Malta

Posted at 2:01 AM, Apr. 14, 2007

Time has passed quickly since we left Malta at the end of November and we have had a lot of work being  done under James' supervision to get Savarna into top notch order for another seasons  sailing. It is hard to believe that in two weeks time we will be back on the boat, and this time with our daughter Alice who will spend most of the season with us, in between exploring other parts of Europe and looking for various work. As a qualified natural therapist and also a highly qualified yoga teacher she may be out changing some sailors lives!

We have had a couple of important warranty issues  to sort out and eventually Hanse flew a guy down from Griefswald to complete some repairs. We have found the bow fitting that the anchor arm holding bolt goes into is a glassed on separate piece onto the gunnel that only goes back as far as the anchor locker so not a substantial piece. The torque on the arm when it is out and the boat is swinging at anchor in a heavy breeze is considerable and that has caused a cracking on both sides of the bow. I actually observed the whole section twisting when we were anchored in a high wind which caused some concern as to whether the whole glassed on fitting would break off and then the anchor arm would be swinging free and potentially take out the forestay. It appears that there was only one layer of cloth glassed on inside the anchor locker and this has now been ground off and reglassed with better material and several layers of cloth and resin - and there was also quite a decent size gelcoat repair to effect. Time will tell as to whether this does the job - I certainly hope so. The other problem was water ingress through the bottom of the stern door joint to hull. Hanse had previously replaced the door seal in Rome last October after so much water got sucked in when we were running in heavy seas that the bilge pump under the floor in the garage burn't out. The seal replacement in Rome was not particularly successful as we still took on water, but to a much lesser degree, coming down to Malta last November. This time around the Hanse technician has done the replacement himself so hopefully that will also be another job finally ticked off.

We had a diver clean the hull off before we left Malta so it was something of a surprise  that when she was lifted out a few weeks back the cover on the retractable bow thruster had gone and there was considerable growth inside. So obviously the cover plate was glued on rather than screwed but at least Hanse sent down a new cover plate - which was in a completely raw state and needed quite a bit of work being done to it so it could be fitted. So while Hanse replaced the cover plate I suspect that the cost of getting it to a state where it could be installed will well exceed the cost of the piece of material supplied.

Also the 105% overlapper (just) has had the luff repair completed, the bimini deck fitting that got buckled on the port side somehow in strong wind has been replaced, an additional stainless support strut for the radar tower is about to get fitted, and a 12 volt power feed to the garage has been completed so we can run the dive gear (power is always an issue when most of the gear is 12 volt but the boat is a 24 volt job). The head unit on the Simrad wind gear had failed by the time we got to Rome and that has been replaced by Simrad under warranty - and the agents in New Zealand  and Malta were very helpful and co-operative. The VHF set at the chart table had also failed, leaving us with the standalone set at the starboard helm station only but as its aerial is on the radar post  (the other is at the  masthead) it was really a short range option. Anyway that turned out to be a wiring problem and that has been repaired also. Bosch also had a general recall on there 24 volt alternators and that was replaced a while back also by them.

                              Coming out in Malta - dirty bottom!

Savarna had a very throrough hull polish before we left Malta and James has been looking after her in our absence, running the motor, firing up the electronics, keeping the watermaker running (the Spectra unit with the Z-brane doesn't need to winterised, so it saves all the chemical treatments), washing the decks and keeping the interior clean and dry.

So we hit Malta on 27 April and hope to head off for a few days around the Maltese islands including Gozo and then planning to cross to Tunisia, then across the bottom of Sicily, bottom of Italy, up the east coast of Italy, then crossing to Montenegro and then up to Croatia.

I have been in contact with Chris, the Hanse dealer in Croatia, and they have booked me a marina at one of there bases (Sukosan - about 20 minutes drive south of Zadar) for a year so that will serve as our cruising base for this summer. Also looking forward to getting up to Venice.

Thats all for now - really looking forward to getting back to Europe for a couple of months sailing and relaxation

Cheers

Keith