The Holding Tank is Ready

In and around all of the delays in getting BV's mast down and lifting her out of the water, it was really good to receive a phone call from Tek-Tanks informing me that the holding tank was complete and ready for collection.   They have done a great job and the tank feels really solidly put together.

It now looks as though this weekend will be spent starting to fit the holding tank rather than working on the mast and polishing the hull as was originally expected.  Not quite the progress we were thinking of but still a step or two in the right direction.

I have also been thinking about the problem we had trying to get the mast down and the current requirement to loosen off the forestay adjuster to get enough slack in the forestay and backstay to release them.  I tightened up the forestay adjuster to fine tune the mast rake but the result is just a little too much tension in the wires when the backstay tensioner is wound fully out.  On the face of it adjusting the forestay should be a one-off adjustment and that is the way I would like it to be.  On some of the smaller travel-hoists we would expect to have to disconnect the backstay prior to being lifted out to avoid it fouling the hoist cross-beam.  When we get lifted out in the future I don't want to have to take apart the Furlex and adjust the forestay length for every lift, especially as we have a backstay tensioner that should make it all very painless.  Therefore, when the mast is down, I have decided to replace the short top section of the backstay above the HF aerial insulator with a new length of wire which is slightly longer.  That will allow the forestay length to be adjusted to give the correct rake and then left.  If I get my measurements correct then, when the backstay tensioner is fully extended, there will be enough slack in the system to disconnect the backstay easily.  I can't add too much length to the backstay though as, when wound in, the backstay tensioner must still be able to set the correct range of backstay tensions for normal use and when beating into wind.  Lengthening the backstay... another job added to the list!