After a bit of a wait, the work on Blue Opal’s stern gear has started. The rudder was dropped a little while ago, and other topside work was done while things were being sorted out for the actual investigation and
Cutless bearing – open hull surgery
Sailing to Pwllheli – Navtex log
Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the Navtex logger on when we were alongside the pontoon, so the log starts somewhere out past the Burford Buoy. More reason to write the code for the ESP8266 and build my data logger. Day
Sailing to Pwllheli
Blue Opal was delivered to Pwllheli yesterday afternoon, after a pleasant 16 hour trip from Dun Laoghaire. I brought her alongside the club around 1700 on Friday, and left the engine running under load to chill the fridge. Put supplies
Dun Laoghaire -> Pwllheli
Having called around to the local yards and engineers, all of whom have said “yes, we can do that in winter” or “sorry mate, I’m more on the commercial side”, I consulted with the gent who acted on my behalf
Cutless bearing – hypothesis
As far as I am aware, Blue Opal was kept in Conwy from when she was launched until I bought her. Conwy happens to be at the mouth of a river, and the marina gets a fair bit of fresh
Cutless bearing troubles – mitigation
The local yard have put Blue Opal’s stern gear back together, and applied an epoxy job to keep the top bolt in place. The anti-foul looks pretty good against her blue hull, but no one will ever see it. Research