Repair and Maintenance

Gosh! Already? But Riff Raff has only been to sea for about 40 hours, so what’s gone on?

Well, to start with it’s the b****y “pre stretched” dyneema stays.

‘They’re fully stretched before we make them’ says the designer.

‘That’s as maybe’ I replied ‘but I want a steel wire forestay. Then at least I’ve a fixed point in the rig, just in case the dyneema does stretch.’

As we were drifting to a light wind back from Cowes the other day, the mast flopped from side to side and fore and aft to an alarming extent. After taking Riff Raff onto terra firma (or at least onto Terence), I went to investigate.

I had to take up about an inch * of slack on both the port and starboard main stays and a similar amount on the baby stays too. Assuming that the steel wire forestay hasn’t stretched, the rig might now be back to “factory set”. We’ll see on Thursday.

I had also to try out the cockpit cover. This had arrived at home just before I left for the trip to Cowes and Yarmouth and I hadn’t had time to play with it. 

Unpacked and fitted (held in place by oodles of lengths of bungee and a couple of car roof rack stretchy things with hooks), I was rather pleased with it. It covers the spray hood and the engine and there’s space under which all manner of stuff can be hidden from prying eyes. It might even stop the cockpit seats from getting covered in atmospheric fall out. All we need now is the tent….

Notes

* One inch = 25mm (at the moment – it might equal more (or less) after the UK has left the EU.)