Doings

There is a little bit of uncertainty regarding the SABB engine work. We know the parts that we want, principally one head with accessories.

The person who runs Sabbamerica, the US dealership, is on vacation until 23 September and I am getting no email responses from his organization. That does not matter too much because Sabbamerica does not stock heads in the USA.

We tried placing the order directly to Norway, specifying direct air delivery to Pt Townsend, but for about 3 days my messages to them have been bouncing with SMTP 505 errors (status 5.5.0). Mark at Seashore Marine sent the order from his machine last Friday apparently without a bounce but we do not expect confirmation from Norway until Monday (tomorrow). I will be uneasy until we get that confirmation. In the meantime I am still trying to find out the reason for the email bounces.

On Friday I visited the sailmaker and paid for the work on the mainsail after inspecting what they had done. They did good work both in fixing up problems (e.g. replacing webbing between the sail and the slides, patching up a small hole) and strengthening the sail (e.g. second slide near the peak, bolts through the battens, reinforcement at the clew, a leather patch thrown in for free). Without this work the sail would not have taken Pachuca back to Australia without problems and now I am confident that there will be no problems. Unfortunately the rigger's work pickup truck was unavailable due to a mechanical problem so I could not bring the sail back to Pachuca. The sailmaker will deliver it probably on Tuesday.

Doug visited the boat and found that gas was escaping from a hole that he had patched, passing between the tubing and the epoxy collar that he had put around it. Basically, the epoxy had not bound to the aluminum tubing. He had another go and returned on Friday where we found that the leak was worse than ever. He has given up on trying to patch the tubing and will try to fit one of the set of coils that he's got on his premises.

I saw Ric on Friday about the aluminum boarding ladder that he will construct for Pachuca. He is running a week late and I will touch base with him next week. The ladder will hang over the side, bolted to the toe rail. It will be approximately 5 ft long and have 6 rungs. We need this because climbing out of the water onto Pachuca via the Monitor wind steering frame will be difficult for some and impossible for others. This will be a temporary measure because once I am back in Australia engaged in coastal cruising I will remove the Monitor and resume use of the stern boarding ladder.

In the meantime Pachuca is a bit of a mess. Much of the material that occupied the starboard quarter berth over the refrigerator compressor is either in the cabin or in the cockpit under a tarp. The engine is not presenting a problem until the Zee gets back into it to finish the repairs. And when Zee takes on the muffler leak under the cockpit things will get really messy because we will have to remove at least the two top gel batteries from that area. Those monsters way about 150 lb each and they will have to be put somewhere safe, probably on the cabin sole.

Several people have told me that blue water cruising is about repairing your boat in exotic places. How true.