Elfida genoa furler

Dave Smith writes…

Tim Phillips organised a rig inspection by Martin Leaning Riggers at Port Solent around the middle of May which revealed a couple of snags.

This photo showed the black plastic bush which is not located properly inside the top swivel.

So before we departed, we lowered the genoa to the deck and re-inserted the bush.

It’s a mystery why the bush was not located properly. I can only guess that when the small jib sail was lowered in order to fit the 140% genoa, the bush came out during the decent and was not inserted correctly before raising the genoa.

Anyway, no harm seems to have been done and the furling gear worked perfectly. We were able to furl the genoa away easily by hand in a F4.

Also, the masthead light fitting was looking very tired and faded after 12 years exposure to UV and weather. We suspect it was damaged during the inspection because most of it fell into the water whilst Ian D’Arcy-Bean was on the helm – and he claims no responsibility.

We purchased a new light fitting and replaced the original anchor incandescent bulb with an LED light. The mast head light fitting is on the chart table waiting for Martin Leaning to fit.

We were hoping to be able to locate the recently purchased but now missing special “dusk til dawn” LED anchor light before we left the boat, so that we could have both anchor and tricolour LED powered – but we failed to find its hiding place.