Nearly six weeks since we dropped off Guapa at Fox's to touch up the gelcoat in a few places and to finaly trace/fix the illusive leak in the pressurised water system.
I had been up a few times to check on the boat and the work on the gelcoat seemed to be progressing nicely. Chats to Dom – professional as ever – confirmed as much. However, the water leak remained on the 'to do' list. Not a good sign as it turned out.

Launch date came and Evita and I duly turned up at the yard to find workmen on board looking for the leak. Talk about last minute. Anyway, when Fox's replaced one watertank last year, an unconnected breather hose was left underneath (!!) the newly fitted tank. No wonder I couldn't find it. Problem soon rectified, but unfortunately that wasn't the end of the story.

Pressure pump kept running and running... indicating yet another 'leak' of sorts. Evita stumbled upon the cause almost by accident. The calorifier in the aft lazarette was leaking like a sieve. That was it then.

Not having a spare calorifier to hand at a quarter to four on a Friday afternoon there was very little that could be done. At least now we know.
What pisses me off most about all of this is that if the yard had not left that job till the very last minute but instead had started to investigate when we delivered Guapa to them all these weeks ago, the problem could have been sorted by now.
Now we're still faced with several more weeks of water in containers. Not pleased.

Sailed Guapa back to her berth in Ipswich Haven, but not before taking the boat for a gentle sail up and down the river. Had to get some pent up anger/frustration out of my system.

Off to darkest Africa next week and upon my return I'll have a couple of weeks of leave coming up. Haven't had much of a Summer yet, so hopefully the weather will have improved by the time I get back.
As Brigitte only has 2 weeks off work, it looks like Norway will have to wait for another year, but I'm looking forward to revisiting old Normandy haunts.