After a late breakfast we manouvred Bonny so that her stern was adjacent to the empty pontoon next to us and contemplated the Hydrovane installation and the potential options. They boiled down to three:
* a beefed up repair to the customised hinge mechanism including additional metal reinforcing 'gussets'
* the removal of the existing shaft and it's replacement (big drawback being that neither the 1 1/8" shaft or it's bearings are manufactured by Hydrovane any more and would therefore have to be custom made
* buy a new system hopefully without the need to include the two heavy cast aluminium brackets that fasten it to the stern of the boat. These are very expensive but in theory we don't need new ones. The problem is that so far we have been unable to remove the bolts that clamp them to the tube containing the shaft. After 40 or so years they are heavily corroded and it may prove impossible to remove them without damaging the brackets.
Eventually, we decided that in order to cover all options and given we currently had the luxury of an empty berth along side us into which we had swung the stern and so had access to the unit, we would attempt to remove it.
And so we set to. After a couple of hours and hard work with spanners, sockets, penetrating oil and hammers we had removed the various nuts from the bolts clamping the brackets together but could not remove the bolts themselves. We therefore turned our attention to the bolts holding the brackets to the stern of the boat and we were able to remove those. With a complex series of ropes to prevent the whole apparatus from dropping into the drink we eventually got the beast of the stern and onto the pontoon.
This is top of the join that failed.....
This is what was attached to it ....
The replace option would unfortunately require buying virtually everything you can see in the photo of the unit on the pontoon (hopefully minus the bracket) AND the rudder because whilst there is nothing wrong with the drive unit at the top nor with the rudder on the bottom, the bit in the middle - the tube and shaft - are now manufactured to different diameters and so will not fit the existing components!
I have contacted the manufacturer and will be contacting the OCC's (Ocean Cruising Club) Port Officer in Vigo for advice and info about potential professional help with repairs.
The dismantling process took most of what remained of the day so after a very late lunch at 1800 and a tidy up we headed out to explore the town.
And what a smashing place it is. It appears to be an extremely popular holiday destination for Spaniards. It Very lively at night with crowded restaurants and bars all 'vibrating' to the exhuberent sounds of the Spanish at liesure. There's something extremely pleasurable to be in the thick of it without understanding hardly a word. Life is for living and the Spanish certainly know how to do that!
We found a place to eat an excellent sardine and calamari dinner with a huge salad to go with it...
All sorts of water sports are available which must be one of the major draws...
The old town has pleasing architecture too..
During our tour of the town we came
across the late night air display over the bay to the west of the old town.....
It seems that by complete coincidence we had arrived in the midst of a major air display. On arrival on Friday afternoon we noticed stunt planes doing their thing over the town and yesterday their was a Typhoon screaming around the place at incredibly low altitudes. Today, Sunday the stunt planes are out again and so are military planes....
After a fairly extensive tour of the town lastt night, we were hungry - it was now 2330 and the town was as busy as ever and finding a table was a bit of a challenge despite the numerous restaurants. Eventually we found were squeezed into a trendy burgur joint with charming staff and excellent burgers.
We eventually got to bed around 0130 this morning!
I was up early at 1030 and Mick a little later at 1230 🤣.
After a shower I said Hi to who turned out to be Frederick on Xena his very cool looking XBoat ...
We got chatting and I discovered he was from Iceland - one of the places I have a hankering to visit and may do so towards the end of this trip if I manage to over winter the boat in Nova Scotia in 24/25.
Frederick sails mainly solo but has his kids with him for a few weeks. He plans to circumnavigate over the next few years and may possibly cross the Atlantic this coming winter too. He's a photographer and do hopes to earn some money along the way. I don't yet have a photo of him but hope to get one of him and his kids later.
I then rigged Bonny for Summer in harbour..
A little later I waved off a charming French crew who arrived early yesterday from Lotient and are now heading back along the Biscay coast...
Mick cooked a Spanish omlette for lunch...
that we ate while watching the fantastic air display...
Viva la Espana!
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