We set sail from Falmouth bound for Bantry with a relatively gentle force 3 wind on the the nose. This rose steadily toward a North Westerly Force 8 gale by the time we reached the entrance to Bantry bay, accompanied by a 2m – 3m swell.
Whilst the engine performed well, the sails remained down. The wash that occasionally ran up the deck did identify a number of leaky points including the dorade vents and several of the deck hatches.
Graham, whom had nobly taken the fore cabin also discovered a leak at the main mast which was keel stepped, protruding through a deck aperture by the double bunk. Unfortunately this was a somewhat less routine element to fix as we discovered the rubber shims that had once held the mast in situ at the deck level aperture had perished allowing considerable movement of the main mast which no longer sat centre of the of the aperture.
We spent the weekend in Bantry, getting to the know the local pubs, sealing the hatches and making vent plugs from materials we salvaged from the local recycling centre (thanks Billy!).
On Monday, when the harbour office opened we met with Harbour Master, Michael Murphy, whom was able to put us in touch with Pat, a local fabricator and all round problem solver. Graham created a template for the required shims and by the end of the day we had new shims, held in place by 2 mm aluminium plate screwed and mastic sealed into place. The boot was carefully re-taped and we were ready to go again.
The only issue was the severe storms coming in from the West with a serious high stretching all the way from the Virgin Islands to the Minch! We consulted with our weather support friend, Stewart Willis whom confirmed our gut feel that the Atlantic route North was now untenable and we’d have to re-route up the Irish Sea, adding some 165nm to the journey.
By chance I find myself reading properly this post, and getting a lot more out of it.
But I remain perturbed at the insistent misuse of the word “whom” as a subject pronoun when it should only be used for the object or indirect object. Is this a political statement, or a protest against the trend of misusing “I” as an object pronoun?
You can answer sometime when you are wondering what to do with your life.
Tho’ on a more serious note, it might get you bad marks on a CV.