It was mostly a good weekend with frustratingly lovely weather. She has been afloat for two weeks now and we are still in no position to move her. The two steps forward involved getting the rig sorted out. We have set up the standing rigging and bent on the sails. The picture is as we got the jib ready for use. The two steps sideways were discovered by Audrey. Some of the wires from the masthead had had to be cut which means that we need connectors for them under the mast. These are for the VHF aerial and the data lines from the masthead wind indicator. Needless to say, we were not able to get our hands on a crimp fit co-ax adaptor and we need to work on a suitable connector plug for the wind instruments. At least both those tasks are easy to achieve.
Of more import, is the one step back. The engine has so far refused to start. I had a go at pumping some fuel through and the glass bowl on the primary filter filled up with a nasty brown sludge. Clearly we have some contamination in our fuel. I sought to pump out the fuel and filter it. The fuel we managed to pump out looked quite clean so we put it back in the tank using our water trap filter and no rubbish was kept back though we did make a bit of a mess of the cockpit. I then changed the fuel filters and sure enough, there was quite a lot of rubbish in the primary filter. I bled the system through and little gunk appeared in the primary filter though she still refused to start. I suspect now that we do have some dirt in the fuel line and it is time to call in a professional. The Chaldler at Emsworth has recommended one at Thornham who I will have to ring and see if he is available. Hopefully, that will not all prove too expensive!
Assuming all is well, we will still move her next weekend though I may try to take Thursday off work to speed things up with the final wiring and such like.
It was very satisfying to get the sails on at last and feel like a sailing boat again.!
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