Tuesday 5 Oct, re-launch 2021, HHN day 6: A day of faffing around, trying to get into the work groove.
Not a very productive day. Seems like we were busy but not a lot to show for it. But that’s me speaking for myself. Oana has been busy inside, happily reviewing all her UV clothing purchases, deciding which to send back, which to keep, which to get a new size of. Such is the process of proactive on-line shopping from Bucharest, trying to avail the end-of-summer discounts in the USA, before sell-out. As for me, the day was a lot of faffing, somehow side-tracking myself rather than getting on with actual stuff that needs to be done. It always seems to take me a few days to get into the groove for maintenance sessions. But once honed-in, there is no stopping me. Oana calls that my “possessed mode!”
First job of the day was to find boxes and pack up the 7 Empirbus modules for shipment back to Sweden for repair, following their damage by lightning strike over the summer. Getting this sent off is a priority because we really want to receive them back again before we depart USA early November. There is not much point in having back up electronics sitting in Sweden while we are cruising the Caribbean.
At the UPS store I am totally shocked by the courier quote. They wanted $379 to send a small 9 lbs (4 kg) package to Sweden. Ridiculous! That’s about the same as a one-way flight ticket! So, I end up risking sending by normal post (USPS) with an express delivery. And even that was $170. What amazes me is that Hallberg Rassy Parts UPS me huge heavy boxes of parts, sometimes several at a time and the cost has never been more than 100 Euros for any one shipment. Again, we are reminded that USA is not a cheap place to live.
Then I finally drag myself to the mast, on which I have several real items to do. Before I left in the spring, the mast and boom had been nicely placed right next to the boat, but they were moved to the mast lay down area while we were away because of yard maintenance. And now they are 100yds (metres) from the boat. Not far, but far enough not to be convenient for tools etc.
First job I want to do on the mast is to re-thread all the halyards, to ensure none of them are twisted around each other, which I suspect they may be. I have spent a long time thinking about how to do that. It is not like I can look down inside an 80ft mast with a flashlight and visually check the lines are not tangled. Plus, there are sections in the mast that have foam inserted, to stop internal halyard-clanking when the boat rolls. Halyard clanking inside the mast is a very annoying phenomena if you are trying to sleep in the forward cabin. But that foam stops any visual look through the mast, even if you were able to see the 80ft.
What I have decided to do is join 2 of the old vertical sail battens together, thread that inside the mast, then pull all the halyard mouse lines back through all at once, without turning the long batten. I’ll let you know how that goes. Over the summer I had sought inspiration on this by putting the question (how to untwist halyards?) on several Facebook yachting groups. I received lots of suggestions on the how-to, but none really made sense to me. So if this (long batten technique) works, I might patent my method 😊
To start with, at the mast, the sun was out and before long I was getting roasted. Yes, roasted in October! I went back to the boat to get a hat, got distracted, and by the time I got back to the mast the sun was gone behind black clouds. And a few minutes later it started raining, heavily. So that was that. Mast done for the day!
Next job was to fix our refurbished multi-channel radio antenna (a Pacific Delta-22 antenna) which sits on the mast top. Yet another job classified under “Cloudy’s tricks”, and wasn’t on our to-do list. In the spring I had painstakingly refurbished this antenna, then hung it from the ceiling in the saloon, as the safest place to put it until it went back on the mast. Well, the yard moved the boat while we were away and during that move the antenna fell to the saloon floor and broke ☹. What was a nicely white painted new looking antenna will now look more like Humpty Dumpty, all stuck back together with epoxy glue! But I challenge anyone to see my shoddy but practical repair when it is back in position, 80ft above the deck.
And that was the day. Faffing and procrastinations. Must get more focused on the to-do list tomorrow!