Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: August 2019

The wedding party

Our two weeks at Almerimar before leaving for London were busy getting the boat repairs and upgrades done that we could not get done in Sardinia. What a contrast! The marina, services and chandleries in Almerimar were professional and efficient. We were lifted out the morning after our evening arrival and all settled in our stands within a half hour. This process took over 4 days in Cagliari.

The view from the hard

Shored up. Going up and down the ladder certainly made us limber.

By our second day at Almerimar we had all our work organised, parts ordered and on the way. We set ourselves up getting use to life ‘on the hard’. Although the Almerimar boat yard was infinitely better than the one in Cagliari, boat yards are generally very basic, dusty environments and require a bit of roughing it. Bob made himself a workbench out of scrap wood around the boat yard and set up some pallets for a washing up stand.

Bob's workbench

Washing up area

The major job was lifting the engine so we could remove the prop shaft. We did this job ourselves with a block and chain borrowed from Chris at Almerimar Marine Services. It was a surprisingly easy and straight forward job to lift the 200+ kg engine and then bring the prop shaft through the salon to remove it. For most boats the prop shaft can be easily removed aft (from the back of the boat for landlubbers) but we have a skeg-hung rudder that blocks the aft removal. A new prop shaft with the correct taper (see previous blog about the propeller saga) was ordered and arrived in a few days. We lifted the engine again, inserted the shaft, cut to size and all ready for the new Flexofold propeller.

Lifting the engine with a block and chain

New propeller shaft waiting for installation

Cutting the prop shaft to size

Next we ordered a bank of new batteries. Those batteries were heavy! Lifting them up onto the boat was a bit of a challenge but nothing a bit of cranking with a winch couldn’t handle.

Batteries delivered

and lifting them onto the boat

We had been having a bit of back filling in the forward head (that’s a toilet landlubbers) so Bob decided to change some of the piping and install a better siphon breaker.

Working on the plumbing from the forward head - tight spaces on a boat

So with all the major jobs done, and much too much spent at the chandleries getting all the required extra safety equipment for the ARC+, we were ready to put on our glad rags and head to London for Pam’s wedding.

We were so protective of the new propeller that we wrapped it up while we were away in London and we forgot to take a picture of it before launching!

Patrick and Peter were coming in from Australia for the wedding. This was the first time we have all been together since March 2015. It was a very special time. The wedding was beautiful and the reunion wonderful. I must admit that I tended to spent most of the time being very sentimental, fighting off tears and giving silly mother hugs to our now adult children. We are so proud of you, Pam and Nicole, a beautiful, happy couple. We feel very fortunate to have such amazing children and privileged to add another marvellous family to our relations.