Bending on the sails

Having got BV back in the water we focused on 2 things: toilets and cool beer. The fridge was switched on to generate the cool beer and our 2 shiny new toilet seats were fitted to replace the old ones which were starting to look a little scruffy [Goodness knows what the airport security guys thought when they x-rayed our bags and saw 2 toilet seats in our luggage]. Sadly the fridge water pump seemed to be struggling a bit and then stopped working. We flushed the pipes again to make sure there was a clear run, which there was, and then set about checking the electrics. After a series of tests we narrowed the problem down to a dirty contact. This was cleaned up, reconnected and, hey presto, cool beer became possible.

Most of the day was gone by now but we tested the generator and found that we needed to tighten the exhaust connections a bit and we made sure that the heater worked. Then we stopped for the day and treated ourselves to pre-dinner drinks in the cockpit and some lovely steaks in the restaurant to celebrate being afloat again.

The next day, in preparation for the sails being delivered, Nicky hoisted me up the mast to check the rigging for any problems, refit the anemometer (taken off for the winter), lubricate the sheaves and blocks and replace any cable ties which had gone brittle with the UV light.

Now there is no point in going all of the way up to the top of the mast and to not take a little time to enjoy the view. As well as the panoramic view of the marina and Marmaris Bay, I also got a good look at the salvage job being finished off in the corner of the marina. Over the winter there had been a catastrophic fire on one of the very large motoryachts. This had spread to the adjacent yacht and both were sadly gutted. One at least had sunk and had just been raised using the huge crane pictured right. It had spent the last 2 days tied alongside the crane with the water being pumped out in preparation for being towed away. The other burnt out yacht, pictured right above, was towed away today, presumably to be scrapped.

The rest of the day mainly revolved around varnishing which kept Nicky very busy whilst I stripped down and lubricated the anchor windlass clutch. With BV back in the water and the fridge working again there was no excuse to go to the restaurant, so we cooked dinner on board.

Stripped down DuoGen to replace the bearings and seal 

Time has certainly be going past quickly since we arrived in Marmaris; it was Friday, April Fool’s Day. BV was still looking fairly chaotic down below with bits of kit still needing to be fitted and lockers ajar for varnishing. One of the big bits of kit still stored in the aft cabin was the DuoGen. We’d removed that for the hull painting but before refitting it I wanted to replace the bearings and the shaft seal because one of the bearings had been sounding noisy at the end of last season. I therefore spent a very pleasant morning in shorts and a T-shirt stripping down the DuoGen in the cockpit and the rebuilding it.

Whilst I was doing that, the large salvage crane was towed away signalling the end of the post yacht fire recovery work.

Fitting the DuoGen back onto its bracket was definitely a 2 person job and we also rigged a safety line onto the heavy part so that if we dropped it, it woudn’t end up at the bottom of the marina.

The new WiFi boxes in position    

With that part of the cabin decluttering complete I turned my attention to fitting our new WiFi sytsem. This has a metre long aerial which we needed to fit to the pushpit and then run a rather beefy coax cable through a deck gland and along a conduit to where I had mounted the transmitter and receiver. This box can be cranked up to allow us to link up with Wifi Hotspots much further away (maybe as much as 2 km) than we have been able to to date. To make using it easy, we have also connected it to a router so anyone on board can link into the system.

Sadly when trying to get a stainless steel aerial mount made I discovered that my onsite friendly stainless steel fabricator workshop has been taken over. The new management have seen fit to hike the prices four-fold; they will not be getting my custom and we’ll be going to the ‘sanai’ area in town instead.

Whilst we were going through the slow process of running cables for the WiFi, the sails were delivered. However, it was now quite windy and so we decided to leave bending on the sails until early the following morning when we expected it to be calm. That plan also gave us time to finish lubricating all of the deck blocks and sail controls as well as applying a couple more coats of varnish.

Sails bent on 

So on 2 April the alarm woke us early and we had a quick breakfast ‘on the go’ as we started work on the sails. It was perfect conditions; a flat calm. We started with the foresails, first greasing the Furlex systems before hoisting and then furling the genoa and staysail. We then moved onto the more difficult job of attaching the mainsail. Fortunately there was still no wind and so we were able to hoist it in stages stopping to fit each full-length batten and the reefing pennants. It took quite a while to do but eventually we had it flaked down again, tied to the boom and the sail cover put on. With the sails in place BV was looking much smarter and almost ready to go.

Over the winter about 20 of the wooden plugs covering the screws in the teak deck had 'popped' and so I spent the rest of the afternoon raking out the holes, removing the screws and drilling a little deeper, before refitting the screws and new teak plugs. These were glued in slightly proud so that they could be sanded smooth the following day when the glue was dry. When done they looked much better, although the deck and cockpit still need a good clean to show them off to their best.

With the sails bent on we decided that BV was back in commission and so to liven up the evening we had invited Helen and Tony from Iolanthe and Bob and Eileen from Songster over for drinks. Helen and Tony had, like us, just arrived back and were in the throes of pre-launch maintenance, but Bob and Eileen had been living on board over the winter. They had also spent part of the winter travelling around Europe from as far west as Portugal to as far east as Romania. With 11 countries visited in 11 weeks there was lots to talk about and that was even before we all started comparing notes on our sailing plans for the summer.

Sunday was, by comparison, a day of rest. Nicky set to her varnishing in earnest whilst I fitted a new tank contents gauge and ran a pipe to the aft holding tank. When we had fitted the aft holding tank we’d attached a capacitance system that aimed to measure the tank contents with electrical capacitance between 2 metal strips stuck to the outside of the tank. We’d found it to be unreliable and so over the winter I had ordered a new TankTender gauge which could cope with 5 tanks rather than the 4 on the old one. It was simple to fit with the hardest part being emptying the lockers to access the pipe run.

I also fitted a new gas regulator and then looked at one of the clutches on the mast for controlling the inboard end of the spinnaker pole. The cheekplate had cracked around the pivot point last year and we had finished off the season using that clutch very carefully. It had lasted until we had got to Marmaris but now needed fixing so the rope was derigged and the clutch removed from the mast so that the clutch could be pulled apart. Fortunately spare parts are still available and so we could replace just the broken cheekplate and then put it all back together and re-mount it on the mast.

It was a week and a day since we had arrived back and so we took stock. Nearly all of the jobs on our list were done which was good. However, we would still need to stay in the marina for a day or two to get the fibreglass patched up in the aft lazarette. That should start tomorrow, Monday, and around that work we planned to visit Marmaris primarily to stock up on food but also to pick up a few spares. Yachts around us in the marina had already set off on their cruises and we were itching to get going too.

Marmaris, Turkey