Repairs
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36:19.63N 025:25.53E Vlikahada Marina, Santorini Monday 30th August Over the last few days of
violent winds we have watched our Greek flag disintegrate to this ......
A damaged flag is highly offensive in Greece so this needed
replacing. Santorini is not strong on sailing because the water is too
deep to anchor in most places and the one marina is very small and difficult to
get the yacht into. In spite of this, astonishingly there is a good
chandlery; although it is probably as far from the sea as is possible to get on
the island. Not a problem because we intended to hire a car and,
fortunately they had a flag. The shredded original is now carefully
folded and will be presented to Viv and Tim on our return. We can’t really blame
the wind but the handle came off one of the hatches so we put Tim to work on
fixing that and it has held up jolly well ever since. Tim is a bit of an
expert on marine diesel engines as well so acted as consultant throughout and
answered all sorts of queries we had accumulated.
But then there was the sail
which we had watched take a real hammering and knew had been damaged along the
edge where it runs up the mast. The first thing to do was take it down so
we put Tim to work again. So much easier to wrestle the acres of canvas
into submission if you have crew. Tim spots something else in
need of attention........
I was so keen to get on
with the repairs that I forgot to photograph the most badly damaged part so here
is the second most badly damaged. The eyelet is supposed to sit in the
space behind the bolt rope and is then clipped onto one of the
‘cars’ that travel up and down the mast. The bolt rope
provides the strength and reinforcement at the leading edge of the sail.
You do expect the sails to
suffer some damage given the forces on them so we carry a repair kit and then
have them serviced at the end of each season. This is the first time we
have needed to do any repairs so that isn’t bad going. The kit
consists of big sharp needles of various shapes, sizes and bend; waxed thread
(could double up as dental floss if the need arose – or vice versa
possibly, in extremis); stick on fabric and a sail-makers palm. This is a
clever hard pad, essential for getting the needle through the layers of cloth
and stiffening.
It took a few hours but there
are worse places to do the mending than sitting on your own yacht in the
sunshine being brought iced tea on demand.
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