Firstly, a happy New Year to our blog readers and apologies for not posting anything for a while. We had a great Christmas with the Thompson clan up in Sheffield; the snow threatened to disrupt the long journey there and back but in the end it went pretty smoothly given we had to take a bus, 3 trains and a coach each way. New Year's Eve was spent with friends in Falmouth and since then with have been trying to motivate ourselves back into tackling the long boat job list.

A problem we occasionally find with Emerald due to her age (32 this year) and being an American abroad, is sourcing spare and replacement parts.

This week we began the task of replacing the genoa and staysail tracks because they are bent and bashed and we can't move the genoa cars to be able to trim the sails properly. This gave us major problems last summer where we couldn't sail and so had to resort to the engine to push us along instead, leading to a hefty diesel bill. In an attempt to correct this we have had the fore sails reshaped - we had a new 140% genoa modified to be a 110% yankee with a higher clew. The new staysail that came with the boat we found was too small and too heavy a fabric and so has been deemed storm sail from now on. Instead, we have had our old 140% genoa cut down to make a staysail.

Anyway, back to the tracks. As can be seen from the photo above we have some big leaks which is water coming through the track screw holes (as well as some of the other deck fittings). The water is soaking into the surrounding woodwork and causing the teak faced ply to delaminate as well as causing mold to grow in areas where we keep food.

Now for the needle in a haystack part.... Being an American boat many parts are not available in the UK as there is no market for them and fastenings are American imperial threads. This leads to a headache of searching for alternatives available here or facing large postage bills to order the parts from America. So we decided to not replace the staysail tracks with the direct replacement but to fill in the screw holes with epoxy and use a Barton T-track for which we will drill new screw holes in to the deck. This also allows us to extend the length of the staysail track and give us a wider scope for trimming the new staysail.

However, we have not been able to find an equivalent replacement for the 12' long genoa tracks here in the UK. If we could we would also have to drill new holes in the deck / hull join which we don't really want to do. We have found new track in America but its going to cost $150 to ship it to us. Ouch!!!! We briefly considered having stainless steel replacements fabricated to our specification; we decided not to go this way as the costs would be similar to buying new aluminium ones and it would be a difficult job getting stainless to bend to the curve of the hull.

Having grimaced and bore this cost for the replacement track, our next problem is the new machine screws we will need to mount the tracks - 80 of them. Luckily the imperial to metric conversion isn't too far apart allowing us to be able to use M8 metric rather than 5/16ths imperial which should be 'easier' to source in the UK. So, we think 1 problem solved - but can we find a source of stainless steel countersunk M8 x 200mm long machine screws anywhere - of course not!

We have had some successes with finding replacement parts though and I'm so grateful for the power of the internet. We needed new stainless steel UNC bolts for our huge primary Lewmar 55 winches as we ended up having to drill out some of the old ones they were so cemented in with salt and corrosion. We contacted the people in the UK who supposedly have every spare part for Lewmar winches but they didn't have them and couldn't suggest anyone who might. So finally I found this place http://www.polished-stainless.com that sells them for the use in car and motorbike restoration.

For our 14 portholes which need refurbishing as they leak like sieves we were having trouble finding the tiny screws we need for them which are only available in America. Finally I found a small supplier who was happy to ship to the UK and had Paypal making payment easy.

Having to do all this by phone would be a nightmare and costly so big thanks go to Sir Tim Berners-Lee!

Nichola