Port Fairy Accommodation - Emergency Forestay Repairs - Galapagos Islands

Propel it forward on its journey, like a runaway marionette, and, legs suddenly launch jerkily from the tubular body. Viewed vertically is remarkable, the simple act of humans walking along the deck or dock. And is fascinated by the different perspective the height gives, he always enjoys the view from that vantage point up the mast. Is winch man - her captain likes to share the tasks around, anglo crew having the broadest shoulders by far! And lines onto the main winch, out comes the bosuns chair. Put out of alignment by the attempted but aborted landing of the baby booby, the captain decides it is time to run up the mast and un kink the VHF aerial, back aboard our little ship.

But number nineteen has popped away from its swage, eighteen of these strands are fine. Which is the normal nineteen strand stainless steel cable, our little ship is fitted all round with rod rigging except for the furling forestay. He curses his luck, and his blood runs cold, as the reality sinks in. Right in front of his eyes is a sight that for a moment he just cannot believe, there. Casually checking the other fittings his heart suddenly plunges to deck level, glancing around the truck. The captain raises his eyes to the twisted aerial and straightens it to a reasonable likeness of the original - transmission has not been affected.

She is built for sailing and already becoming tired of the constant lookout in this cramped anchorage, she wonders how long this is going to hold them up - don't they know. The fact remains this is a major problem and must be fixed, and this is to be debated at length later, whatever the cause. Eventually creating a problem, runs downward and lodges at the swage there, obeying gravity, fresh and salt, it would be expected to see this at deck level end as all moisture. How has this happened? And setting off with one strand failed is not an option, to the Marquesas Islands [3200nm], they are about to embark on one of the longest ocean passages.

He welds on a longer sleeve piece and then swages the whole assembly back on to the forestay shroud - he has the heavy hydraulic press equipment to do the job, we cut off the old buckle. ) who recognises and understands the problem in an instant and comes up with a solution. Quietly spoken man (actual name Miguel, our crew set off to find a 'Miguel' and at the fifth stop find a wonderful! There are many of these roadside engineers throughout Ecuador and they are all called 'Miguel'. The other option is to find an engineer who could swage on a replacement buckle. And could take up to three months for it to actually arrive, to fly a new forestay in from Miami is a horrendous cost.

This length is needed because some of the aluminium foil sections have corroded together and our crew are going to have to slide the cable out without snapping even one of these sections. As luck would have it his yacht (very little used nowadays) is moored not far away and he very generously offers the use of his deck. This gentleman arrived twenty five years ago in his seventy five foot sailboat and never left. Santa Cruz has an honorary British Consul, fortunately. There not being a dock the problem looms large in their minds. The next part of the project is to deliver the forestay to Miguel.

The surge is frightening. She creeps into position and anchors herself alongside within two metres and many fenders along the sides of both boats. He doesn't want to think about the consequences of one wrong move! Ughhh! That anchored alongside the BC's vessel there could be a combined difference of three to four metres rise and fall between their decks, but he surmises even so, it has dropped a little this morning. Next morning sees her captain nervously bolting down some cereal for breakfast and casting an eye to the swell.

She wonders why her crew are looking so frayed and beat. Coiled and strapped on the poop it looks quite harmless, lying tamed, finally. Accompanied by many sweaty stops for drinks, the cable is laboriously worked through. Try this on a constantly moving and heaving platform when you know there are no spare parts within a thousand miles, if you want pressure. This becomes a major undertaking, without loss of one ball bearing, because the drum has to be completely taken apart. Is tackled, the next task of sliding the cable out and coiling it into large loops on the afterdeck, laying almost the full length of the deck and after a celebratory beer. Albeit with a huge bend which does nothing for her captains blood pressure, in the event it comes down quite smoothly! As it is lowered, drum included, by this time the crew from her Galapagos' passage friend have joined the fray and are lined up on deck of the BC's yacht to receive the complete furling forestay assembly.

She goes with it, on pain of death she sits in the centre of the circle on the premise that if it goes over the side! Sibling crew is assigned the job of not letting it slide off during the short but bumpy ride to shore, balanced across the sponsons. It is quite heavy and lowering it into the tender produces a few more heart stopping moments. The beam of the inflatable is 1.3 metres and the strapped coil has a diameter of two metres.

politely assures them that all will be well and; in true engineers fashion, miguel, whilst her apprehensive crew would like to stay and watch this marvel of engineering evolve, Willingly accept the cold local beer proffered by Miguel, captain and Anglo crew having carried the coil fore and aft down a kilometre or two of dusty road, arriving back at Miguel's.

'Please to be coming back tomorrow'.

Lugging the assembly back to the dingy was a decidedly light footed undertaking compared to the outward journey, happily bidding their farewells to Miguel. Holds him back, by this time dripping with beer froth, almost succumbs to the temptation - Miguel's long droopy moustache however, not having kissed anyone for some little while, the captain! Just a small job he tells them and produces an invoice equally miniscule and happily accepts payment of eighty American dollars in cash. The overall length is precisely the same to within one millimetre! Beautifully polished so that the weld seam is invisible and swaged on to the cable, he produces the forestay complete with a shiny new but much extended buckle. They are met on the third day by a beaming Miguel, having been spent on libation and dining out with the Beneteau crew, with misgivings growing and many tens of thousands of sucres later. Tomorrow they return and it is not ready.

Re-installation of our modified forestay goes without a hitch, once again with the help of the BC's deck and Beneteau crew. The captains' relief is palpable as this means they can now embark on the next stage of their voyage with impunity. It is once again arduously grafted and coaxed along the full length until it finally appears accompanied by the whoops of joy from our crew, twining down the bitter end into a wrapped cone shape fine enough to travel, many attempts later. Refuses to go back along its tunnel of aluminium, the drum end cable has sprung slightly and resisting all sweaty efforts, in the meantime. The next undertaking is to thread the cable back up the twenty metres of foil, laying it out again on the BC's deck.