Friday 13th April

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Tue 24 Apr 2018 03:53
We were within half an hour of Vega’s re-launch. The boat was suspended in the cradles of the hoist. I was apprehensive. After six months out of the water a re-launch is always a nervous time. What could go wrong? And then Annie reminded me it was Friday 13th April.

Not long after Annie and I met, the other love of my life was Dawn Star, a Hunter 21 that we initially kept in Salcombe and then Plymouth. One year we arranged for the marina to re-launch Dawn Star after a winter out of the water with the specific request to put back the log beforehand. For the uninitiated the log is the instrument with a paddle wheel that records speed through the water and is removable from a hole in the bottom of the hull. Upon re-launch it was noticed that the boat was lower in the water than expected and of course the log had not been replaced. Dawn Star was lifted back out, drained, dried and cleaned. All seemed well as a week or so later we set out for our first sail of the year, across Plymouth Sound to Newton Ferrers. Soon however the boat handling did not seem right and we discovered that the forward buoyancy tank was full of water. How she did not completely sink on first launch was a mystery as we gingerly motored ourselves back to the marina.

This time the log was definitely in place, all the seacocks were closed, there was a new stern gland on the prop-shaft and the yard crew was not taking seriously our suggestion to delay for a day and so we went ahead and launched; and we floated! It was only after we started the normally smooth Yanmar engine and it sounded like a tractor firing on less than a full compliment of cylinders that things became less good. Matters worsened as we motored around to our berth; even above the din of the engine we could hear and feel a knocking from the prop-shaft that suggested some form of imminent structural failure. Fortunately we had the engineer of board who had serviced both the fuel injectors and the prop-shaft and he took a less apocalyptic view. The injectors have since been returned to Aukland for re-checking and normal smooth running has resumed. A diver is now due to go down and check the alignment of the rope cutter on the prop-shaft.

Once snug in our berth on the pontoon we were able to sit back, thrilled to still be afloat, and to admire the new cockpit sprayhood. When it is really hot at sea we open up the sides of the sprayhood for more ventilation through the cockpit and Annie thought she would try this to make sure all was in order. At this point we discovered that we were two zips short of a like for like replacement, including the one around the bottom of sprayhood which allows it to be rolled up out of the way. It required two trips to the workshop before we had a sprayhood with both the zips and a weather cover for the bottom zip. Neither they nor we have any idea why the zips were omitted.

Thanks to Roger from North Sails we now have our cruising chute attached to its new top down furler. In the early morning still air in the marina the sail furled perfectly and no adjustments to the sail are required. Fingers crossed the same will happen at sea. The other sails required very little by way of maintenance although evenly spaced small tears on the luff of the genoa suggest that all is not hunky dory at the joins of the genoa track up which the luff slides up when the genoa is raised. Rigging work seems particularly expensive out here so this additional issue is not welcome.

After days of careful measurement, research and design work I came up with the perfect deck storage solution for our gas bottles that included a new length of rail on the pushpit at the stern. All the necessary parts were ordered and I was eagerly awaiting the chance to engineer my storage masterpiece when Annie suggested that by reversing the orientation of the bottles they could be stored more unobtrusively on the existing rail. My new found stoicism saw me through this latest dent to my ego and welcomed this somewhat obvious and cost free solution.

Emptying and rearranging the two cockpit lazarettes revealed a hitherto unknown additional storage area beneath one of them. As a result we have been able to put out of the way all those things that are unlikely to be required on a day to day basis. This has freed up so much space that I am now worried we can’t possibly have enough “stuff” readily to hand to see us through every eventually. I suppose if we haven’t needed it in 3 years then we can be pragmatic about the need to empty the lazarette (including our backup outboard motor for the dinghy) as and when we need something.

Three days ago I donned my Crocodile Dundee gear and we headed over to Sydney where we are staying with Annie’s old friends John and Jenny. Thus far we haven't encountered a shark, box jellyfish, brown snake, Funnel Web spider, saltwater crocodile or any of the other of the worlds most venomous creatures so things are looking up.

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