Well, repairs took a really large amount of time. I would say that it is an important part of the sailing life. Sometimes you can pay for the work, but sometimes it is impossible and you have to fix everything yourself. Something you can fix continuing sailing, but sometimes you have to stay in port for a long time.
During the journey, we had different kinds of repairs: upgrades, routine maintenance procedures, small repairs, non-crucial repairs and crucial repairs.
Regular maintenance includes: changing engine oil, changing zinc anodes, greasing shaft, changing impeller, removing rust everywhere and more 🙂
Installing necessary equipment
Before our sailing to the South began we had to install a large amount of equipment and to prepare everything to work smoothly. That included radar, wind vane, AIS and radio with antennas, new batteries, etc.
Mounting radar:
Regular shaft Greasing
Every two or three sailing days we had to grease our shaft. It looks like this:
Head Gasket change in Saint-Malo
Sailing without an engine is not a nice idea. But we had to do it on the way from Channel islands to Saint-Malo. We were allowed to stay on Guernsey for only 48 hours because most of the crew had Schengen visas which do not permit to stay in England. Unfortunately, we had a bad forecast with a lot of thunderstorms in front of us. That was really nervous sailing. Finally, we got to Saint-Malo tired but happy 🙂
That was the main problem we had on the whole trip. We had to stay in Saint-Malo for a month waiting for the engine to be repaired. This is an old engine and it is a real problem to repair it in France. French services refused us to repair it. And we had to find a mechanic who has done it asking us to sign the form, that we won’t ask any guaranty.
Below you can see the broken head gasket, a coolant in cylinders mixed with an oil and a new head gasket.
Cleaning bottom of the boat
Before departing from Saint-Malo there was a nice idea to clean the bottom of the boat using tidal waters. You simply stay aground and wait for the tide to go down. Looked crazy at first 🙂 but it was an amazing experience.
Changing engine oil
Every 100 hours of motoring we had to change our engine oil. So you need to pump out old oil, change oil filter and add new oil. This is how Alex sucks the oil out of engine.
Regular maintanence
It is normal on the boat to have repairs all the time. Sea environment is very aggressive and you deal with new problems all the time. Removing rust from the deck or from the engine. Removing leaks on the deck etc…
Painting bottom and other bottom work
In Vigo, we have done a lot of different maintenance and upgrade work. Cleaned bottom, added zincs, added new deck metal constructions for the wind generator, motor and handles. We have also added solar panels and changed our pillows.
New refrigirator in Vigo
Half of our way we had no refrigerator. And we had no time to repair it nor to change it. Later in Galicia, I decided to try to fix it. I bought a refrigerator of a different type with side door and sought it would not be a problem to install it. But that was my mistake. An old fridge was attached that well, that I wanted to give up hundreds of times. I was trying to find someone to finish this work for me, but since that was in Spain and it was summer, I would have to wait a month or more 🙂 very slowly… So I finished it myself. Uuhh..
Cleaning diesel tank in Almerimar
Last part of the trip was nervous because we had to change our fuel filter quite often and sometimes our engine was not starting. We had bacteria in our diesel tank 🙁 that lead us to some dangerous situation. And we had no option but to clean our diesel tank.
Diesel tank before/after:
