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Saturday, April 16, 2011

More news

Good news and bad news, but there is news. Another week has passed by in Cape Town but this one surely left me exhausted- mostly because of cleaning the bilges. But we are definitely making progress. The shaft finally aligned to the engine and the boat got back a well refurbished mast and new boom. On the flip side, the engine refuses to rev up above 1000 showing a surprising disregard for the throttle. The new seal is tending to get a bit warm and we fear the water cooling is not adequate which might cause it to wear off like the previous one. Clive is planning to add a separate water injection system to cool the seal. That will happen next week.

The boat got her stick back yesterday, and a new boom with it. It was a bit windy at Elliott Basin but Chris and his team managed to get the mast in. The spartite seal is not fitting into its slot as neatly as it should and that is a concern because applying it fresh would mean that the boat needs to be immobile for a week. But if all goes well, the boat should sail out on Tuesday with a new set of sails for testing and tuning. I hope she does.

The AIS has been giving us a bit of a trouble soon after it was installed in Goa two years ago. It has been working more as a receiver than a transponder. We discovered today that the Antenna with its built in GPS is rusted to powder because of obvious reasons. With the help of Steve, we are putting up a plan (more of a matrix) together which involves the addition of a new standby VHF antenna (which will work as a standby in case the mast comes down), a new antenna to replace the present AIS antenna, and a labyrinth of wires to connect the AIS to the VHF antenna or its own antenna, and the VHF to its own antenna or the standby antenna.

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Steak is a good bribe for James.

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Chris manages well, despite the infamous South Easterlies

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It was blowing a bit in Elliott Basin when the mast was shipped

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