Hello again everyone,
Well its taken me awhile to get back on line, so I better tell part three of the story……
Seeing this fitting now not supporting Fred at all I had visions of Fred falling off, as it was now the outer jib tension being transferred down the back stay and making it lift up so alarmingly I took the jib off, then I jury rigged another backstay using the topping lift, the backstay itself I rigged a line and re-tensioned it so no pressure was on the frame holding Fred. Now of course I couldn’t work out what was holding Fred up? There were only 2 bolts at deck level and nothing else to support the 50kg load, Fred was still steering the boat with no apparent problem, leaning over to one side a little bit, but nothing seemed to be affecting it, whew.
I was now not going very fast because of the wind and just as it was going dark I went to start the gen-set, batteries were down to 11.3volts, a good pull on the cord and it promptly snapped, the cord disappearing into the innards of the machine! Bloody hell what next, of course I couldn’t see to fix it now it was dark, so I had to do without it that Friday night.
Saturday dawned, the clouds were still threatening rain, but I had to fix the gen-set, pull cord starters are a nuisance to fix, having done it many times and having 20 miles of spring steel with minds of their own doing their own thing which is never to go back in were they belong! That done and geny running it poured down with rain just 2 lts of petrol left now but I could see St Lucia in the distance, I was crawling along doing about 2.6 knts very frustrating, when close enough for the phone I let Danielle know I was getting close, she let me know IGY Marina Shipyard were waiting for me, and sure enough a VHF call came through asking my ETA, it took a bit longer than first estimate but as you’ve seen from Danielle’s photo’s I finally arrived, what you didn’t see was how many people were there, I had met them all before, Danielle, Adam Foster IGY Manager, Adam from Nomad, and Edgar from Loose Cannon, all in the safety boat, looking after the racing Optimists, Edgar handed over a Piton beer, which didn't tough the sides, then gave me another one, and then the boat with Edwin came to tow me into the Shipyard, by 1800hrs I was in the slings and Safe!
more later
Roy
