Back to Gibraltar (Part 1)

We left Guernsey on the ‘red-eye’ flight on 6 September. In our plan we’d built in time for that flight to be delayed by weather or mechanical failure but, as it happened, it arrived at Gatwick on time. That meant that we had 8 hours to kill in Gatwick whilst we waited for our onward flight to Gibraltar. However, after several days of organising and packing it was actually quite nice to have nothing to do for a few hours [Ed: somebody had nothing to do for a few hours; someone else had more than enough to keep her occupied!]. The flight to Gibraltar also ran on time and so at 2030 we stepped out of the aircraft and into the warm, humid Gibraltar air. It was exciting to be back. Even more so because in the past few years this was when we were stopping sailing for the season but this year our adventures were only just starting again.

The dramatic clouds cresting ‘The Rock’ on our first evening back    

We lugged our 3 heavy hold bags, full of charts, pilot books and spare parts, to the taxi rank and were soon lifting them onto Blue Velvet. She was in fine form and the only casualty from our 2½ week absence was that our basil plant was decidedly desiccated [Ed: Basil sadly died a couple of days later and the Over-Watering Fairy ceremonially stripped of its Brownie Guide plant care badge!]. A quick trip out to the supermarket refilled the fridge with the barest of essentials and some dinner. To add a little fun to our first dinner back on board, the cloud streamed over the ridgeline in dramatic streaks. As you would expect, the after-dinner task was to produce a list of tasks that would keep us very busy for the 10 days we had to wait until our new mainsail was ready.

One of the most important parts we had brought out with us was a new exhaust elbow for the main engine. I had ordered this back at the beginning of the year but because it turned out to be a bespoke build, and we’d not ordered it early enough, it hadn’t been ready in time for our trip out to Greece in April.

New and old; different beasts!    

So, waiting for us when we’d got back home a couple of weeks ago was the beautifully made replacement. However, back on board and peering into BV’s engine compartment, it was quickly apparent that the new and the old components were decidedly different. Whipping the old component off and laying it alongside the new one highlighted just how different the pipe angle was. The new part was slightly longer, which was not an issue, but such a different outflow angle was a significant problem in the confined space of BV’s engine compartment.

Fitting each in turn to the engine block confirmed that the new elbow was about 40 degrees off the correct angle and that there just wasn’t enough space in the engine compartment for the fat rubber exhaust hose to bend around and connect to the new elbow. Time for a rethink!

Food locker management   

Meanwhile, with the aft part of the saloon in chaos with the engine compartment in bits, Nicky spent a couple of hours in the forepeak trying to find space in our spares lockers for the various bits and pieces that we had brought out from home. With those lockers filled to capacity (and goodness only knows how I will rebuild the complex 3D jigsaw puzzles after taking out any items if Nicky’s not around), she turned her attention to checking-off all the food stores. Those items past their useable dates (primarily dried milk) were binned and a new list drawn up for restocking with a view to longer offshore passages. As an example, colder overnight watches will need hot drinks and snacks to keep us alert and the latter part of our long passage across the Atlantic will need tinned foods because our fresh will have run out.

Gibraltar was gearing up for a party weekend to celebrate National Day (10^th September), the day they celebrate the 1967 referendum when they voted to remain British. Late afternoon on the Thursday before that was not a great time to be looking for a stainless-steel welder! Worse for us, we couldn’t run up the engine and flush the cooling system to change the anti-freeze until the exhaust elbow was fixed. It looked like it would be a frustrating few days of inactivity but so began a series of lucky breaks for us.

It turned out that, unusually, the marina had a stainless-steel welder and he would be on shift in the morning. A discussion at 9am on Friday agreed what I needed him to do and, after a quick check of angles once he had spot-welded the repositioned end plate, he had it back to us completed by mid-afternoon; an amazing service!

BV engineering life was looking good until I tried to fit the elbow. Unexpectedly, it turned out that we also needed to replace the first metre of the rubber exhaust hose. I knew that it was an unusual 65mm internal diameter size which I expected to be a special order with potentially several days of delay. In our second massive stroke of luck, a late afternoon walk to Sheppards Chandlery saw me return triumphant with their last metre of 65mm internal diameter exhaust hose. Amazingly, I now had everything we needed to get the engine up and running so that we could get on with flushing and then replacing the antifreeze to complete the servicing we needed to do on the engine.

The adjusted exhaust elbow (top L), fitted (top R), and draining the anti-freeze   

But by this stage it was reasonably late on in the day and also in the marina was Kealoagh V, owned by Mike Chamberlin and Kate Day who live aboard full-time. They too are Cruising Association members and also plan to cross the Atlantic this season, via a very similar route to us albeit a month or so later out of the Canaries. We invited them over for drinks which was an extremely convivial way to spend the evening and over the next couple of weeks we spent several evenings in each other’s company and hope to be able to keep in touch as our voyages progress.

And on Saturday, we finally finished the exhaust elbow replacement, flushed out and replaced the coolant and changed the engine anode. At last BV was in a position to move from the marina, just a couple of days later than we had planned. It was time for a party to celebrate and Gibraltar was braced ready for one with a band and a DJ about to entertain in Casemate Square!

Gibraltar