Author: Bernd Page 85 of 122
We are making progress. The new halyard from HR Parts is sitting at Lisbon airport and shall – according to UPS Tracking – be delivered tomorrow here at our doorstep. Let’t see and cross fingers.
With the help of the local sailmaker & rigger Toribio we managed to pull the old halyard robe/wire combination out of the mast. This cannot always been taken for granted but we were lucky and it came out easily. The new feeding line is set now inside the fast waiting for the halyard to arrive. It will then be a quick job to be completed and the lady is ready for the ocean again.
It all depends on UPS now and, obviously, on the weather.
Fair winds…
The halyards on our lady are of the traditional style. Wire – Robe design with a thimble at the end covered under a shrinking hose as shown on the left picture. The leftover after the event is shown in the right photo – a deformed thimble without any wire.
Problem seems to be that you cannot look behind the shrinking hose to ultimately determine the condition of the swage connection around the thimble. The visual inspections done stopped at the outer surface of the shrinking hose.
Nowadays halyards – as many other robes on recent boats – are made out of Dyneema, a light but high strength robe with good chafing resistance. No more wires involved.
Two new Dyneema Halyards have left Hallberg-Rassy Parts in Sweden today and shall arrive in Funchal Marina coming Wednesday. Great support from HR Parts just on the day before the long Midsummer weekend starts. Within five hours from my phone call with Ludvig the parcel got handed over to UPS and is on its way.
Tomorrow I will try to retrieve the broken end of the wire, which still sits somewhere inside the mast.
Fair winds…
After running 2 hours under engine, wind and waves on the nose increased to 25kn plus and I started to yell at all weather forecasts gathered before leaving. Luckily it turned out to be an acceleration zone around the western tip of Madeira.
We are now back to normal with 15-18kn making good progress in sugar conditions. It might not stay like this the whole voyage but let’s cross fingers, that Aiolos will be considerate to make this another passage in great comfort for us.
Fair winds…
The final weather routing is done, all systems checked, mind and body are ready to throw the lines for another adventure on the ocean.
It will be a course with approximately 85% time spent between close hauled and close reach, 10% time sailed under broad reach and 5 (!) hours under engine on the final miles – all subject to weather changes. Well, not sailors’ most preferred scenario but a good opportunity to explore limits in various aspects while still remaining in the comfort zone – hopefully.
I am excited, look forward to this passage and hopefully catching some leftovers from the strawberry moon!
Fair winds…
