I finished work last week and so came up to Greenock on Wednesday to help get Elinca ready. When I arrived I found the boat full of activity. Angus and Innes, Elinca’s owners, and their engineer Tony were busy installing the water maker, upgrading the electrical circuits and replacing one of the electric heads (toilets) with a manual hand flushing one (just in case there are ever any problems with the electrical circuits). Kerry McMillan, one of the Ocean Youth Trust Scotland skippers, was very kindly, on her day off, helping Clare sort and pack the new category A medical kit, which we need for sailing in the remote areas that we’ll be visiting.
Angus, Innes, Tony and the riggers.
Clare with two of the seven boxes of medical equipment.
I’ve been helping to install the new instruments. Angus has bought a new echo sounder (so that we know how deep the water is), log (to measure how fast we are sailing through the water and how far we have sailed), anemometer (to measure wind speed and direction) and a Navtex receiver for weather and safety information. I’m sorry about the mess in the photo on the chart table, with six of us working on the boat it’s got quite messy. We’ve included on the list of jobs, giving the boat a thorough clean once all the dirty jobs have been finished.
Jon installing the new instruments.
Angus has driven up to Owens sails in Oban today to collect our new Kukri spinnaker and the refurbished headsails. Sadly the sun’s not shining today but the rain’s stopped, which is great as we need to install the antennas for the satellite phone and AIS (Automatic Identification System), which broadcasts our position to larger ships and also allows us to see the position of them. Next week the riggers will replace the intermediate and lower shrouds making the majority of the rig less than fours year old.
Jon
