The one where I try to fix stuff and make a hash of it

I’m not sure what it is this week but everything I’ve touched has just gone to crap like some kind of rubbish King Midas.

First of, I went to add in a tank selector switch. I currently have two freshwater tanks which are plumped to the pump by a simple T connector. Obviously this isn’t great as contamination in one tank would spread to the other, and in additional it meant on an angle of heel all the water in the top tank drained to the lower tank.  Kind of the like the water ballast system in fancy boats, except backwards, so instead of helping to level the boat, it was just making everything worse.

So I ordered a T Valve and some 1/2″ hose barbs and plumbed it in

And of course it leaked terribly.

After mucking around for way too long it stopped leaking, but then I noticed that it didn’t seem to stop the flow from a tank! And the water was warm…

Turned out I had plumbed it in the wrong place. And the correct T piece to replace had different sized hose bards, necessitating a reorder of all the bits. GREAT. See you in two weeks. Mistake 1.

The next thing I tried to do was replace the rope clutch that blew up in swiftsure. I’d managed to get a bunch of rope clutches off the local classifieds for 25 bucks each (!) and in addition, I was able to use parts from the recently destroyed line clutch to repair the other one I broke over a year ago! Score!

I also took the time to replace the kinda bad line clutch I installed last year too.

So, so far so good. I removed all the broken/crap clutches and filled in the holes and left overnight to dry.

I then drilled new holes and countersunk them

And then I tapped all the holes (there is an aluminium plate underneath), put sealant down and then screwed on the clutches.

The next day I realised I’d put the triple on backwards! Nooooo! Cue 3 hours of unscrewing, cleaning up sealant, putting down more and then rescrewing. DAMMIT! Mistake 2.

Then with the remainder of the day I decided to mount my backup anchor on the stern (after the experience of having to dig it out of a pile of crap in swiftsure). I mounted the Mantus anchor holder (thanks again Bruce!), taking care not to drop any parts overboard. Then I had to cut off the rusted shackle holding it to some old chain, and put the rode and chain in a bag, close at hand.

Then I went to put the anchor in the holder and guess what…. It was on backwards! Mistake 3

Sigh.

Well I saved the best for last – I bought a new Halyard made of MLX (which is kind of a middle-ground between REALLY pricey hitech stuff and normal double braid. Very low stretch) and so decided to switch out my halyards – I’d switch out the main for the MLX, and then the damaged secondary would be replaced by the old main one.

Well first I tried pulling out the main halyard leaving a messenger line. I didn’t bother to stitch it, and the knot I guess wasn’t tied well enough (the messenger line was kinda crusty) and the knot gave way, meaning I had a pile of messenger line on one foot and halyard out the mast at the other. DAMMIT! So then I figured I could at least take the spare out and replace it with the (now removed) main halyard… and the same thing happened.  MISTAKE 4.

So now I had NO main halyards left, and I was supposed to go sailing Friday… I dropped the Genoa (kind of a pain in itself) and used that to climb the mast and the spinny halyard as a safety. With the help of some dock neighbours (thanks John and Tony!) I managed to recovery one of them, the spare. Once down on the ground I used a messager line (WITH STITCHING THIS TIME) and successfully swapped out for the main halyard. So, at least I can go sailing this weekend!

Oh and while I was climbing up the mast, my phone fell out of my pocket into the water. Which I’d had for 5 days. Back to terrible fuzzy blog pictures it is!

RIP