Worst Flood in Kemaman

The year 2013 has a WET ending in Kemaman ,the town where I live. It was reported that more than 20 inches of rain fell between 1 Dec to 3 Dec in the interiors of Ulu Jabor(source infobanjir) and it was raining almost non stop for a couple of days. For me when I fly offshore we have to go through stretches of heavy rain.Have a look at this video to get an idea of the heavy rain.

The first sign of flooding was on the evening of 3 Dec. Coupled with the high tide (full moon) at around mid night and the abundance of rain water flowing down the Kemaman River and Chukai River water soon spilled the river banks.Very soon the roads in Kemaman town were flooded.

 

My printing shop located in Taman Chukai Utama was under 3 ft of water. We had been doing business in this place for more than 17 years and this is the first time it gets flooded. In fact during 1986 when there was a big flood this area was relatively unaffected.

  

Some of the houses across the road were flooded to the roof!

 

  

The Fire and Rescue services staion in Kemaman itself was under water. If there had been a fire at the same time, forget about the fire engines!

 

 The flood lasted 3 days and at the end of it it was a haert break to see the machines. This is my Polar 82 cutter..

 

Our business documentations and accounts for both my shops and business transactions were covered with flood water and mud. We tried to salvage as much records as possible but in the end had to throw it away as it starts to rot!

 Our Die Cutting machine..

and a 10 months old Hamada Offset machine were badly damaged. Most of the items in the shop are insured and I believe most of the machines would need to be written off so it is a bad day for the insurers too.

Building the mast beam and cockpit

It had been raining for the last wto months and we had the great floods in Kemaman. I startted building the mast beams and the cockpit for the Gypsy well before the rainy season.

There is a slight modification to the wood used. instead of 2 by 1 inch wood I elected to use 2 inch by 2 inch as I plan to use a long screw to hold the pieces together in addition to the epoxy used. On the centre between the 2 by 2 is a piece of 6 mm marine ply.

 

And on the outside on both sides the plan calls for 9 mm marine ply. Later a layer of epoxy and 300 gm cloth will be laminated on the beam

The cockpit module is built from 2 in by 1 inch frames and on top of it is 9 mm marine ply.

A layer of 300 gm cloth is laminated with epoxy on tyhe top of the cockpit. At the bottom it is painted with epoxy. Well the units are almost ready. I am still waiting for sunny days maybe in 3 week's time to take the units out to be assembled to the hulls and cuddy.

Achieving 20,000 hours of Flight Time

20,000 hours in the air.....now that is a long time!. I did my 20,000 hours flight on 12 Sept 2013. It was a co incidence that the flight was to perform a line proficiency check on the Chief Pilot Standards of the company. The route was from Kerteh to Tapis Delta platform and back and it was on a EC225 helicopter registration 9M SPI.

 

Looking back at my flying log books, I started my first flight as a student pilot at the RMAF Heli Flying Training School on 21 Feb 1977 at the age of 19 years (birthday on 22 Feb!). The flight was conducted on a Bell 47 G 5A helicopter (Airframe FM 2003). That makes it 37 years of flying !

 

After basic training I went to Advanced Training on the Alouette 3 turbine helicopters.

 

And then it was on to the Nuri helicopters until the end of my military flying career.

 

Just prior to becoming an offshore pilot, I was doing freelancing for Guthrie Estates and at the same time I was a bush pilot flying the Bell 206 for heliservices in Malaysia.

 I did a stint as an instructor on light aircraft in the Royal Selangor Flying club. Here I flew the Cessna 152, Cessna 172, Cessna 206, Piper Lance, piper Cherokee and Piper Dakota. I had great fun and made some extra money doing charters as well. It was also here that I got my Commercial pilots Licence for fixed wing machines (aeroplanes)

 In 1983 I started instructing on Ultralights for Para Aviation as is amongst the first Malaysian to fly microlights. My licence number is 004!. The following year, with friends Mejor Johnny Loo and Wong Kim Hoong we formed and operated a Ultralight Flying School. Of course we lost quite a fair bit of money here but it was here that I purchased an aircraft and it bears the registration of 9M WYF which is my initials. the last i heard about my aircraft is it is in Keningau.

I hope to achieve at least another 5000 hours before retiring from flying.

Failing to find Chengal Besar!

 Chengal besar means big Chengal tree. chengal tree is a type of exotic hardwood in Malaysia.Someone just told me it was the Chinese who came from China that gave this specoies of tree Chengal which comes from the word Cheng (meaning expand ) and hai (sea). Hence this species was on4e of the favourite species that boat builder sought. A couple of years ago some forest rangers found the biggest Chengal tree in the country (and world) in the vicinity of Kuala Jengai area. It takes about 15 men to join hands and hug the tree. Accessibility to the tree is via an old timber track which had been abandoned and it is in very bad condition. So from the word Go I have decided to use my mountain bike instead of driving my 4WD. Some hashers decided to take a Toyota Hilux fitted with a winch to go in.

