Bit of a change of plan this weekend. Went prepared with brushes and rollers and many tins of anti-fouling. Incidentally, some more new learning for the new boat, with its propeller mounted on an aluminium leg: copper-based anti-fouling isn’t good for aluminium – dissimilar metals in contact and all that. Obvious when you think about it, but we hadn’t, so a good job we did some background reading – aluminium is even higher on the electrochemical series than zinc (the ‘sacrificial’ anode – um).
Learning point #2 is that standard Volvo Penta saildrive anodes do not fit when you have a rope cutter. Apparently ours is an “Ambassador” which seems an odd name for something so vicious, and needs a special anode which is very nearly the same shape but has a cut out for the locating pin that keeps one half of the cutter still.
Anyway, plans changed as it transpires Gillingham have a crane booked for Tuesday which is much the easiest way to get the mast out. Easy enough to secure the halyards and mark up the wire rigging so we know how long it needs to be when under tension, but disconnecting the electrical wiring at the base of the mast was one of those jobs we were glad to do rather than not know about.
Previous installers of equipment have not been as careful with wiring as we would like! Last year the chart plotter periodically switched itself off, occasionally when we would really rather it hadn’t. Hopefully that is now resolved after finding the power cable arcing to something else in the cockpit locker. Then there was the random flying lead, loose in a locker having been cut off something that was removed, unprotected, and still connected to the battery. In this case, the masthead lights and instruments are mostly not critical systems, but it feels like bad news having twisted-together wires lying around in the bilge waiting to be submerged. They will not be going back the same way! Another job more complicated than expected but at least we will have time in April to find some proper connectors. RIP Maplin 😦
Ventata 