.
My car jack won't help you. It is for 1 ton cars.
Daniel says it will be no problem. But he returns the jack two minutes later: it does not go, he says.
We drive to a nearby NGO garage for a truck jack.

Photo: Canting a 7 ton ship with a truck jack. They really do not know what they are doing. Two benches serve as supports!

Picture: Watch the considerable curve the jack pushes in the hull. I told Gabriel they should use a large beam between jack and hull. Gabriel told me to leave Daniel because he "may have the experience". Standing alone, not wishing to risk Daniels evasion of responsibility, I resigned.
After the job Daniel proudly shouted: "may be hamminga thought that would be easy!". The next day, after rain, the joints in the red oxide area turned out to be leaking and I was advised to fill the inside of the joints with dawa as well.....we're not going to do that, see text.

The triangle operetta #2
Benedicts 50 cm long drill bit is to long to reach (between deck beams already mounted) the places where we should drill the holes for the triangles. But it is a drill extended by welding. Daniel gets an idea: we weld our own, just a bit shorter!
I drive Daniel to town on my motor bike to extend two drill bits by welding. It will be ready at three, which means of course five thirty, so no triangles mounted today.

Thursday: caulking 2 last lines, "dawa", red oxide "3x", reshaping one triangle.

The triangle operetta #3
The port stern double triangle did not come badly out of the welding but the starboard stern double triangle, though already patched laughably, does not fit. Did that escape welder Shire, or did he think it was good enough? I need little demonstration to convince him to do better. One of our home made drill bits is not welded concentrically, but it is the other that snaps first - right at the welded joint. So I drive Daniel to his town welder to repair both. We spend another three hours. Then the "new" drill they bought (a 25 year old do-it-yourself Black and Decker) turns out not to have the power to drill 12 mm holes in mninga. Last week the "old" one did better, quite a new Skill, but that was "taken back by its owner". So, no traingles mounted today.

Photo: the figure right is the starboard stern/deck stiffener. It was meant to be the mirror image of the left one (see design). I propose to give the right figure a place in the history of mathematics under the name of the welder: "Shire polyhedron". I have decided to mount it as it is, a true museum piece and to sell entrance tickets to anyone who wishes to see it. (see: Shire Polyhedron mounted)

Shire decided to correct his triangle with another patch (photo above). I call in Benedict: because I found a bad crack in two under water planks and did not trust the proposals by Daniel and Gabriel to patch it. The cracks had resulted from a fall of the dhow from the keel supports. Then, I turned to the problem of the leaks. The joints had probably cracked due to Daniels handling of the ship during its canting (picture). Benedict thought it not serious. I decided: no inside caulking, since it would lock up water in the joints, causing rot and fungus and prevent me to clearly trace leaks. We will stick to the plan: pure linseed oil. After two damage issues due to Daniel's imbecile ship handling I was now sure to seek professionals for the launching of the boat next week.
Benedict advised two more bow stiffeners. His planer, needed Saturday for the keel addition, was down: no belt. I bought it in town. Even though we are leaking, Johnny the caulker got double wage for his last day's job (I did not have the change neither did I have the time to find it).

Johnny finished his last 2 lines of caulking. For my official speech on this occasion I took the story (in Rabelais) of Epistemon, whose head, chopped off during an unfortunate moment of negligence of military attention in battle, was rejoined to his body by Panurge, and who reported his visits to heaven and hell. Epistemon had found Caesar, well known to the yard people because he made it into the bible, working in hell as a ship caulker. I tell Johnny his job in hell is occupied, so he should prepare to fill the vacancy of emperor of the Roman Empire.

Picture: Johnny the caulker

Friday: Gerald says Jane asks when I answer the letter (see The Kamkala Soap #9). I tell him: after you paid your drinking debts. I knew Jane has two problems with her brother Gerald: 1) he drinks, and 2) he borrows from me. This seems to settle the issue. The entire Kamkala mafia falls silent. To the bank for money to buy planking logs, floor and deck.. Money from selling my container after half a year, to be wired by Ernest did not yet arrive, lying on Ernest's shelve, or worse, for more than one month now. Days before, the ING on-line e-bank form for international payments was down. 3000 euro coming but only in two weeks. 1200 euro left. That is not enough. I decide to cut on short term wood purchase and do a speed wiring from my Dutch account to my Mwanza account at Standard Chartered. Monkey bank. Open at nine, but the first half hour no Tanzania shillings from my euro account because the guy who is sending the rate of the day is still pissing. Sikaflex South Africa should send us the kit for caulking the deck. Half of november I started my inquiries. They are acting like a dead horse. I still do not have a final quotation including shipping by air. Bastards. Three, four weeks to go and I can start doing what this continent is made for: nothing.

The triangle operetta #4
Again, no no mounting of triangles today: many hours are spend to deliberate how to solve the problem. Borrow another drill? First drilling a small hole? I think of forcing a breakthrough by borrowing Benedicts heavy duty drill, but if I was Benedict I would not lend it. Anyway, Benedict's drill is unavailable because his daughter has to be taken to hospital. A bad omen for tomorrow: will Benedict think of taking all he needs, his professional jack, woodglue, bolts, the repaired planer, drills, drill bits, professional supports for the lifted hull? I call him in the evening, discussion out list of necessities. His daughter is back home and OK. Yes, he has no bolts, no screws and no glue.