Anyway, enough ranting!  On Monday, we rang the sailmakers early at about 7.45am, and as they were open we hauled the sail over to them by taxi.  They said they would try and have it done the same day, which was promising.  We then spent the rest of the day checking every nut, bolt, washer and screw as a penance for not dealing with the sail problem earlier.  I had spotted some loose stitching previously, but it had been forgotten and losing the sail on the trip over was the consequence - a lesson learnt!

When we called the sailmaker at 3.30pm, the sail was almost done so we went to collect it, hoping to get back in time to get it up again before dark as there was no wind.  Unfortunately, although the job itself was not complex, it had been harder to do than anticipated and we didn't leave until 5.30pm which was too late as it was beginning to go dark.  The sail is so thick that the sailmakers industrial sewing machine would not go through the fabric and they had to resort to the old fashioned way of hammering a hole in the cloth with an awl and then stitching it with UV thread, using pliers to pull the needle through - Demond, who was working on the sail, had very sore fingers by the end.  The next stage was re-attaching the leech line, which had originally been done with riveted washers - this time they used an electric drill, and nuts and bolts - at one stage when we looked through the door, there were sparks flying as they used an angle grinder to cut off the spare ends of the bolts - a bit off putting to say the least!  Just to say, Phillips Sailmakers of Nassau, did a fantastic job in a short time and got us up and sailing again far quicker than we envisaged - a great service by very friendly people, definitely one to recommend.

That night as a bit of a treat, we went to the local Chinese - a surprisingly good meal, fantastic food and a great atmosphere, the place was packed out on a Monday night - marvellous!