We took our short break in Istanbul just before our busiest spring time event, making sure S/y Rosinda is ready to bet back in the sea. This year I thought we didn’t have that much to do, something that proved not to be quite right.

Last fall we had the underwater parts done. All old anti-fouling was blown away and a couple of new layers of primer and hard anti-fouling was applied. The engine was totally serviced and the rubber gasket for the sail drive was changed. A new mainsail, new guardrails and the spray hood had all its seams redone. A little bit of wax on- wax off and we were set.

St.George day came and the boat was lowered. No problems. It was a bit cold, we had some snowflakes and hail. Moving the boat a few miles to it’s summer quay was a chilly ordeal. When the boat was secured, we noticed that the aft bilge compartment was almost filled with water. Damn! Luckily I soon discovered the problem. A leaky joint from the water heater, just where I had renewed a valve, at the plumbers.  Fixing that problem still didn’t solve everything. Something topside was leaking, dropping rusty, greasy water right at the end of the aft cot.

I proceeded to remove the steering wheel, all the instrument panels and all the silicone around them, and found that from somewhere water was getting in and running down the steering column. I’m still not sure where the leak actually was, but I hope that theres enough new silicone to stop anything. Not a difficult job, but time consuming.

I got the job done just in time for Mother’s Day weekend. We had promised to serve as the officials boat on the starting line of the junior optimist regatta. And what great weather we had! The sun shone all weekend, and almost perfect winds on both days. Seldom do we get weekends like this even during the best summer days. Later, when the competition director asked if we wanted any compensation for expenses, all I wanted was something he can’t deliver: an equally excellent sailing weekend for us.

Here’s a short picture recap of our regatta weekend.