Nanny Cay again!
Pelekan
Tom & Jos Hollway
Wed 28 Mar 2012 20:02
Wednesday March 28th
Two steps forward and three back has been my experience of boats and boating so far. This week, surprisingly, it has been two forward and only one back.
Monday was battery day. The boss of Island Yachts, Skip, was incredibly helpful and one of his boat mechanics, Matthias, was on the boat by 10.30am. 5 hours later he was jolly pleased to get off having struggled diligently but silently with the 6 battery house bank under the galley floor. Tom, in the meantime, replaced the 2 under the saloon bunk so at last, many boat units and much sweating later, we now have decent batteries to play with.
Yesterday, having checked the bow thruster and connected the power to the new pump for the water maker( more boat units) we were so thrilled that most of the non functioning parts were working we decided to motor to Antigua ( 180 miles).
The only thing missing was the mainsail.
Returning the rental car to the airport proved to be a long job as the road through the main part of town was closed- for a bomb scare. We left Red Hook finally at 4.30 pm. Thirty mins later plans had changed! The rattling from the empty pole within the mast( no longer with a sail on it) was so ferocious, even in a calm sea, that we decided it was very likely to be causing damage. A 180 mile upwind motor seemed crazy so we did the two long sides of an isosceles triangle and motored into Soper's Hole, Tortola, for the night.
Today we pottered round to Nanny Cay. The shredded main has been retrieved from the sail loft, "sellotaped" so that it doesn't get any worse, and reattached. This is purely to protect the pole within the mast and stop the movement. Of course the weather is now not so good..........
The plan is to leave Nanny Cay tomorrow, aim at Virgin Gorda, check out and, weather providing, have another go on Friday.
J and T