Completing the Cuddy of my Gypsy Catamaran

I had been pretty "busy" travelling the last few months and also partly because of the wet monsoon in Terengganu my Gypsy catamaran had been delayed. In fact since this picture was taken in Oct 2009 nothing much had been done. I had just gone back from an interesting assignment in East Timor and have a good 4 weeks Off. I made full use of this period to continue my boat building.
I arrived home on Chinese New Year's day. After some brief visiting I decided to do the difficult part of the cuddy. One of my brother in law's worker, Fauzi is around. Sensing that he had no work during this festive season, I roped him in to help with my boat building. I had known him for some time...he is ever willing to learn and is a good worker.I had tried to make the roof of the cuddy before. Trying to be smart, I did it all wrong. In future I will following strictly to what is written in the plans. Plan called for "Cut oversized wood". I did not. I cut almost exactly the size required and by the time the wood was "bent" it was an inch under sized!. For future Gypsy builders, this was the amount of "oversize" that I made. Try not to be stingy for eventually it will cost you more when it does not suit after fitting!Now the over sized panels had to be trimmed off. Another time consuming affair . I began to fear the word "bevel" in the plans. It means hard work trying to shape pieces of 2" by wood at angles to accept the next piece. It takes time and patience to get it right. The two small upper side panels looks easy to build but in realty it took us about 2 daysto get it right.All the gaps are filled with an epxoy filler so that it looks even. Sort of like hiding small imperfections. At this stage the curvatures can be seen and I get a great sense of satisfaction.It looks nice....Looking from the rear,,,,,,Fitting the top took me another day. Again the time consuming process was to trim off the oversized wood panel. The cuddy had to be sanded and more fillers applied. those pesky epoxy gum that had flowed down had to be removed with a grinder and then finally sanded.

Next I had to glass the cuddy with 300 gram cloth. Epoxy is used to bond and fuse the 300 gram cloth to the marine ply. I got hold of one of my shop workers Azmi to help out. This job calls for an extra pair of hands. A day after the glassing the extra bits of cloth are triimed off. The joints between each sheet of glass cloth must be "hidden"..sanded down and "levelled" so that it looks like one big piece of cloth covering the wood

By the next day the surface is lightly sanded and another thin layer of epoxy gum applied. This is to smoothen the surfaces so that less sanding is required before painting. By now it looks and feels nice. I had put in more than 100 hours of work to get that small portion done.

I am writing this from Dili, East Timor. In 3weeks' time I will be back home again and I look forward to more work on my boat.

A Long Lost Friend in Singapore

I had a half a day to spare while transiting through Singapore. I suddenly remembered that I had a classmate who is residing in Singapore now..someone whom I had not met the last thirty five years. He is Goh Wai Lim. We were together from the express class days in Primary School and was together in scouting in 1972, 73 and 74. After that we parted , each going our way to make our fortunes...he taking up finance and banking while I joined the RMAF to fly. In this photo, I am on the extreme left while Wai Lim is 4th from the right. This was taken in 1973 when we were Rover scouts in Form 5.

Another picture taken around that period. On the right is another of our long lost friend, Chan Kin Yan. I still don't know his where abouts.

Of course we had camps together. He must be enjoying the mess tin of food !

Another photo taken in Fraser's Hill, 1974
That was us together again after a lapse of 35 years.And along with his wife and another friend we had a good dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Orchard Road. Arigato, Wai Lim for the dinner. The next round is Wantan Mee and it will be on me. We had a wonderful time recollecting the mischievous things that we did together in our formative years. I am glad we had managed to meet up.

