2012 Summer Cruise - day 6

Alongside in Lowestoft Yacht Basin

Make and mend day as they say in the navy.

Although the day started out sunny with a moderate breeze and reasonable sea conditions, Brigantia and her crew were sorely in need of a bit of down time so we decided to remain in harbour for the day. Despite a solid nights' uninterrupted sleep (most unusual for me), both of us were still a bit tired and jaded and Brigantia was in need of some sorting out and tidying up as well.

As well as the essential jobs, we spent much of the day fiddling with technology - in my case it was the track logs from the various GPS receivers on board trying to make one good copy of our night time excursion to Sheringham Shoal.

Rik meanwhile was playing with his design for a water level meter using a cunning device to measure the capacitance between two copper strips glued to the outside of the tank. It almost but not quite worked and apparently its back to the drawing board but it shows promise

The damaged prop

Then we decided we'd best have a proper look at the outboard prop which had almost certainly been damaged when the outboard security cable somehow managed to become detached and drop down through the bottom of the well. So we hosted the engine onto the cockpit for a good look. The damage was worse than we'd thought. I cleaned up the damaged blades with pliers and a file but we urgently need a new prop.

Cleaned up with a file

A phone call to Seamark Nunn elicited the promise of a new prop - they'll pull one off a new engine if needs be - if we can get to them in Trimley or find somewhere we can get it sent to. As we definitely don't want to spend yet another night in Lowestoft that is proving tricky.

The forecast for the next few days is for somewhat breezy conditions from the South-ish so we think we'll go and hole up in the River Ore for a few days.