Friday, 6th August 2010
08.00hrs Skipper had a long chat with "Fats" this morning, he has arrived home to Cork safe and sound, and is in great form. That reminds me, we have not heard a gag from my brother Rom since the 26th June last. He used to be a great regular source of amusement for us all on board with his entertaining stories.
08.30hrs Chris, the guy for the generator arrived and after a couple of hours discovered that the MPU had the top taken off by something flying around in the fly wheel housing. This could only happen if someone dropped a screw or nut into that space while servicing the generator. You can't trust the staff any more, anyway, we had to order some more MPU's and a couple of spares. The alternative was to take the generator apart, and skipper thought of the two other yachts on the trip that had their generators opened up and eventually had to replace them entirely because of the damage caused by the mechanics, so decided against this option.
09.30hrs Jack arrived to upgrade the "Sea fresh" water maker and hopefully this will result in us getting 140/150L per hour instead of the 70L we get at present. The advantage of this is, we would only need to run the generator for half the time to replace run down stocks, and this in turn reduces the number of times it need a service, and significantly reduces the chances of mechanics faking up the engine.
The boat holds 1100L of water in her holding tank (1 ton), and we usually keep it fairly full. The main usage of this water (we keep bottled water for drinking) is washing, showers, and of course if we use our on board high pressure hose to wash/hose down the decks, this will use 250L in ten minutes. Could we use it as a defence against pirates? Hopefully we wont see any of those guys!
Chris from Mackay arrived with new spare parts for the E120 and a new SSB radio. To make a long story short, the spares for the E120 only partially worked and it seems we will have to try another angle on this (like someone else). Meanwhile, Niall and skipper checked out the old chart plotter down below at the Nav station, the GPS works there and so does the screen, so we will get hold of a nav card tomorrow and hopefully we will have a back up system, if all other things fail (E 120). Otherwise we could be stranded here for a while.
The SSB, well what can I say, Chris ran out of time to fit this, and really had no idea of how or where to install the main part of the radio. It is a lot bigger than the old one, so we said to him, "Leave it there and we will fit the blinking thing". It entails a lot of work and surgery around the Nav desk, but Skipper has been in here before and knows all the screws and all the bits. So we will manage.
17.00hrs Skipper put on some braised lamb shanks, this was a new menu for him, Mary did the spuds and green beans, and it all turned out just delicious! We ate in the Royal Saloon, as it was too chilly outside. Later, we skyped Stefan and as luck would have it, Leah and Jamie were with him in his office, so Skipper got a look at this grandchild for the first time. This is all wonderful technology as we have said before.
We had a great laugh on the boat before hitting the scratchers.
That's it for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)