Levkas. 38:50.1N 20:42.7E

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Tue 29 May 2012 18:48
Came onto the town quay yesterday morning. It was a short 3 hour/15M donk from Sivota to here. The day before, I decided to fix our jib leech line, which I recently found loose/detached at the head of the sail.
Fixing the leech line proved to be more difficult than expected. The leech line pocket is about 1" wide and runs almost the entire length of our jib leech, about 22m or thereabouts. It took me six hours to do the job and I fancy it was more difficult than it would be to put new elastic in the waistband of steel knickers worn a team of sumo wrestlers. Once the line was in I was then able to sew it to the head of the sail using my new 'Speedy Stitcher sewing awl. What a great little buy for £15. Cracking tool, which not only allowed me to re-stitch on the original holes, also to stitch a double row for extra future security. I'm now going to add a 'fusible link' at the clew so that any future over-tension will cause the fusible link to break at a convenient place, thus avoiding having to take the jib down to do the same arduous job again.
Demetrius, (Way Point Sails) came to see me and said it's too dangerous to attempt to get our damaged genoa down in these high winds so will return first opportunity when there is little or no wind. It needs either me or one of their guys to be half-way up the genoa when it's about 60% unfurled to 'untie' the damaged material, which is 'rewinding' itself.
Demetrius and Dieter, from Metronix (Raymarine Agents) they've taken our damaged radar scanner & bracket and say the Raymarine EU distribution centre was closed yesterday so can't find availability of the required parts for another 24 hours. Wait & see eh?
It was windy all day yesterday. It was raining stair-rods most of the night and early morning. At about 10 o'clock the rain stopped and it wasn't windy. Geof, s/y Surfsong, berthed to our stbd side offered to help so by quarter past ten I was 2/3 the way up our genoa, cutting loose the strangling straggly bits and when the genoa came free it was completely unfurled onto the deck, squashed and bagged before even Jack Robinson could show up. Geof' even loaned the use of his dingy to move the genoa from yacht to shoreside. It's now with the sail repairers and they promise me I'll have it back on Friday. Watch this space.
The other good news is that Metronix (local Raymarine agents, say they can obtain the replacement radar scanner casing and have the radar back in my gritty hands for the weekend. They also offered to get a new bracket. I have, however, decided to re-locate the radar scanner onto a stainless pole at our transom (another little project now in the pre-development stage. I do now want to risk a repeat should I have need to back our genoa the next time.
Saw Robert, and his band of merry men on s/y Condor, on their way from Preveza to Nidri. Sue & I will catch up with Robert and Collette next week for some socialising. It will be the first time in the Ionian since we first met them at Astikos in 2006.
Hope you have a good Southport League tennis match this evening My Lover xxxxxx