Hi all,
I've been sorting the frame Fred was mounted on, also sourcing someone who deals in stainless, an engineer was found 'Stephan' a German guy who twigged what went wrong as quick as myself. He has a workshop and the stock, and so when i've got the frame back on GL we will design and fit new supports for the auxillary rudder. The leak that re-appeared has been investigated again, this time I noticed a coach screw each side that should be through bolted. This I will sort out in the Indipendant Boatyard in Banner Bay St. Thomas. I carn't go yet cos its carnival time again, nothing will happen till after Wednesday this week. The weather that hit me is described as a weak tropical wave, we have had high winds and torrential rain here every day since my return. Friday I prepared the boat for a sea trial, a hard one as there was plenty of wind, I recruited 3 experianced local sailors for this job, Colin, Josh and Sean. We went out to trash GL, so I spent the previous 2 days stowing everything away, and tying down the rest, then we left. We went out into deep ocean wind, water and swell, and pushed GL to the limit, this was to indentify just were and how bad the leaks really are. It turned out into an amazing sail, its the hardest I've ever pushed GL, and she loved every minute of it, we delibrately went were the swell and wind was strongest, (a lot of rebound swell) which is off Rams Head St John, and were out approx 2 hours. All leaks identified, the starboard side garboard in way of the mast step being the scariest, so much water coming in it was too much for the 2 electric bilge pumps, so I had to use the engine driven bilge pump as well, only loss was a rope which flew off the deck, and 1/4 ltr of parrafin from my stock.
We then went ashore for a beer, and me a good think about how I will fix it this week. The harbour then got hit by a squall with at least 55knts of wind and horizontal rain, well it felt like a tap running rather than rain, everyone got soaked, inside and out! good job we were back on the mooring!
Roy
