Thurs 3rd Nov 2016, A beautiful day in Victoria area today... blue sky and warm sunshine. Excellent for getting deck work done.
Repaired staysail was collected this morning and hoisted late today but I'm waiting until tomorrow morning to replace furling line - ran out of daylight! Also started organizing new series drogue - on removing starboard shackle with great difficulty, found it was damaged... Will need to replace it. Not too surprised to see state of it, in view of stresses it was put under without the second bridle arm to share the load and the big seas it had had to contend with. I'd asked friend Les to come round to advise me since he works with steel all the time - "Don't risk it" was his advice on seeing the slightly opened jaw and bent pin of the big shackle. What amazing forces it must have been subjected to...!
I spotted a machine screw lying beside the toe rail close to the stern quarter... Eventually, another was found further forward, close to the stanchion where a furling line lead had come adrift - yet another victim of those rough seas. ...
The fine weather is set to continue tomorrow, followed by rain over the weekend, so I hope to finish with deck items while it's dry.
With a tarpaulin for shelter over the weekend, another job I'm hoping to get done is to replace a seemingly defunct heater element in the hot water tank under the cockpit locker floor... Difficult to access. It would be nice to have hot water available at times while in the cold Southern Ocean!