Friday, 29 June 2018

13941 Back on the water (or are we?)

The GP14 racing dinghy number 13941 has been back on the water ... although we may have issues in future.

The main repair work was done by Ben Dingwall, and some additional problems with the front hull were fixed by Fred - stalwart user of filler and gelcoat on behalf of the Welsh Harp Sailingn Club.

I got the boat rigged with the P&B sails a few weeks ago, and took her out for a brief test run on 2nd June, with Szymon crewing for me. All seemed good - we appeared to have good bit speed and so I packed her away and went on holiday.

On returning from holiday, I took out the boat to join in with the “plain sailing” last Saturday morning. I then did two races with Richard Gillian crewing in the first race and helming the second. All seemed well, except for slow boat speed. Then we found out why...

On dragging the boat out of the water, we opened the aft bung and gallons of water come surging out of the “skin gap” between the outer hull and inner floor. We clearly have a problem!

Plans for next week are to try desperately to diagnose how this water is getting in. The biggest fear is that there is a proble with the centreboard casing which Ben fixed. If it fails again, it is very unlikely that we will be able to claim this on insurance.

It could be either very expensive, and very time-consuming.

Follow this blog, as the story unfolds.

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