Monday, July 28, 2008

Poor Sirocco

Mikes technical bit update....
It is said “Buy a second hand yacht and you inherit other people’s problems, buy new and get peace of mind”.....Do you??
On our return from Mindarie with Phil & Tina, we noticed that one of the clips from the main sail to the mast had come off the slide. Investigation showed that the mast slider had split and allowed the sail attach clip to come out. Once we were safely tied up in the pen I checked the others to find that 2 more had split and several more were about to!! The implication of this failure happening out at sea in our fresh Easterly winds could have resulted in a shredded sail and big dollars!! This problem has now been partly fixed under warranty by the replacement of the 3 broken ones. As our confidence is not high with the plastic sliders holding, we aim to upgrade to metal sliders before the summer season starts.
The hatch water leak has been investigated. It looks like it has been there for some time as the headlining backing ply is rotten and has the consistency of paper from where the water was coming in! I have tried in vain to seal it with silicon sealant, this problem is also in the hands of the brokers for fixing as a warranty job.
I have noticed that the swim steps cover off the stern has cracked. I feel it is a design fault as the cover is only supported at its side, thus standing on it to get in or out bends and flexed it and caused it to crack the gel coat, this will be a warranty claim and will be done when the window is fixed.
After 7 months of waiting, we at last have the correctly ordered blue salon covers to replace the striped covers she came with, they look much better now.
The wire loom, Ammeter and stop switch for the wind generator are all fitted. With all the rain & winds we are having right now, I have decided to fit the mast and supports when things improve. We also have a small 300 Watt 12 Volt heater for those cooler evenings we will spend on Sirocco away from the Marinas mains power.

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