Skippers update, and perhaps a sign that finally my head can relax from the boat essentials and concentrate on the months sailing ahead. Rehua is finally fully handed over from her previous owner, it takes a lot of paperwork and reregistering of the safety and communications equipment on board. Life raft, harnesses, jackets, jackstays, EPIRB, HF, pactor modem, Fleetbroadband, wifi boosters, on board routers, Iridium handheld, flares, drogues, sea anchor!! sails, rigging, halyards, sheets, Oh and a few spares for the usual day to day maintenance. To date we have, I believe, completely debugged a boat that had spent too long on her laurels, Raymarine bugs have been eradicated, Spectra watermaker is now a new unit, beware Palma agents for this brand, very expensive, the solar panels now deliver as they were speced to do, all lights have been upgraded to LED lessening the night time load by a quantum measure. Engines are overhauled and running like ripe nuts, sweet! Did I mention the through hulls, we received courtesy of some well laden vistors, a complete new set of Marelon through hulls, I have opinions on the design of these that I will hold off on until I have tried and tested the new design. So far so good. Our generator has been revamped but with solar and various internal changes has become almost obsolete in the Med, she will get her turn as we cross the pond. Rehua will receive a complete new wardrobe of UK sails in the next weeks, our main is shot to hell, the screecher is no better than grannies underwear, the old Genoa and Jib we will save for heavy downwind work. We have re-stitched the symmetrical spinnaker in the hope we will get some miles in the Trades 🙂 I have maximised all measurements for the assymetric in the hope that we can generate some more pace in the light, this is also the case with the new mainsail, further reports on receipt and test. Our Raymarine was a huge problem up until Palma, I cannot recommend highly enough the Guys at Enaval in Palma, they have eradicated a problem that has haunted us through till now, one lousy corroded wire that looked perfect at both ends but was creating merry hell every few hours. All good! We had to replace our VHF radio which had just suffered one dousing too many, coupled with an upgraded 30 watt hailer, there will be no slackers on the foredeck!! Karoke could be on the cards! In summary, we are ready, we have a buddy boat to hook up with this week so fridge temperatures will be compared, I think we are looking good, almost forgot the icemaker got a complete new inside so we have crystal clear cubes for our Mojitos and Mutton birds.
