So I was away for a couple of weeks and its already April! As one can read on my personal blog I was on Lanzarote to do RYA Cruising Instructor courrse. And after I spent some time on Gran Canaria and Tenerife before returning to Holland.

Last weekend I went out for a sail and found out that reef 2 line had a lot of chafe wear. So now I’m and doing some maintenance work on BAIA. Starting with the replacement of that reef 2 line. Quite a simple job if you have some spare flag line laying around.

I have cut out the chafed part so that I can use the old line for whatever I need. A spare line can always come in handy one day.

The warps on BAIA are very thick and of the wrong type so I’ve started replacing them with plain 14mm polyester 3-strand lines. I bought a nice new rope cutter to make smooth cuts and obviously its good to practice my splicing techniques again as it’s been a while.

not my prettiest attempt but it works.

For single handed mooring I have made a small but very specific spring line I can use whenever I have to come in bow-to if the weather doesn’t allow me to go stern-to. In this marina many yachts go bow-to but I like the easy access of stern-to but the slip is very small so with heavy winds or wind from the wrong direction I don’t want to risk any scratches and just go bow-to.

bow-to

One of the benefits of bow to is that I can get the anchor and chain off for marking. So that’s one of the chores I will do this week too as I’d like to know how much chain is out when anchoring.

And when the rain passes (yes its raining now) I’ll start to clean and lube all the blocks and tracks to make sure everything runs smooth. As I want to go out sailing next weekend too.