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As we are finding out the ocean is tough on gear,
all types of
gear. Our standing rigging while only less than six
years old had
several problems on our travels from Mexico to New
Zealand. We
first spotted a few broken strands on one of our lower
shrouds in
Raiatea. These occurred at the bottom swage fitting
and where we
had mounted a cleat for a flag halyard. Fortunately
our friends
on "Awestruck" had a used piece of spare
rigging that
was the correct size and we had aboard a full set of
stalok
fittings. We purchased these fitting to be used when
we rerig
Mandolin. We didn't anticipate we would need them so
soon, but
were glad to have them. The repair involved supporting
the mast
with a line in place of the shroud, then removing the
shroud. We
cut the new shroud to length and the stalok fittings
added before
we strung it back up and tuned the rig. Problem
solved.
Before each passage, I go up the mast and inspect all
stays and
fittings to look for problems before they become
serious. In
addition, during passages we do a deck level
inspection of the
rig looking for loose or missing clevis pins, cotter
pins, cracks
in turnbuckels, swage fittings and chain plates.
Typically we
find nothing, but while in Tonga I noticed a cracked
swage
fitting on one of our uppers. Upon closer inspection
the top
fitting and both fittings on the opposite upper were
cracked as
well. Wow, four failing swage fittings. Again we were
thankful we
had all the staloks we needed, but this repair was
much more
involved.
We supported the mast with two large spinnaker sheets run from the top of the mast to the deck then through a turning block to our primary winches. Removing the upper stays for repair took most of the rigidity out of the mast as the spreaders are no longer in use. We now realize this was pretty risky and would probably look into having the mast unstepped before we did this again. We put the new fittings on the old rigging wire, but now the stays are too short as we had to cut the swage fittings off. Fortunately we had some 3/8" chain that could be added to the bottom of the stays. So the upper shrouds go back up, the chain gets cut, then we find the proper size shackles to attach the chain to the chain plates. Another repair completed.
We were fortunate to have the proper stalok
fittings to do
these repairs, also to have the correct shackles and
size chain
to lengthen the shroud. We did carry a spare headstay,
but it was
too large to be used as either the uppers or lowers.
In the
future we will carry a spare of each size of stay as
well as the
fittings, and a good selection of shackles. I would
recommend
looking at your boat to see what would be required to
repair a
stay if one of your fittings showed signs of failure.
Then buy
these. While we could have had these flown in, Tonga
is known for
it's delays in getting mail. Also, the freight costs
would have
been high. By having them aboard we didn't miss our
weather
window for the New Zealand passage and avoided a lot
of stress. I
would also recommend rerigging with new wire and
Stalok or
Norseman fittings before a long passage if your
existing rigging
is more than 4 years old.
Check out: Staylok
for more
information.
Our alternator also burned up as we were cruising
Tonga. Again we
had a spare, so it was a simple matter of replacing
the high
output one until we can get it fixed.
"Saros", a Dufour
35 had their alternator fail while in the Marquesas,
and had no
end of headaches getting a new one once they
discovered theirs
could not be repaired. On many engines the alternator
belt also
runs the fresh water pump, so just removing the
alternator will
not solve the problem even though we have enough power
from our
solar panels. I think it makes sense to carry a
purpose made
emergency belt that can have links taken out of it to
fit any
size you need. We will get one before we head out
again.
Other things we had to fix or replace included: the
breakaway
tube and a turning block bracket on our Monitor Wind
Vane, a
propane solenoid, the hard drive on our computer, the
engine
bracket for our watermaker pump and our Ham radio as
it started
drifting off frequency. Most of these were solved with
spares we
had aboard or that other cruisers had. But some we
will have to
wait until we had have new parts shipped in.
Don't get the wrong idea that we spent all our time
fixing things.
We enjoyed all of our stops and generally things went
better than
expected during the last seven months since Mexico.
