25.12.22-24 - Watching, waiting, commiserating…

The previous afternoons events had us waiting in bated breath, unsure of the extent of the damage and if we would even be able to fix it before race day.

Barry's favours came in strong, the owner of the shipyard stopped by with a few engineering and machining shops on standby if needed. The rest of the fleet also came to bat for us, offering spare rudders and bearing and all manner of spare parts.

Thankfully by the end of the day it became apparent that the damage was mostly superficial. The rudder's 10cm thick solid steel shaft had been bent back about 5 degrees and was still fine to use, although it would make steering much heavier. That sunfish must have quite the headache. Over the next 2 days the fiberglass along the top edge was cut away to leave room between the rudder and the hull and then had a fresh layer of glass re-layed, sanded and antifouled.

While we couldn’t go on our 3 day offshore practice voyage, we still made good use of our time up on the stand finalising all of our fittings, equipment, wiring, drilling and more. To be honest, I'm not sure if we would have had time to get it all done.

Christmas Eve had us finally back in the water and back in our berth along the front of the RCYC and the day was spent reloading all of our sails, ropes, safety equipment and other gear, along with some of our non-perishable foods and water.