In this episode of Sailing Nandji, our new engine Fang is finished off. We finish of the drive system installation installing the PSS Shaft seal, align the engine and install the Sigma Drive. The Sigma Drive in our eyes is a genious piece of engineering allowing and compensating for any alignment issues and protecting damage to our gearbox. We run our new 3 inch exhaust and this involves cutting a new hole in the sides of Nandji. There are 2 types of people that own boats... Ones that drill holes in them and the ones that dont!

The PSS Shaft seal is what keeps the water out of Nandji. It was very easy to install and will last a very long time. The seal is created by the smooth stainless rotor that is attached to the shaft and rotates. This applies pressure to the carbon bellow that is stationary and attached to the stern tube. 

The Sigma Drive is an engineering genius. This replaces the need to have a coupling joining the shaft to the gearbox. The Sigma Drive allows up to 3 degrees in variation therefore adding a good sense of security of never doing damage to our gearbox or cutlass bearings. We aligned the shaft to gearbox with the normal coupling, then removed and installed the Sigma Drive. As Nandji is a wooden boat, normally we would have to realign the engine in the water as the boat takes her shape once again, but with the Sigma Drive, no need for that!
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​In this episode of Sailing Nandji, we install our NEW Autoprop onto Nandji. We are very excited about this upgrade to our sailboat. In our eyes, this is the second most important upgrade we have made to Nandji behind the new engine. The Autoprop from Bruntons is specifically designed for cruisers at it can give an extra knot of speed under sail! That is a massive difference for us slower boats!

To install the Autoprop onto Nandji, we have to make a few modifications to the sweep area of the prop. As the new Autoprop has a little larger blades than our previous fixed bladed prop, it also is a feathering prop requiring a larger sweep area as the blades rotate 180 degrees giving the vessel the same power going astern as forwards propulsion. When under sail, the self pitching blades pitch to a degree where up to 85% of drag is reduced allowing the boat a much higher speed under sail! Stop it you say, well I agree my friend...
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In this episode of Sailing Nandji, with all the major big boy jobs going on with Nandji, Bonita decides to tackle a few projects of her own. Getting down and dirty in the boat yard she takes us through some stipping. Paint stripping that is! Keep your mind out of the gutter!!

We have been in the boatyard for what seems like forever as we complete a major refit to our Nandji. With big jobs, there a million little jobs to be completed as well. The little jobs are what are the most tedious and are generally the ones that have the highest visual impact. These tasks are generally overlooked and never paid a lot of attention too. Thats why they are pink jobs!!

Everyday Nandji is becoming greater, stronger and more attractive to the eye. Safer, sturdier and ready for adventures! It is a great feeling to be completing all this work to our beloved vessel. Soon we will be off adventuring again, we can not wait for those days!!!

In this episode of Sailing Nandji, we arrive back to Langkawi with a boat full of NEW gear to install onto Nandji. Upon our return to the boatyard, we had a special delivery from Australia, our NEW Stern tube! We had been waiting on this to arrive for weeks as we need to install the stern tube, to then install the shaft so we can align and position the new engine correctly. 

We have had a trickle of water though the hull on the outside of the stern tube since we burnt out a bearing on our journey to the boatyard and created a hole in the old stern tube. We take you through the installation process of the new Stern tube and solve our water leak for good! 

The old stern tube must have been the original stern tube first installed onto Nandji when she was built back in 1996. It was made of Stainless steel where factory boats have bronze. We removed the thin old stern tube and replaced it with a thicker walled bronze stern tube. Good to go for another 20 years!!!
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In this episode of Sailing Nandji, our refit is moving forward in leaps and bounds. With the engine room overhauled and the bow rebuilt, we have run into a wall as Chinese New year fast approaches and majority of the businesses in Langkawi shut down for 2 weeks. The lead up to the New year everyone was in holiday mode already and we could not get anything built. Uncle Kevin to the rescue!!! We load up his vessel with everything needed to be remade and a list of items needed to be purchased and off we go sailing to Thailand!