We made the 150 mile passage from Ibiza to Barcelona, arriving this morning. The start of the trip was really nice with 10 to 11 knots boat speed under Code-D on a broad reach with a nice rolling SW swell. As all good things must come to an end, our lovely southwest wind died to 4 knots around 3 pm and stayed between 4 and 6 knots for the next 12 hours, so we had to do quite a bit of motoring to make it to Barcelona in a reasonable amount of time. At 4am the wind switched to 18 knots from the NE, which played havoc with the SW swell and gave us a very uncomfortable final 5 hours into Barcelona. These rapidly changing conditions seem to be common at the end of the sailing season in the Med.
We are staying at the Oneworld Club Marina Port Vell which is home to some of the biggest superyachts we have ever seen and very nicely fitted out and run, with friendly and helpful staff. We will be here two nights before we continue our journey back to La Grande Motte.
As I mentioned in my last post, we had a big scare when the locknut fell off the pin that connects the mast to the boom and the pin pulled almost all the way out. Here are some photos:
Here’s the locknut that I found lying on the salon roof after we had furled the mainsail at the end of the day
Here’s the connecting pin pulled halfway out. You can see the bottom of the gooseneck bracket has displaced slightly inwards towards the mast. We had to pull this backwards using a line attached to the two jib sheet winches to realign the fittings so I could reinsert the pin.
The pin after being reinserted and the locknut replaced, but it’s crazy how much is riding on this single locknut. The pin should be made longer so there is room to put a second locknut on, and also a splitpin to ensure it can never fall off.
Before we had our scary boom situation in the evening, we had a fantastic day of sailing around the island of Ibiza. The water was smooth and the wind was strong, and Wildling was flying! Here are some photos I took during the day:
Robin enjoying the view
Our track clockwise around the island
Just beautiful.
Doug,
From you reinstallation, it looks like the nut does have a hole for a split pin…………do you think it was not installed properly at Outremer.
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Hi Glenn,
It’s hard to see in the photo, but there are two grub screws on each side of the nut. The idea is that the nut is tightened then the grub screws are used to hold the nut in place. I’m sure Outremer installed it correctly, but this arrangement isn’t secure enough for the amount of movement in the gooseneck fitting. A split pin below the locknut would be a good addition, that way the nut can not come off, even if the grub screws work loose.
I can’t imagine the manufacturer of you Cat not fixing this problem for their future boat owners!!!! Glad your safe.
Hi Julie,
Yes, I’m sure Outremer will take care of this for us. They have been excellent about fixing any problem at all that we have had post delivery.