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Worn sheave, bent bolt and cracked alternator bracket
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St. Martin has come and gone, along with a few "boat units"* Although we didn't manage to spend all the proceeds from Eaux Vives, we are making a good start. We are in Antigua waiting for some wind to blow us south to Martinique where the engine will get its 20hr check and tuneup which is required to make the guarantee valid. The engine needs the attention as well. We have discovered a slipping throttle cable and a dirty fuel filter which, at different times, have caused the engine to lose power. Right now, things are a little iffy enginewise and we don't have the spares to tune her ourselves. Hence the desire for a little wind to carry her back to her birth place for a little rejuvenation.
Items purchased so far: Spare halyard, horseshoe with throw bag, three fire extinguishers, three gallons bottom paint, 25 feet of ducting for the engine room fan, 15 feet of copper tape for the SSB ground, three small deck hatches for the guest head and bunkhouse, Barbecue, assorted nuts and bolts, bosun's chair, new cockpit speakers, spare head pump, fishing rod and lure, wire, fender, new snubber, 250 feet of rope rode, long tape measure, sewing machine, three sets of water maker primary filters, new sheaves for the deck organizer and a bunch of stuff I've probably forgotten. The waterline is slowly creeping up to a proper cruisers level. Not all has been installed and we've already broken some stuff.
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Some people have crew for all of this
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Most annoyingly, we have lost our autopilot. This means hand steering on all these long trips. The brains of the unit refuses to say anything but "low battery" when switched on. Needless to say there is nothing wrong with the battery voltage and the St. Martin Raymarine tech claims that it is not just on strike, but at death's door. It is two generations back! An antique! No longer repairable! What we apparently want is the latest and greatest "Core Pack" from Raymarine at a cost (to us, with discount, act now!) of two boat units. The new one has a built in gyro and is shinier. We are not particularly pleased with Raymarine. Our hope is that Diginav in Martinique will be able to do something or at least reconcile us to swallowing that price. He is conveniently located near the mechanique in Martinique - so, without undue haste, we're off to Martinique on the next zephyr.
* BOAT = Break out another thousand
BOAT UNIT = $1,000.00 US
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Where worn halyards go to die
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We are finding lots of subtle issues of a boat that has been rode hard and put up wet. The bent bolt came from a deck fitting that holds the removable stay. During the wild ride from St. Martin to Antigua, one of the three bolts holding the fitting failed and the inner stay was just barely hanging on. During this trip, we took a lot of green water over the deck some of which was happy to run down through the bent and broken bolts into the guest head. More water still came through the dorades (which we should have capped or turned backwards) The most water came in through the seals around the forward facing salon windows. None of these things leaked under the normal torrential tropical rains. They run as if left ajar under the pressure of a few tons of ocean. Better to find this out now than when hundreds of miles from the nearest chandlery
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Yet another waterfront dinner.
Portsmouth Dominica |
The sheave (white pulley looking thing) comes from the deck organizer and had clearly stopped turning a few years ago. The furling lines for the main had worn through the sheave and we had new ones fabricated. The black bracket once held our infamous alternator. The little crack just visible in the picture was not visible at all when the alternator was mounted over it. It meant that the alternator would not stay tight and we think that the repeatedly slipping belt may well have hastened the death of the alternator and the engine. Slipping belt = poor cooling water flow = heat prostration.
On the positive side of cruising. We now glide through the waves in silence, people do not move away from us in the anchorages and we have all the fresh water we might want. We are learning a lot about how Queen Emma works and are working through the list of things that need to be done before we go offshore. We do not have the army of polishers/washers/fixers that the wooden boats of the Classic Regatta seem to need, but we are fixing things faster than we break them and still getting in some reading, snorkeling and fine meals in our waterfront restaurant.
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