A Typical Working Day in Dili , Timor Leste

It is still dark and the local time at Dili, Timor Leste is 0530 hrs. I always wake up a couple of minutes before the alarm goes off. I have 20 minutes to cook some Quaker oats , shower and get dressed up to go to the office. Today is a scheduled flight day and the helicopter departs Dili with a load of passengers that comes in by a chartered Metro turbo prop aircraft from Darwin. By 0600 hrs we would have arrived Dili Airport. Yes....I am flying an aircraft belonging to SSFC of Vietnam that is on contract to us. We have two Vietnamese pilots and two Vietnamese engineers in addition to our crew. On each flight there will be one Vietnamese pilot and one Malaysian pilots so this is a real "international" flight. The first thing I have to do is to check the weather via Internet and get the flight planning including flight plans done.By 0620 it gets bright. The helicopter would have been towed out of the hangar for pre flight checks by the engineers and pilots.Passengers from the fixed wing aircraft arriving from Darwin normally comes in by 0645 hrs. Their bags are checked and there will be a drug and alcohol test for the passengers going to the rig.If there are no delays we would have the passengers boarded and the aircraft started for its 195 nm journey to the Ocean Shield which is a semi sub vessel employed for the deep sea exploration.Dili airport is located at the foot of the mountains. within 10 nm from the airport the mountain rises to about 5000 ft so after departure from the airport we have to climb like a home sick angel to our cruising altitude out which is 7000 ft. In the mornings normally the weather is not too bad but there are always clouds covering the mountains.On a clear day this is what we get to see after leaving the airport. The flight to the rig normally takes one hour and thirty minutes.This is the semi sub that I have to bring the passengers to. From a distance the heli deck looks like a small postage stamp. With modern aircraft and electronic navigation systems, it is not too difficult to locate the rig. The crew change takes about ten minutes on the heli deck. A quick turn round of the aircraft is done and when all the home bound passengers are on board we take off for the journey home. Once we have establish the cruise, there is time for some snacks. Ocean Shield normally serves us a healthy sandwiches and a cold drink. the sandwich is Australian sized and it takes me more than 10 minutes to eat it!The return journey will normally be uneventful until the last thirty miles. This is where the clouds building up at the mountain range greets our arrival with some "rock and roll"! However most of the time by the time we are overhead Dili airport it will be clear as Dili is located just at the coast.This is Capt Quan one of the Vietnamese pilots flying with us.Once we have landed, the engineers busied themselves with the post flight maintenance. Every component is meticulously inspected for any sign of wear and tear.Oil levels are checked and the aircraft is equipped with a Health and Usage Monitoring system. all the flight datas are downloaded to check if the pilots had exceeded any limitations and to scan for any unhealthy component trends.The aircraft is then towed back to our hangar.There are only three scheduled flights a week but there could be nonscheduled flights. During the cyclone evacuation there were three flights in a day! The aircraft and pilots are always ready for any medivac flights. So, what do I do on non flying days? Plenty.....I have to run safety meetings and clear off any outstanding safety issue, do my regular paper work, liaise with the client, keep my headquarter people informed on my outfit....phew it is hard work!BUT I am blessed with very motivated people under me so it makes my work as Chief Pilot easy. The local Timorese staff are hard working and the Vietnamese pilots and engineers are a joy to work with.
Like soldiers who are constantly training for war, I like to get my crew well trained in the technical aspects of the helicopter. Refresher training by engineers on aircraft systems are conducted to enhance our knowledge to the highest level.Most evenings I like to run up a 1000 ft hill at the back of the Timor Lodge. It is quite a long run/walk/climb and we can get a good view of Dili town from here.

Capt Binh, one of the Vietnamese pilots normally comes along for the run. He is a very fit man.

Life in Dili is not about working only. we do have organised company dinner every month at a local restaurant.The families are invited as well so this is a good chance for me to know them better. Good food is usually served.

SO you can see that I am having a great life with great people around me and a great place to work!

My Hotel in Dili,Timor Leste

In Dili, I stay at The Timor Lodge. It is somewhat similar to some caravan parks in Australia. In fact the owner of this place is an Australian.This place was selected because it is only 5 min drive to Deli airport and about 10 mins to town(if there are no traffic jams)There is good security..The whole place is fenced up with double layered high fencing and the gates are closed all the time.Security guards are posted at the entrance. Normally there are 2 guards at the gate while the rest patrols the property. So you can see how "safe" this place is. There are villas..these are the higher cost homestays.

If it is a hot day, there is a swimming pool in the hotel. Adjacent to the pool is the F and B outlet. Food here is pricey eg a large pizza is $13.50 USD.

For those on a budget, there are container rooms available, I think it cost about $30 USD for a no toilet room. One container has 5 rooms. Only the centre room has a bathroom attached

I have not visited their toilets yet so I cannot tell you if it is full of shit or very clean .

All the units are equiped with a satelleite antenna to recieve TV shows. It is perfectly legal here.

I am seated in front of my Villa. Looks like a low cost bungalow but my unit was actually the lodge owner's unit and he is away . We even have lovely fruit trees in the compound. Just cannot wait till it is ripe!

Here I am inside my Villa trying to get this blog through. Internet service here is BAD. It gets disconnected very often..almost to the point that we cannot work. In my office I have 4 different internet service provider to ensure that we get at least one working so we have to keep switching! Power failures are a everyday affair. Our hotel has its own diesel generators to keep things going (including the air conds!)

So....it is not too bad a life here