Bad Luck Comes in Threes

Not a disaster but certainly a frustrating series of setbacks.

First the marine engineer I had booked to change the cutlass bearings when we lifted BV out this week called to say that he could no longer do the work for us this week because of some issues at home.  After some rapid calls to several other engineers it was clear that we couldn't get another engineer to do the work at such short notice.  Lifting BV out of the water has therefore had to be delayed a couple of weeks to when both the travel-hoist and the marine engineer are available.  On the plus side it de-conflicts the work on the mast and the hull, both of which involve quite a lot of work.

Secondly, we had some issues when we tried to take down the mast.  Floating below the crane with the mast supported by the crane's sling it was time to slacken off all of the stays.  All went well except for the forestay adjustment screw which was very stiff.  We didn't want to force it but therefore couldn't get all of the tension off the forestay and backstay; there just wasn't enough slack to safely remove the last two pins.  We therefore elected to delay the lift two days to when the crane was next available.  Having got back to our mooring the forestay adjustment screw freed up pretty quickly, however,  by then we had missed our booked window with the crane.  But, all was ready for the mast lift in two days time.

The third setback came the next morning with a phone call to tell us that the crane had a hydraulic leak and was out of action.  Getting the parts to fix it would most likely take longer than normal because of the Bank Holiday Weekend.  Of course the longer it is out of action, the more booked lifting work is backing up.  When the crane is actually fixed we'll get a better idea of  when we will get our mast taken down.  For the time being we are just waiting for a phone call....