Departure Date
14 May 2018 | FIC Jetty Stanley, Falkland Islands
3:00am Monday 14th May 2018 ( UTC-3 ]
Yes at long last I have set a departure date - Saturday 20th May 2018. Iâve been so long here I thought it best to include the year! The major delay has of course been the difficulty in obtaining the necessary parts for the rigging but now everything is well in hand. Thanks very much to Andrez Short the rigging has been made up using Sta - Lok fittings . It is noted here that what I suspected for the Port Lower Diagonal turned out to be correct. I thought I saw one parted strand before my fall from grace in Puerto Espanol and it turned out to be all too true. In fact four strands of the nineteen had parted which could have had interesting consequences had I continued under jury rig. The mast was stood up using a JCB pallet loader which once the jib is up it must have its feet on the ground so is unable to slew left or right, but this problem was easily overcome by winching LâEau Commotion fore and aft whilst alongside the dock. We picked a rare calm day that unfortunately coincided with the heaviest ( and coldest ) rain weâve had in the last two months but with Dion driving and Hector and Roberto cheerfully dogging all went remarkably smoothly. All the standing rigging is now complete which includes the furling staysail which had failed in the first few weeks of the journey and was much missed in the Southern latitudes. The furling headsail, the furling staysail and the mainsail with the boom now reattached are all strapped on and with a few minor tweaks are all ready to go. Thanks to Bob McLeod of the Falkland Islands Yacht Club, of which I am proud to be the most recent member, the multiple problems with VHF aerials have now been sorted out. I now have good solid VHF voice communications with a spare set, as well as the original handheld VHF which has a rechargeable Li battery and most importantly a 5 AAA backup pack.Another vital piece of equipment, again with a new aerial, is an Onwa 708A combined chart plotter and AIS transceiver with complete charts of South America and all the islands of the South Pacific. It was great to pick up the full ships details on the AIS at 18 miles range over one hill and two mountain ranges ( it is basically a âline of sight/VHF transmission ) of a departing trawler, but even more importantly Jason on Speedwell reported getting LâEau Commotionâs AIS signal from Berkley Sound so I am confident I can now be seen as well as heard. In addition the new LED Tricolour on the masthead is shining brightly which is superior to the previous navigation lights at the pulpit which had failed due to corrosion but in any case would often be below the largish swells hereabouts. The new Watt & Sea hydrogenerator is now connected electrically and all the indicating lights are as per specs but the system has not been sea trialed. It will be a busy week possibly hampered by a forecast two days of snow but all should be ready to take advantage of a North or North Westerly breeze from Saturday on - the winds of recent weeks though moderate have been predominantly South or South West so will grab another four hours sleep till daylight at 8:00am.