On the dry for longer...

It feels a bit like two years ago when we had been stranded in this shipyard for several months. Hope it will not be that long again, but it seems clear today that we will most likely not get back in the water before we fly back home on Mai 10th. Maybe by end of May, when we really want to take off towards Madeira and the Canaries Taniwani will be ready again.

What happened?

Well, the known problem with the bow thruster turned out to be worn out bezel gears in the foot. Sopromar could even locate the spare part (the whole foot section), but the ordering process is not clear yet, as the maker company MaxPower was taken over by Plastimo some time ago and now Plastimo became part of the Navico group and logistics are all unclear. Still, there is hope the part will be here in a week or so.

The next part is the cutlass bearing that we really needed to replace after 3400 hours. The old one is out and the new one supposed to be here by Wednesday May 4.

The real problem, and a big surprise in addition is the rudder. The folks who were cleaning the boat, prparing it for fresh anti-fouling paint found a crack on the front edge of the rudder, usually well hidden behind the skeg. It must have been there for some time, as it has been painted over at the last anti fouling job. Strangely the fibre-glass still sits snug on the shaft, almost as if the fibre-glass cover has shrunk. The opposite however is more likely: The expert at Najad thinks that rudder shaft has grown due to some unexplainable corrosion.

We will soon know what it is when we open the rudder, it is already free, but we need the travel-lift to lift the boat a bit to get it out. Hopefully this will happen on Monday and then we need to see if we can repair it or if a new rudder is needed. All this will of course take time.

In the mean time we are enjoying the rain in Lagos....