I notice this morning that the foil on my furler is separating half way up the forestay. This happened before halfway around Ireland. A couple of small screws had come out, I replaced them last season but they’d come out again. I suspected that I’d failed to put loctite on them and that had been the problem. They weren’t easy to get hold of again but I got them from Harken eventually and replaced them again ensuring that I’d put loctite on them this time but they’ve obviously come out again. I think I need to replace the plate into which they screw but don’t have one, in any event It’s not a job for doing solo at sea. The forecast is showing winds down to 15 knots at lunch time at which point I’ll let the sheet go and wiggle the halyard up and down and hope that the two parts come together again, as they did before, in any event I now need to nurse the Genoa, possibly only using it either full or not at all so as not to strain the foil.
Boring.
Yesterday we had good wind direction and strength but it’s really uncomfortable the way the boat moves. It looks like Ertan has caught me up again, he’s around about the same Longitude I think, he’s further North, AJ Wanderlust is around the same latitude as Ertan but far further West, she’s miles in the lead now, at least 24 hours ahead of me I think.
Had a new bird this morning, after some perusal of my wildlife book, (thanks Jean) I think it’s a Storm Petrel, I hope it’s doesn’t know something that I don’t. There seem to be several types but I’ll need to see it again to try to distinguish it and possibly won’t because I’m not so good at distinguishing little features, they all look similar to me.
I’ve been reading a quadrology (??) of cowboy books by Larry McMurtry, one of them, ‘Lonesome Dove’ won a booker prize and I’d read that before, Jennifer kindly gave me them, two prior to Lonesome Dove and one post. I’ve read the first two now and am saving the 4th for later. I can recommend them, very good.
A tin of beer had burst in my cold locker, opposite my fridge and where I’d been keeping things that didn’t fit in the fridge, a bit of a nuisance as the smell lingers, a little bilge water had got in and probably there was sufficient seawater to rust through the can quite quickly, there were a few more but as I’m not really enjoying them at the moment anyway I thought they were best poured away before more of them burst. I spent some time mopping up and clearing the locker, there was room in the fridge for most of it, I also came across a punnet of tomatoes that I’d forgotten I had so am planning a tomato olive and feta salad for lunch for a change, not a salad Sarah and Jessica would approve of, their idea of a salad is plain green leaves. Yuck. In my opinion lettuce etc is primarily a means of conveying a delicious salad dressing to one’s mouth.
Wondering about making a rice pudding with arborio rice on the stove, It’s the only short rice I have and I have milk that will go off before I drink it so think I ought to do something with it, sadly I’ve no vanilla which I think would cheer it up but I do have raisins from Florda, thanks Julie.
You must be half way now Jock, lookin good! Hope the foil stays in one piece, and the cooking improves! hopefully good weather ahead. cheers, Roger.😎
Wow!
Can you explain why the genua full out or in is a better solution than putting permanently some rolls in once the tube is aligned?
your route looks very similar to the route taken by a famous ship, whose name i shall not mention. Is it likely you are going to come across icebergs?
Nasty foil problem. You probably can not even reach those scews. Luckily you do have a second forestay. Impressed by the shepherd pie, it looks great. Arborio rice pudding must work out. Cinnamon and some apple might work as well. Larry McMurty fascinating read. The smell of beer; same happened on CatchUp, tins are not as sturdy as before. Hope you got whisky left..