30th November 2007
Well the 'Ball bearings on the deck' story. Justin was doing his last light
deck check and collected half a dozen ball bearings from the foredeck under the
Facnor Electric Furler for the genoa. Phew the last thing we needed was a genoa
that wouldn't furl. Took some immediate pictures and shot them off to Robert
Sturch at Vicsail our Beneteau agent in Sydney. Spent a nervous night but the
response was waiting for me in my morning emails......
This from my local Facnor agent, who has also requested a response
from
Facnor France..
"If it is just the bearings from a rotating tack
fitting my advice would
be to try and seal where they are escaping with
something such as self
amalgamating tape, the remaining bearings may wear but
even if they all
fail the furler should still work as the motor turns the
sections, this
tack fitting just allows the sail to rotate to the best angle,
and many
furlers manual or electric do not have this anyway. In short if I
am
correct this bearing mechanism is independent and should have
little
impact on the overall performance."
Thanks Robert for the prompt attention.
But it is not over yet. The rotating tack fitting had obviously loosened
and somehow we had to get it tight again. The maintenance manual seemed to show
this was all one piece but something had let go. Eventually Justin got out the
big persuader monkey wrench and took hold of what appeared to be a solid fitting
above the tack ring and started turning. Hallelujah it turned an he managed to
get everything lined up again albeit with out a bunch of ball bearings. We have
some aluminium turning on aluminium but it should get us to St Lucia OK.
We had a great 24 hours last, I think we made over 200nm and we now feel as
though we are moving in the right direction at a respectable speed.
Today is my birthday and the last time I crossed this bit of ocean I was 21
years old and today is the 46th anniversary of that birthday. Boy where did all
the time go so quickly.
Sometimes I think wishes she wasn't here, it's as boring as !!!. Ocean
sailing is pretty flat and the scenery doesn't change. Food has been great and
we are now in rhythm with the trip.
Cheers
JH
