Little things mount up

After the not-so-much fun and games of yesterday, it was time to look at the problems, and ways of solving them. First off I emailed Crusader and within minutes of sending it Paul was on the phone. It turns out the battens should have been held in place by the batten car, but due to a change in the order of the mainsail, we didn't get the batten cars. Initally we were going to swap the battens and cars from our old mainsail to the new one, but Crusader just gave us new fittings, but on the order it still said we were using our existing cars, so there was no need to supply new ones. It was a simple mistake on both of our parts. Paul is going to courier the bits to us, I offered to pay, but Paul wouldn't have it. He's given us a quick fix in the mean time, so I've jut sorted that out.

Next came the problem with Wendy the wind chargers pole. In the swell yesterday it came loose and 1 of the 4 bolts holding the top half of the pole to the bottom one came loose and fell over the side. On closer inspection I discovered what had caused this. We bought the pushpit mounting poles from Marlec after we bought Wendy from them. We weren't able to spread the poles as wide as they advised, so I made up another pole using th same fittings, as well as having a stainless steel bracket made to hold the pole upright. For some reason (probably ease of distribution) Marlec use a two part pole, and while the bottom of our pole is rock solid the top has a little movement where the joint is. Although there is a stout aluminium joining piece the bolts into it are on the same axis so it will wobble.

It's this wobble that I believed caused the problem, as it moved slighly one way and then he other, the astic bush holdinthe clamps crept slightly, and over the course of the crossing the supports crept along the pushpit, this in turn caused the top to wobble more, and the brackets crept more and the cycle continued. Until the plastic bush either came out out the pole moved. Not only were the brackets moving, the non lockable bolts were also working loose. Not the best thing to happen at sea!



My solution isn't elegant, I'll be ther first to admit that, but it solid. First off to stop the bols at the joint coming loose I've done away with 4 bolts going in from the outside and use two long bolts going all the way through, secured with a lock nut, secondly there is a stainless steel hose clip around the joint so it's secured from the outside and the inside. Next inthe pole mounts I've tightened them up and covered them with tape, not pretty but the bolts won't come loose. The finally to stop the clamps creeping and moving I've put a hose clip each side. We'll see how long this lot lasts


While we had some of the items to do the repairs, we needed more bits, and a new bottle of Gaz which we were unable to find in Newlyn or Penzance. We headed off to the chandler and hardwear store, to be fair I wasn't expecting to find much, how wrong I was. Kilmore quay has a pub, and RNLI station, a chippy, a shop, a restaurant, a community centre and a scattering of houses. It aslo has one of the best stocked chandleries I ever been to. Thanks to the local fishing industry and the passing yachies on route to Irelands sceanic west, Kilmore's chandlery would put many Solent chandleries to shame. It seem to have everything. The only thing it didn't have, that we wanted was a tiller pilot.

We also bought a spare jerry can for diesel. It's, always good to carry a bit extra in reserve. Or as the harbour master succinctly put it "Better to be looking at something, than looking for it"

Anyway it's a burning hot day here, so we've just been for a walk along this beach