Preparing for the 2014 season
26 April 2014 | Marmaris Turkey
Bernie
Roger up the mast fitting new leather pads to the spreaders.
Bern arrived back at the boat in Marmaris late March. First Light III was in good shape after the winter on the hard, but there was a list of jobs to do to prepare her for the summer ahead. Top of the list was to replace the standing rigging which was now 10 years old and not covered by insurance. She was launched on the 14th April, it was then apparent that the depth sounder was not working. You just cannot safely sail without this working , so rather than lifting her back onto the hard to replace the through-hull sender unit, I installed an in-hull unit and hoped it would work satisfactorily. Fortunately it did!
Work commenced on replacing the rigging. I engaged a local rigger to make the new stays and with the help of Roger (a sailing friend from Australia who had just joined the crew), we removed the old stays one by one and fitted the new ones. The whole process took about a week and many trips up the mast. The result was very pleasing and as we did the bulk of the labour ourselves, the cost was quite reasonable.
With all the major jobs done, Di joined the crew and we were ready to clear Turkey and head west into the Greek islands and beyond.