Restoring Pandora 150, Hakuna Matata W O RD S: KE VIN CHUN G | A NDY K W O K A ND ED MUND L AI
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t the beginning of the year I was invited to take over 150 by July as the owner was leaving Hong Kong. My first task was to find a team of sailors who shared common interests and a commitment to co-own the boat. By June I had that team; most of whom were novice sailors. Whilst we had sailed together before in different boats, we didn’t know each other that well but we’re all like-minded people and enjoy sailing for fun. The plan, as it was back then, was for us all to get trained in the Sunset Series and to improve our skills to become a force to be reckoned with in the Pandora class. As 150 was in poor condition, the team also agreed to renovate the boat during the Christmas holiday break. I was hoping this project would be plain sailing from then on. How wrong I was! Soon after the 6th race of the Sunset Series in early July, all the sailing activities had to be suspended due to Covid-19, resulting in no sailing, no dinner gathering and no social activities. In order to keep the team and the project going, a change of tack was required. After a couple of meetings, we all agreed to bring the renovation project forward and get it done before the new season started in September. A master project plan was drawn up to encompass a number of sub-projects including deep cleaning the boat, repair and painting the deck, a comprehensive renovation of the keel and hull, commissioning a new team T-shirt, designing a new logo for the boat, designing the new spinnaker etc. Allocating the duties was an easy task as everyone volunteered. What great team spirit! As most of us didn’t have much knowledge in boat renovation, we all had to carry out research and take advice from our fellow sailors who were also doing repairs to their boats at the same time. The more research we did, the more we found out how daunting the task would be.
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| NOVEMBER 2020 AHOY!
The very first job was cleaning. On a humid and rainy day, the full team gathered and threw out rotted timber and rusted bolts and nuts, and pumped out bucket loads of murky water etc. It was obvious that most of us were not familiar with this type of hard labour and we were feeling tired until a power washer was brought out to wash away the grime and dirt on the boat. I did not expect a power washer could save the day and the boys (being young at heart) cheered up and fought to get control of it! Next up was hours and hours of preparation such as scraping old paint, fiberglass repair, filling and sanding before painting could begin. Our records indicate that we spent a total of 200 man-hours just on preparations alone. The whole project took us 10 weeks to complete with a total count of 350 man-hours. For the renovations, we used a detailed project plan showing what each step would involve; what needed to be done, what tools we needed and what performance standard we wished to achieve. This plan proved to be an invaluable management tool as it gave us a clear view of where we were in the project at any particular time. In order to lift the team spirit from time to time, we included simple celebration drinks in the project schedule when certain milestones were achieved. We had to break up into groups of four of course in order to comply with the social distancing requirements! When we were working on the design of the T-shirt and spinnaker, we stumbled on the registered name of 150: Hakuna Matata. Fans of Lion King will know this African Swahili phrase which means “no worries”. We all agreed that this name is perfect for our carefree, be happy attitude. Weather was the main problem encountered for the duration of the project. We laboured for many days in sunny 35 to 40C conditions with