This is the start of the trail. It is supposed to be ONLY 18 km.

 

There is a warning at the start of the trail. RESTRICTED AREA...NO ENTRY and YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED!!!. No problem lah..We are not stealing timber.

 

Hasher Itchy Kok and Rothman came prepared. They carried several planks to cross the obstacles.

  Of course my brother in law and partner in crime Cheong came along for the trip. I gave him my best Offroad bike while I used my newly built military foldable paratrooper mountain bike.. The terrain is tough and muddy. No problem for us. we just push and carry the bicycle wherever we cannot cycle. Quite the opossite for the Hilux..There was a lot of digging and hard work just to travel a short distance!

 

The ruts were deep, hills steep and muddy. after 5 km, it was almost impossible to drive so the whole gang had to hike.

 

The river was very inviting. Clear water....rapids and almost can imagine the fish in the river.

 

After another 10 km (total of 15 km) of hiking and cycling we came to the river. From here there was suposssed to have some signage guiding us to the Chengal besar. 

The gang decided to have lunch before searching for the trail.

 

We decided to hide our bicycles in the bush and join in the hike to locate the Chenagl Besar tree.

 

There were several trails and our guide could not recognise the correct trail. After searching for about 2 hrs we decided to back track. By then it started to rain.

 

Having a bicycle really helped as compared to walking but nevertheless there was a lot of pushing too.

 

These seasoned hashers are fit and can hike pretty fast

 Because of the rain, the Hilux cannot be driven out. we had no choice but to camp the night at the spot where the car got stuck.Myself and Cheong were prepared for the night so we accompanied Rothman and Itchy Kok while the rest walked out.

 

There was plenty of food. We had a good makan and a dip in the cool stream nearby.

 

As usual I had my hammock and also brought along another one for Cheong. Cheong slept very well and his snores could be heard a hundred meters away!

 We will come back for another trip. someone suggested using Honda cubs with modified tyres for the trip!

Raising the Cuddy

Blame it on the fruit season. I had about 1500 of these lovely durian fruits hanging on the trees in my orchard. All my spare time is taken up collecting the fruits and shooting the monkeys and squirrels that try to steal the fruits. It has almost been a month that I had not done anything to the boat! the last job was to raise the cabin so that it can be attached to the hulls.

 

 The designer Richard Woods told me he raised the cuddy all by himself using car jacks So that is how I will be raising the hull...two inches at a time. Bricks and other supports were prepared to support the cuddy.

When sufficient height had been raised, a paint container is used to support the cuddy.

 I had called in the carpenter ah Ying to help me with the job. He had done many of such jobs in the line of his work.

When the height is raised above the height of the brick containers a big block of wood is used to support it. More bricks are then placed on top of the block of wood.

All the while I was praying for nothing to go wrong otherwise many hours of work is wasted.

However Ah Ying is very confident about this job. Nothing will go wrong according to him.

The cuddy is finally raised to the required level where oil drums can be placed underneath.

The final fine adjustment of the height and position will be done later. It took us about 90 minutes for the job. Another phase is done!

A Folding Military Bike is Born !

In 2009 when I came home for Chinese New year from Timor Leste i was seated beside a SAF Major who was on UN duties in Timor Leste. This guy competes in marathons and triathlons so when the subject of bicycle came up I told him I use a folding bike in Timor Leste. He told me there is a folding bike that is specifically designed for the US forces...the Montague paratrooper. I did  alot of googling and after three long years I finally saved enough money to buy a Montague Paratrooper frame through the Internet.. they sell the complete bike in Malaysia but I wanted BETTER components as I wanted to take this bike for touring. On top of that I have a friend Mr Ong in Kemaman who owns a bicycle shop and he will get the items that I need at no extra charge. i took this opportunity to ask him to guide me through the entire assembly process so that I can do repairs on my own when I am in Timbaktu later on!

We started with the fork. the original fork has a suspension system but for the time being I do not need a suspension so a straight fork will do. That saves me more than a kilo in weight.The brand chosen for me is Azonic and it is quite light. The spacer rings are fitted into the fork. that requires a bit of hammering through a pipe.

Mr Ong here having a careful examination of the frame

The fork is then fitted into the frame and bearings are then fitted both on top and bottom. a generous amount of grease is applied.

The shop has all types of components so it was an easy job..... just pick the best that is within my budget

Then the transmission is fitted. this is a very critical component and I selected the Shimano Acera 27 speed mountain bike gear set. it cost me a bomb!

The rear gear set is next fitted.

For this bike I have decided to use hydraulic disc brakes and had selected the Trek hydraulic brake set

The bike is almost ready after two hours . I had left Mr ong and his men to fine tune the bike

No problem on folding the bike . It goes into my campervan quite easily

To unfold it takes less than a minute!

I took the bike out for a normal circuit (38 km) and found it was a joy to ride (of course...with all the shinning gears!). The bike now stays in my stable of bikes at the back of the house.