“Um….. Guys!” J pipes from the deck.

We are safely in harbour in the Mar Menor on Spain's Costa Blanca. The crew are valiantly scrubbing the decks and restoring Canopus to some sense of cleanliness.

It was a hard 24hr passage from Ibiza.

Swabbing the decks did involve scrubbing a large quantity of (V’s) vommit that had dried into the grip paint, ropes and lashings. Given her experience, it says a lot that V was as unwell as she was! She blames the instant sweet coffee in a can at the midnight watch change. I think otherwise! In addition, the poor dog had not managed to go to the loo since departure due to the constant motion. He finally managed (with a look of absolute rapture) to go on the deck when we laid an anchor for an hour waiting for the lifting bridge into the Mar Menor to rise.

After my last post, the wind blew up and was just off the wave direction. To keep the sails filled due to the motion of the waves we had to sail at an angle to both which created a horrible motion that it was impossible to escape. A force 6 in a sea with waves in excess of 1.5M. Always moving, no respite, no escape.

It was a hard passage.

But J’s call of “Um… guys” was towards the end of the deck scrub.

“I pulled this and this came off. Is it supposed to?” J had in his hand the mainsheet traveller car that was no longer attached to its track!

The main sheet car is a critical item that transfers the load of the main sail into the boat structure whilst allowing us to trim the sail given the wind direction. This also acts to support the mast when the main is not up but the jib (fore sail) is. An integral part of the boat.

J was decidedly sheepish, but hugely apologetic and obviously guilt ridden. We quickly reassured him that despite the amount of meat that he is eating at the moment he could not have produced the force of our mainsail!

I am fast learning that the first thing you do once we uncover these problems is to stop, let the pressure come out of the situation, slow down the decision making process and determine what courses of action are available. So time to stop cleaning sick off the deck, get a shower and celebrate our safe arrival. With a nice, local Argentinian restaurant found we did exactly that. No prizes for guessing what J chose - the meat feast BBQ to share with his Mum. Good times!

In reality, J has done us an enormous favour. He had been moving the car to one side to erect the sun awning and the whole thing had exploded. If that had happened under the full load of the main, we would have lost control of the boom and it would have swung out at huge force creating risk to both crew and rig. We would have lost more gear! It had obviously been hanging on by a thread. Not only that, but the cars which position the Jib sheets are of the same design. Inspection of these showed that these were also in need of some urgent attention!

As we have said before, Canopus is an old boat. Most of her equipment is obsolete. If not, then it tends to be bespoke and manufactured by niche manufacturers. She is largely built to Imperial measurement which also adds to the challenge when repairing in a European market!

So the traveller car. A simple Aluminium casting that fits over a solid track and held in place by 2 races of ball bearings ion either side. End caps are bolted to either end to hold the bearings but are removed/replaced to allow for assembly. Lastly, some rubbber buffers are located on either end of the track to prevent a hard crash if the car is allowed to move to either end of the track.

In our case 2 failures had occurred. Over time, with salt, grit and load, the bearings had disintegrated. With about 80 supposed to be in the assembly, only 32 were left. Secondly one of the end caps had snapped. As J had moved the car, this finally failed allowing the car to spew (a lot of that on our boat at the moment!) its remaining 32 balls out onto the deck.

So an easy fix right? Just some new end caps and ball bearings. Well sort of…. After hours of reading up on the name, model, history and levels of availability (what did people do before the internet?) we were able to assess the situation and therefore what actions are available to us. Of course, the assembly is obsolete. Whilst some spare parts are available they are niche and certainly not off the shelf in a European chandlers. In fact, I am yet to find any 1 chandler that does any combination of end caps, rubber buffers and bearings!

To add to the pressure, we should not put the rig under significant load until we have stabilised the main sheet. This means we can move the boat but really need to sort properly before we go to sea again and put the sails up.

Luckily we have a weather window now which is not ideal for travelling south. The Mar Menor provides a very gentle environment to stop for a bit (we know the area well from previous visits) and the Marina have offered to receive parcels. Tomorrow we will order the correct 7.8mm (5/16”) Lewmar bearings from (ironically) a Spanish supplier, some end caps from Hampshire and some new bump stops from elsewhere.

In the meantime we will go and anchor in the Mar Menor, catch up on some school work, revitalise a bit, do some fishing and ready ourselves for the next leg.

As an added bonus, the marina have also said they will receive our new batteries. This is great news as our existing ones are now hanging on by a thread - they will no longer charge at all from mains and V and I both agree under today’s performance we would not have risked yesterday’s night passage.

Fingers crossed for a reliable supply chain - but I really feel like we have dodged a bullet with this one and I can restore these critical strong points to their original strength. It has also spurred us in to spend some time doing a deeper maintenance run on all of our deck gear. J and S are certainly learning the practicalities of a sailing yacht!

Hope everyone is well - particularly if this morning you woke up with a hangover after a 50th birthday gathering. We were thinking of you!!

Adios!

L