haul out: antifoul; check rudder
fit carbon fiber tiller
install ProFurl Spinex gennaker furler
polish topsides
fit Jordan drogue, chain
order freeze dry meals
other provisions
tiller pilot cover
protein powder
gooseneck pin
spare tiller to rudder head bolts
contact glue
epoxy sticks
dodger?
anchor off Roberton Island and climb to lookout
anchor off Russell and have lunch at Duke of
Marlborough
When I haul out I would like to lower the rudder and check the shaft and bearings. I have no reason to think there is anything wrong with them, but I’d like to see.
Fitting the carbon fiber tiller has two parts. Making the connection to the rudder head which might require drilling new holes in the stainless steel side plates or having new ones made; and installing the tiller extension and the pin for the tiller pilot. The tiller is re-enforced at the tiller extension point, and Gilles has given me instructions on various ways to insert the tiller pilot pin.
I’m told that the ProFurl Spinex is sitting in a box in the Northland Rigging office. I’ve downloaded and read the installation manual. The furler is not kept permanently in place, but parts need to be cut to fit the boat. I may do this while hauled out, so if I drop something it will fall on the ground and not in twenty feet of water.
I’ll also try to polish the topsides while out of the water, or at least the part just above the waterline.
Inspired by Steve’s emails, I will dig out the various elements of the Jordan drogue and consider what I can leave in place while making passages, hopefully at least the bridle. I had been planning to use the second anchor as the weight on the end, but it may ding the boat in retrieval and I may buy a length of chain instead.
I’ll inventory what freeze dry meals are aboard when I return and buy at least a hundred more.
I’ll have the canvas shop make a cover for the tiller pilots that will, hopefully, keep some water off them. In the best of all possible worlds, the Pelagic will work perfectly and I won’t need the Raymarines. But you may have noticed that contrary to Dr. Pangloss, this is not the best of all possible worlds.
Protein powder is a useful supplement on passages, but I don’t like the way most taste. Douglas told me about Vital Whey Natural, which blends into milk nicely. It is not available in New Zealand, but is sold in Australia. I’ll try to find an endurable substitute in New Zealand.
When Bob, the rigger, did a rigging inspection he noted a little wear on the boom to mast pin and suggested I replace it with a bolt.
Years ago a sailmaker advised me to make sail repairs at sea with contact glue instead of needle and thread. It works and I have ever since. Carlos recently sent me a link to Dr. Sails epoxy. I’m taking some back with me, but want contact glue in case of bigger repairs.
Dodger is always ambivalently on the list. I doubt one will be made in New Zealand. Maybe South Africa. Probably never.
Once back on GANNET I will find more to do, but that is the list now.
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From SHADOWS, which I reread over the weekend.
The rhythms of the open ocean are measured. Seldom if ever does the weather change over blue water without warning. The barometer moves; the wind increases or drops away to nothing, veers or backs; waves change size and shape; new clouds appear; perhaps a swell from an unexpected direction; and, on vessels under sail, which move with the elements rather than bludgeon through them, an experienced sailor may simply sense a change in his ship’s motion, an uneasiness, a stumbling, a loss of stride. But near land, and most particularly on those straits and seas and channels and lakes where weather passes rapidly from land to water and back again, often there is no warning, for the rhythms of the open ocean are never established there. Landsmen fear the open sea; sailors worry about the land.
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Included with SHADOWS are three short stores, one of which is “Sailing to Africa.” I wrote it in December 2008. I had forgotten that I named the boat in it GANNET. I trust that I will not be sailing the real GANNET this year toward an Africa that is not there.
