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Sole of main mast

On September 3rd at 8.00 am sharp are we at the crane to get the main mast lifted and the sole changed. Antoine is with us, but otherwise nobody’s really ready to start. – Thus it’s business as usual and we wait….

Before the main mast get lifted all the electrical cables which are inside have to be disconnected,

the triatic (connection between mizzen and main mast) has to be removed

and most certainly all rigging connected to the main mast needs to be loosened as well. – Not to forget the genua and staysail have to go down, which we already did yesterday evening. – Till everything’s back on its proper place will be a challenge…

The first hurdle is managed: the old crumbly pad is removed and the new one in its place.

Now the main goes carefully back in its place and the loosened rigging is tightened back.

The whole operation, including waiting, lasts around 8 hours, – twice the time originally planned. – But now everything’s done and we hope the new pad will last many years.

 

Next big project is to replace the bonding strap in our grey water bilge as the old one is broken. For AMEL boats usually the bonding strap is very important because of electrolysis. First of all the bilge has to be cleaned , – not the nicest work.

 

As we are at the source of the AMEL system specialists, we give the water maker and all gears and drives, which are responsible to move our sails, for servicing.

Although our water maker was for a lot of money serviced on Mallorca by a questionable Dessalator agent, namely Echo Marine / Mallorca, it made problems since then. Till we brought it working again cost again time and money, but we never managed to find the reason for the saltwater leak. – However, the people at Dessalator are quite surprised after opening the part. Echo Marine not only used the wrong seals (low instead of high pressure) but assembled them the wrong way round. Due to that the base shows now lots of corrosion…. – We really wonder why Echo Marine still has customers. – More information about the case are under: https://sailing4ever.com/en/experiences/mallorca/

 

The gears and drives of our sails look more or less pitiful:

 

Nevertheless we hope that somewhen all bad parts are replaced or nicely maintained, so that everything runs smoothly for some years. – Hope dies last…..

 

Actually we find some time to drive to Toulon to visit the Maritime Museum.

It’s nice, but we definitively have been to more impressive museum.

 

Finally we are looking forward to sail on. Our way leads us along the French coast in direction of our hibernating place, which will be at Marina Roda de Bara, – approximately 45 minutes by car south of Barcelona.

Antoine Hutter – NAUTIPLUS – we can absolute recommend, even so he is not related to Robin ….

See u soon!

One comment

  1. Merci pour votre gentillesse et votre bonne humeur !!
    Ce fut u plaisir de vous recevoir ici.
    Merci beaucoup pour vos encouragements ! 🙂 🙂
    Bon vent et belles navigations !!
    Antoine

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