After the gales, I decided to go out to the South of the Isle of Wight to bigger winds and seas. I have been nervous of doing this and to be honest, putting it off. I had a great time and my confidence in myself and the boat are massively boosted.
The sail to just before St Catherine’s point went really well. I was keeping pace with a yacht about a mile ahead of me. Then a big squall came in so I hung back waiting for it to pass, I was on a southerly tack at the time. The clouds stopped in front of Mr, I waited, they waited… OK, tack back toward the island and then back out to avoid it. It was about then the tide turned so now I was fighting some big currents but making progress. Then the wind changed more North Westerly, that was in my favour so now I was winning… and then the winds dropped from 15-20 knots down to 7 or 8, I was going backwards 🥴. It was getting late so I decided to turn back and head into Chichester Harbour again. It was a great downwind run with tide behind me as well.
Although I did not get around the island, the day was a massive success for me. I tackled 4-5 meter swells, winds ranging from 4 to 30 knots and some big currents. I got back safe, nothing broke and neither Dotty or I got seasick.
My water pumps have been playing up recently plus I found that under the heads sink was not a good location because of the damp caused by condensation. I decided to move the pumps to the engine compartment and strip them down to see what’s wrong with them. Moving them was easy enough, I had to move the hoses and power as well but on stripping them down I found the cause of the problems. There was debris in both of them blocking the pump diaphragms. OK, my bad design error but fixable. I have ordered two replacement pumps plus inline mesh filters. The sea water pump was really bad so I will replace that, the second pump is to be a spare, it’s bound to happened again, even with a filter. I got it all working, and then this happened…
I think its a manufacturing flaw, but it does mean waiting for more parts 🙄 some days you take two steps back for every one forward.
