We headed out early Sunday morning to meet up with the rigger on Monday. The sail to Marmaris was fun, being the only time we had any decent wind for two weeks. A short beat followed by a reach in 20knts had us reefing the main, even with the staysail up rather than our big genoa. The wind was gusting off the hills so it was definitely a hand steering job rather than using the autopilot. After 6 hrs we anchored just outside the marina where we stayed over the winter. The day rate is around eu250 per night there so we were keen not to have to go inside.
Old forestay attachment, showing twisted furler mounting plates
Damaged Furler
Bent forestay attachment plates, We were lucky there's no forestay damage
On Monday morning Mustapha from Moss rigging came aboard and measured up the work needed. From the photographs I had sent he had spotted that, in addition to the furler damage, our forestay was not connected correctly and the fastening point could not flex in two directions. This meant that a new attachment, some parts made to order, was required. After Mustapha left the boat, he got the required parts made up the next day and returned to fit them the following day. This wasn't easy and required grinding, cutting, drilling etc to get the old furler off. Nigel had had visions of keeping the old furler and refurbishing it himself to sell and get some money back but it was definately only ready for the bin after removal! Whilst the work was going on the mast was held up with a spinnaker halyard as forestay and the main halyard as a backstay. We have a keel stepped mast, baby stay and a staysail so the likelyhood of any issue without a forestay was minimal, even so we were pleased with the light winds at the time.
Eventually all was complete and we lifted the stored genoa out to refit it. Incidentally, its only a sail but its a real struggle for one person to lift it alone due to the weight. As with all boat jobs, one job leads to another. As we fitted the genoa we spotted the bolt rope coming away at the top. Quick trial hoist and furl to test the furler and, wow, it furled so easily we didn't need a winch. There must have been loads of friction in the old one from day one.
New furler with new forestay attachment
Genoa required a small repair
We Immediately dropped the genoa again and made contact with the local sailmakers to get the repair done. We moved Kerensa closer to Marmaris for this and they kindly agreed to pick and drop off the sail at the dinghy dock, there was no way we could have carried it to the shop. We also got a couple of small repairs done on the sprayhood and bimini whilst we were at it. It took an hour to finish the work and we were very happy with the final (small) bill. After 5 days we are now ready to resume our sailing, we decided to stay one more night to have dinner ashore and see if we can find somewhere to watch the rugby. Tomorrow we are off, probably bay hopping towards Bozburun again to stock up and then head further north. We have 3 weeks left in Turkey before heading to Greece.