Special mention should be made of the new shower faucet that was installed in the forward heads & shower area. The previous faucet had not survived a vigorous vinegar bath the previous winter and looked decidedly shabby. Also, the on/off and thermostat buttons moved with difficulty. Time, after 28 years of loyal service, to be repalced. Hallberg-Rassy Parts supplies a new generation of faucets, but whereas my neighbour Gerrit of HR53 Sophia managed a simple plug 'n play with his new faucet, on Ngahue IV it was more a question of plug 'n nightmare! A special wall-bracket was ordered from Sweden to fit the tap - which certainly looks much nicer (even if much bigger) than the old one.

By the end of May, Aqualift's boat hall became quite empty with just Ngahue IV left as the last of the three HR53s. But the area underneath the boat has not become less cluttered! One of the last jobs - quite suddenly decided after sorting out the poor electrical connections to the forward navigation lights - was to replace the Aquasignal filament lights with Hella LED lights. To my delight these Hella marine products are designed and made in New Zealand! Because of their moulded construction, the electrical contacts should never suffer from seawater ingress. The new lights are made of white plastic - so they don't rust. The old Aquasignal ones were stainless steel and had a more expensive look. But the electrical conncetions tended to 'go' after a couple of seasons. Now all navigation lights on board are LEDs. The LEDs use about 10% of what the old filament lightbulbs did - so we could even turn the full set on instead of the single toplight. That should improve our visibility at night.

Because of renovation distractions around the house, Ngahue IV hasn't taken centre stage so far this year. Her return to the water is imminent though. Here she is ready to move outside.

... this page will be added to throughout the rest of 2024