Still in Southport

Monday 13^th October 2015

The weather continues to be nice, but today promises a few afternoon storms. There is healthy NW breeze, and it is overcast.

Today we hope to sort out our saildrive oil level problem, and this afternoon the insurance assessor is coming over to remove the housing of the failed radar mount from the mast, for further investigation.

In the meantime, Steve has an electrician up his mast checking out a weak radio signal problem.

The girls went shopping at 11am, with Bernie providing transport. I helped Steve with the electricians, and we then had lunch over at the Main Beach Surf Club  and watched a replay of the Tonga/Namibia Rugby WC game.

My new dispstick for the saildrive arrived just after lunch and I was keen to change it over and get a proper read of the correct oil level required.

Once changed over, it was clear that the saildrive was still overfilled, so I removed enough oil to bring it back to just under the new high level. The oil leak into the pan under the engine was also cleaned up, so I look forward to see if we get a further oil leak now. If so, it probably means the input shaft seals need replacing.

The oil is still overfilled on the new dispstck

The insurance assessor turned up at just after 3 pm, and there was a storm building. I suggested he went up the mast and I would winch him up. It was a bit line ball which of us would be easiest to send up, but he probably had more experience. The remains of the mount hydraulic mount assembly was removed and on cursory inspection, didn’t give much of a clue on why it failed.

The storm was moving in

Not long after he was back on the deck, the storm got closer. We were both surprised the unit was still leaking hydraulic oil and hopefully their investigation will throw some light on why it failed.

Preparations for our next move South are under way, and to get the maximum benefit from the forecast, we have a few long sails ahead of us. The plan is to sail to Coffs Harbour on Friday  ( a 24 hour sail). Wilparina have some extra crew for the trip and we put the feelers out to get another crew member which would make it much easier for us.

We have had a long standing invitation to Mike Wesslink to join us along our trip, so I contacted Mike first, and after a lot of shuffling of his arrangements, is keen to join us on Thursday night for the sail to Coffs and on to Sydney. We now plan to take advantage of the Northerlies for the next week and get home doing a couple of long legs.

Mark from Koonya also offered to help, which was greatly appreciated. 

If the weather holds we should be home in a bit over a week.