Over the last five weeks we've been getting Adina ready for the years sailing. It's been a good learning
curve given this is the first time we're doing this.
So you get out the manuals, read a bit and then dive in the deep end! And when it comes to boats that
involves a great deal of scratching your head, playing hide and seek as you try to find things, complex yoga manoeuvres as you need to get to parts in inaccessible spots, and a great deal of patience. Did I say a great deal of patience?
So we put in new water pumps and then serviced the engine including replacing all the filters, changing
the oil and coolant etc. Out came the generator manual and the same treatment. I have to say it was rewarding phoning the Yanmar engineer who said there was no need for him to come out as we'd ticked all the boxes. Fingers crossed!
Rigging to me is very important as my own focus tends to be more on deck. So on a cold and wet Saturday
morning Jerry Henwood famed as Jerry the Rigger came down to visit us. Jerry goes out to Las Palmas in the Canaries in November for the start of the Atlantic Rally Crossing and checks over a 100 boats. Jerry is a top chap and was onboard for over three hours
guiding us through things to look out for, daily checks to perform etc. Adina is blessed with a solid Formula Marine mast and it was very re-assuring listening to Jerry walking around saying "that's lovely" to different parts of the rigging.
We've also been beefing up parts of the boat and a bunch of new safety equipment has been purchased.
Excitingly a downwind sail has been ordered and a spinnaker pole is currently being added.
I have acquired my long range radio certificate spending four days learning all about medium and high wave frequencies and using an SSB radio. Amusingly my radio buddy for four days was none other than Sir Chay Blyth. Good old chap and certainly kept me entertained
passing on snippets of his wisdom.
Susie’s brother Stephen has kindly built us a laptop for the boat and we're buying a modem so we can
then use the SSB radio for email and weather at sea.
More news is we took the life raft to be opened and serviced. You never quite know what you're going
to get but sighs of relief as we saw it blown up. Certainly solid. A quick visit inside it is the only visit I hope we ever do! The flares had passed there expiry date and the service man started taking them saying he would dispose of them. Our friend Lindsay
Cunningham quick as a flash seized them citing they could be put to good use as fireworks at a suitable time. I agree!
We attended a talk a few years back where a panel of experts listed a water maker as the one crucial
bit of equipment they would have for an ocean crossing. Adinas water maker has never been used so we've been working it out and shelling out more pennies for a whole lot of new filters and a reverse osmosis membrane. Sounds impressive doesn't it!
Another fellow sailor Gareth Wear showed us his electrical prowess by coming to help improve some of
the electronics. From simple but important items like enhancing the stereo to take iPods to more complex items like wiring to get GPS readings on the SSB radio. On Gareth's to do list was fix the foghorn that the surveyor had reported was not working. He pressed
the button and much to all of our amusement it worked! Seems you needed to know the VHF button had to be switched on. Gareth is still taking the credit!
The list goes on and on - we've bought folding bikes, a scuba cylinder. Looking forward to actually going
for a sail once it warms up!
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