Nice new rudder

We had left 'May' in the water when we went home. We decided that we would return in January 2016 to start with the annual boat maintenance.

Weather in Lagos was quite pleasant for January but chilly at night. It was amazing to see the old town in winter with a lot of restaurants closed and the town much quieter compared to the summer months.

Prior to getting lifted out we decided that it was time to renew the main sail, and some other canvas work including a new canopy and lazy jack sail bag system.

The local sail maker, Fofovelas described our main sail as a "pocket" and it was small wonder that we didn't go well to windward. At the time of quotation, the pound was very strong against the Euro at £1 to €1.42!!

Another nagging problem was a small amount of water ingress from the rudder stock. I contacted the people who made the rudder and decided that I should replace the top seal.......a simple job??

We lifted the boat out of the water three days before we went home and used it as a caravan living on the boat, in the boat yard. Before returning home, I had a look at the rudder seal and dropped the rudder for further inspection. I was amazed to see that under the antifoul the rudder was cracked and closer examination revealed that the aluminium stock was very corroded and would need to be replaced. It could have been the battering we took in Biscay that opened the crack a little.

Prior to buying the boat from Malo yachts as the second owners we looked at another Malo 36 called "Pacific" which also had rudder issues and Malo supplied a new rudder! I was a little annoyed that ours should be the same because I had asked if ours could suffer the same fate prior to buying and I was assured that ours would be okay

I contacted Malo Yachts in Sweden to see if they would replace the rudder. I then found out that they could no longer supply any rudders for the 36 as the moulds were is storage and they hadn't paid the bills so could not get the moulds back. I also found out that they had replaced many rudders F.O.C.

I knew I had to get the rudder home so I asked Sopromar to lift the boat so as I could completely remove it and have it shipped home to have a new stock made.

At this point I had done so much research and it became a quest! I owe many thanks to Graham from Yacht Zephyr. Dave Miller (precision engineers) DJ Marine (in Norfolk) who made the new stock and also "Hardman Jones Marine" in Gweek Quay who diligently took the rudder apart removed the stock and re-assembled it to within 1mm......

We returned in May to refit the rudder and get moving again. Our original plan was to head into the 'Med' for a couple of months, but due to the rudder and other issues we relaunched about 2 months later than we had planned.