Voyages 8

The Voyages: Marshall Islands II

January 11, 2010 – Our first months in the Marshalls have been a lot of fun. There is a very active yachting community here and there is always something going on. Between local adventures and sailing, we have been working slowly to get the boat ready for the long passage north to the Seattle area in June (2010). The voyage will take about 45 days so there is a lot to do to make sure the trip will be as safe and comfortable as possible.

So far we have changed the engine mounts and re-aligned the engine, tuned the rigging, bought charts for the passage, replaced the engine air filter element, tightened the rudder packing, replaced a broken lifeline pelican hook, replaced our worn out American flag, added a whisker pole and mounts for the staysail, replaced the jib sheets and stocked up on numerous spares we might need while at sea. We are especially grateful to Dick Tietjen for his help acquiring the engine mounts and Mitch at Beacon Marine (beaconmarineinc.com) for his help getting all the other bits and pieces to us out here in the middle of the Pacific.

We also sought help from Brion Toss (briontoss.com) with several problems we were having with our running and standing rigging (I re-rigged two and a half years ago). We had been having difficulty keeping our jib luff tight in stronger winds and we also noticed the upper hanks were wearing badly (see picture). Brion suggested the problems had the same cause: the halyard was too stretchy. Of course he was right. To fix the problems, he built us a two part halyard, a real gem, using a rope to rope splice. The jib end is very low stretch T-900 and the cockpit end, beyond the winch/stopper, is easily handled (larger diameter) Sta-set. We also found what looks like crevice corrosion and cracking on our two upper shroud turnbuckle toggles (not original equipment). We replaced the toggles with spares we had. Brion, who is an exceptional rigger, has been very helpful with his input on this issue and we will continue working with him to resolve it.

There is still more to do between now and June, but we also intend to take advantage of where we are and leave room for adventure. We love just sailing the Swan. MORE . . .