17.51S 170.17E  Friday 11^th July to Friday18^th July - After one week of solid work and repairs we set off on our way to Port Villa, in the Vanuatu group of islands, with Shaula III sailing close by us.  Marianne is the only Rally yacht left behind at Vuda Point Marina with a broken anchor winch which they are trying to replace; no doubt they can source it in New Zealand.  We had terrific service whilst we were there with ten out of ten for efficiency.  The week’s berthing, including potable water, electricity, power wash, crane lift out and back in came to 800 F$ (3 to the £) We had the mainsail re stitched and extensively repaired, a new hydro vane cover and waterproof dinghy bag made up which together also cost around the 800 F$ mark.  The work on the boat including the labour, sanding down, three coats of  blue anti foul on the hull,  three coats of white anti foul around the water line, topsides polished and a special clean up with resin treatment on the prop plus a keel repair, where we had ‘kissed’ the coral, all came to around 3000 F$. Pretty good considering these are the kind of bills we were quoted for anti fouling alone in Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

Anahi all painted, polished and anti fouled – ready for her 2^nd leg

 

 

Squeaky clean bow thruster

 

 

Propeller and shaft treated with ‘prop guard’

 

The Customs and Immigration made a special exception for Blue Water Rally boats and allowed us to clear out by taking a taxi to their offices instead of having to sail our yachts back to Lautoka which was a relief and we took the opportunity to stock up on a few provisions whilst there……including fresh fruit and vegetables (which we now understand will be confiscated in Port Villa!)

 

 

Mountain of wood chippings (looks like a pile of sand) – lovely smell of sandalwood in the air

 

 

Wide, clean tree lined roads of Lautoka

So for a while we are just the two Anahis!  Nearly all the other Rally boats sail as couples but it is hard on the sleep patterns for the first few nights…..especially with my customary three day sea sickness…..apart from that we are fine and Paul managed to get the Twistle rig up on his own yesterday morning.  What a performance it is on a rock and rolling boat to get the poles lifted up in the air and attached to the hoops on the triangular corners of each head sail…. It took over two hours of wrestling, was immensely successful - we were down wind sailing, doing about 5 – 6 knots with 10 knots of wind overnight, which was very comfortable - and then the wind changed so it all had to come down again!

 

 

Step 1.  Port pole still clipped to the rail – Starboard pole fixed into the universal joint one end

 

 

Step 2.  Trying to attach the other end of the pole to the lines

 

 

Step 3.  Starboard pole attached to line – port pole attached to the universal joint and line as well

 

 

Step 4. Port pole in position

 

 

Step 5.  Hard to pull Starboard pole up into position too

 

 

Step 6.  Up she goes

 

 

 

Step 7.  Both poles in position

 

 

Step 8. The Twistle is up – now we have to tie a ‘preventor’ onto the universal joint to stop the poles from jack-knifing if the wind changes

 

 

 

You can imagine with this much sail area (double) flying ‘free’ how fast we can go with the wind behind us – however light it may be and easily reefed if it gets stronger

 

Q.                When I woke up in the morning how did I know Paul

had been eating sausage sandwiches?

 

A.                He had a large dollop of extra strong Coleman’s mustard

stuck to his left eyebrow.

 

Then ‘just as we thought it was safe to go outside’………. the engine overheated again which was of course a real worry as the adjustment Paul had made to the prop shaft pitch seemed to have made a good difference to our engine and motoring performance.   We checked the external cooling system – all was fine.  We checked the internal cooling system – all fine there too. Next point of elimination had to be the thermostat which we removed with difficulty as it is situated in the most awkward to get to ‘elbow’.  We tested it by placing it in very hot water and to our relief it was faulty and didn’t ‘open’ until the water boiled.  A thermostat in the engine of a yacht is there to protect the engine from very cold water so it is designed to only open when the water is heated by the engine to around 80 degrees – if it doesn’t open, through a fault, it is effectively starving the engine of water, as in our case – then when it opened once the water was boiling we must have been ‘cooking’ the engine!  We are lucky we are sailing in warm climates and don’t need a thermostat for the time being.  The good news is we have finally found the culprit and reason for the overheating – the question is how much damage have we already done, namely could we have blown the cylinder head gasket? Hind sight is a wonderful thing but another clue was that the tap water was scalding hot recently which also denotes overheating.  We will try and check it all out properly in Port Villa.  The next problem of the day was the prop itself, working perfectly for two days, but now when we turn off the engine it won’t ‘feather’ and stop but keeps on whirring round and round until we resort to stopping it manually with a broom handle – not good news though. 

 

Anyhow through all this mayhem we have been bowling along at over 7 knots with 20 – 30 knots of wind, on a beam reach, recording one of our fastest 24 hour periods since the Atlantic.  The decks are soaking wet and a number of waves have slapped into the cockpit but all is fine in a ‘heart in the mouth’ kind of way. 

 

Today is Monday 21^st July – the sun has just risen and we are hoping to reach landfall early tomorrow morning.

 

 

We’ve safely arrived in Vanuatu – but look at this tiny boat being sailed by a Hungarian solo around the world – can only be 18 foot long!!