Phoned the sailmaker at 0800..yes he's there..OK, maouver this enormous sail off the boat into a pier trolley and trundle it out to the road. Phoned for a txi which duly turned up. The taxi ride to the sailmaker was interesting. I’d forgotten that most French taxi drivers think they’re racing drivers !
Anyway, that’s all under control, as much as it can be. The sail
is made of plasticised Kevlar with carbon ribbons in it. The sailmaker explained to me that once the carbon ribbons are broken, they can’t be fixed. All that can be done is to sew a Dacron patch on both sides of the tear, but sooner or later it will come apart because there’s no strength in the broken strips…so we’ll see…
The rest of the morning I checked the electric motors on the mast and boom, retied the main outhaul car line and the main sheet traveller line.
Checked the genset and the motor. The 12V alternator belt is a bit slack, but try as I could, I couldn’t loosen the mounting bolt to tighten the belt. So I sprayed it with INOX and leave it over night and try again.
Tomorrow will go around and tighten all the shackles, and also check the genoa furler switch, sometimes it sticks in position instead of springing back…probably another job for INOX
Walked into town to get the sailmakers money from the ATM…saw in the Centre Asiatique that there must have been a huge shipment of artificial flowers. All the chinoise shops have them, some better than others…I bought some to put in the boat.
Anyway, that’s all under control, as much as it can be. The sail
is made of plasticised Kevlar with carbon ribbons in it. The sailmaker explained to me that once the carbon ribbons are broken, they can’t be fixed. All that can be done is to sew a Dacron patch on both sides of the tear, but sooner or later it will come apart because there’s no strength in the broken strips…so we’ll see…
The rest of the morning I checked the electric motors on the mast and boom, retied the main outhaul car line and the main sheet traveller line.
Checked the genset and the motor. The 12V alternator belt is a bit slack, but try as I could, I couldn’t loosen the mounting bolt to tighten the belt. So I sprayed it with INOX and leave it over night and try again.
Tomorrow will go around and tighten all the shackles, and also check the genoa furler switch, sometimes it sticks in position instead of springing back…probably another job for INOX
Walked into town to get the sailmakers money from the ATM…saw in the Centre Asiatique that there must have been a huge shipment of artificial flowers. All the chinoise shops have them, some better than others…I bought some to put in the boat.
On the way back I went to the Vielle France patisserie to buy
a baguette, but they didn’t have any. 30 mins she said, come back in 30
minutes…do you want to reserve some baguettes ?...just one I said…une ?
toute seul?.. oui….I've never before made a reservation for bread !
Ok back in 40 minutes, but they’re not ready yet. Another 5 minutes, she says. OK Je prend une petite promenade…a toute a l’heure.
Come back 5 minutes later and yes, ma baguette est bien reserve…fait attention, she said, c’est chaud encore.
So armed with my hot off the press baguette, I amble back to the marina. I come across Barry who tells me his crew has just deserted him for a better offer…he’s not impressed, as this guy said yes a week ago and Barry had
said to him, good, then I can stop looking. Now he’s back to square one. On the bright side he did find a thrown out dive compressor with a 4 stroke engine on it….he put some petrol in it and it went first time. So he’s going to put a 24 volt alternator on it and then he’ll have a genset !
Back on the boat I slice off a bit of my warm baguette, smear it with the salted Normandy butter and …yum…better have another slice…beautiful…nothing like it……