Our good chums over on Irreversible have uploaded another vid of their time cruising the UK south coast, including a visit from the good folks on Blue Calypso.
G'day folks!
Well what can I say..... being back in Australia is a bit of alright. Warm sunny days, doing the whole tourist thing and not having to think about organising parts for the boat.
Adelaide's experiencing some early summer weather so between visiting the beach and the hills, we'll be spending the next week cutting another video of our time back here before we head back north to get that new mast fitted.
Well what can I say..... being back in Australia is a bit of alright. Warm sunny days, doing the whole tourist thing and not having to think about organising parts for the boat.
Adelaide's experiencing some early summer weather so between visiting the beach and the hills, we'll be spending the next week cutting another video of our time back here before we head back north to get that new mast fitted.
G'day from Down Under.
Picking up where we last left off, I had to do a second 400 mile round trip to collect our sails. We'd purchased three sails from a south coast based UK sailmaker and organised to have them ready for the 25th. We paid in advance, double checked the work that needed to be done to them (sliders, UV strips, etc) and re-confirmed everything would be ready for collection. Rocked up on the day to find the sails bagged up and ready to go. Great. Had an employee call the manager and check everything was all done, he confirmed it, but at the last moment we thought it best to check what was in the bag and that's when the fun started. Not only had none of the work been done to the sails, but one of the sails had been substituted for something else... in effect, none of the three were usable. Typical bloody marine industry.
Anyway, a couple of emails later and the sails were ready the following Tuesday, with all the work done and bagged, ready to go. I dropped the sails down at the mast company for shipping to Portugal and drove back to London. The sail company had a half reasonable excuse for why the mistakes were made but seriously, what is wrong with the leisure marine industry? They just cannot seem to get their act together.
After all that fun, we finalised shipping of everything to Portugal then packed our bags and headed to the airport. 30 hours later, we arrived back in Australia for two weeks of not doing a lot. Perfect.
Anyways, all for now. We're going to see if we can do a City of Adelaide tour (http://cityofadelaide.org.au/) and catch up with everyone we haven't seen for the past year and a half, before heading back to the UK and Portugal to keep heading south.
Picking up where we last left off, I had to do a second 400 mile round trip to collect our sails. We'd purchased three sails from a south coast based UK sailmaker and organised to have them ready for the 25th. We paid in advance, double checked the work that needed to be done to them (sliders, UV strips, etc) and re-confirmed everything would be ready for collection. Rocked up on the day to find the sails bagged up and ready to go. Great. Had an employee call the manager and check everything was all done, he confirmed it, but at the last moment we thought it best to check what was in the bag and that's when the fun started. Not only had none of the work been done to the sails, but one of the sails had been substituted for something else... in effect, none of the three were usable. Typical bloody marine industry.
Anyway, a couple of emails later and the sails were ready the following Tuesday, with all the work done and bagged, ready to go. I dropped the sails down at the mast company for shipping to Portugal and drove back to London. The sail company had a half reasonable excuse for why the mistakes were made but seriously, what is wrong with the leisure marine industry? They just cannot seem to get their act together.
After all that fun, we finalised shipping of everything to Portugal then packed our bags and headed to the airport. 30 hours later, we arrived back in Australia for two weeks of not doing a lot. Perfect.
Anyways, all for now. We're going to see if we can do a City of Adelaide tour (http://cityofadelaide.org.au/) and catch up with everyone we haven't seen for the past year and a half, before heading back to the UK and Portugal to keep heading south.
Just a couple of days left here in the UK and we're almost done sorting out this mast project. We did a tour of the south coast last week to round up all our bits - winches, base pads, u-bolts, sta-lok fittings, longer halyards, etc etc - loaded up the car, and dropped them off at the mast supplier.
I need to head back down to see the sailmaker on Tuesday as our sails weren't ready last week, but that's a story for another blog post.
Anyway, just a brief jaunt to the other side of the world for a couple of weeks to catch up with my family, then it'll be time to head back south and put all this together.
I need to head back down to see the sailmaker on Tuesday as our sails weren't ready last week, but that's a story for another blog post.
Anyway, just a brief jaunt to the other side of the world for a couple of weeks to catch up with my family, then it'll be time to head back south and put all this together.
