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.

Lunch this time!

On Monday Mike, Phil, Tina and myself sailed again to Mindarie - this time for lunch!

It certainly was an interesting trip; going we had about 20-25 knot winds on the nose, white caps on the ocean and probably should have had a reef in the main. However, we all quite like being heeled over :)

After lunch we reefed the sail in ready for the onslaught as it was even windy inside the harbour, but lo and behold, we got out into the ocean and it was as flat and calm as can be!

We saw a couple of seals, but no dolphins this time.

A great sail, with great company, weather/commitment permitting, we shall do it again soon.