Month: January 2013

The hydraulic headsail furling started to open up at sea one day and, after opening the cap on the furling unit and starting to diagnose the problem, a couple of steel bearings dropped overboard and some of the nylon bearings were seen to have been crushed. Now carrying vital spare bearings, some of which need fitting immediately, as the headsail furling grease had dried out at some stage allowing some balls to drop over the side when the bearing was first loosened. The bearings are a 50/50 mix of 6mm 316 steel ball bearings with a crush rating of 2,040kg

Found one! Fortunately we found a spare rib on which to attach the SSB mounting frame. The mix of aluminium and teak mounting points with their varied expansion/contraction in rates in differing temperatures are a concern but the choices were few: There is plenty of space and cool air around the SSB unit which can operate at 125 deg centigrade

With wiring unwrapped from all that it seeks to cling to, pull down, get snagged on the interfacing of Wotsit A to Wotsit B, C and D may, fingers crossed, be finished. The last job then is to fit the 14 kilo Icom ‘briefcase’ somehwere cool, near the chart table, near the power source and away from anything else that dislikes heat. Add to that the momentum that this will gain under movement and it turns into a structural engineering problem. The process of elimination begins – can’t drill here, not under the freezer, too low in the bilge, too