Nothing serious

The rigger was supposed to come on Monday,but came on Tuesday - to say he was busy till Wednesday, yesterday. So Ive been hanging about waiting most of the week to get an answer, and now have it: there are some issues with the rigging but they aren’t what I thought they were and the movement of the mast that surprised me last week is not something to be concerned about. It happens!  So, I should have carried on! Damn!

Instead, as I had arranged to meet some of my children in Vanuatu this weekend, I will fly across and stay with them as planned, then return and start again!

But the return will not have been wasted entirely because the riggers inspection of the ageing shrouds showed they are reaching their use-by date, with broken strands on most of them. I had looked for broken wires, and never found any, but thats because I wasn’t looking for the right thing - I thought I would find a broken end of a strand but what one looked  for are strands that are sitting out a bit from their normal tightly bound position in the wire. Finding these yesterday the rigger recommend replacing all of them - they are at least ten years old. The stays however are much newer and don’t need replacement, and the furler drum needed a clean and spray with CRC to be turning freely again.

A Broken wire

So while I am in Vanuatu, these jobs will get done, and it will be a lot cheaper than it would have cost in Australia or New Zealand.

Theres another job to do as well. On my long motor back to Fiji last week a problem occurred that that had developed then disappeared in 2011 on my sail to the Austral Isles : leaking around the propellor shaft. It was worse this time, and again is easily controlled with a hose clip, but not when motoring! So I pumped a bucket full of water out of the bilge every few hours. It wasn’t a major leak. But when I get back from Vanuatu I will replace the leaking propellor shaft fitting. Cant think why I didnt do this a long time ago.