2022 St Kilda, statistics, 10,000 solo miles, gear problems. etc.

Statistics:

This is the last post of a thread, to start at the beginning, click here.

I didn't make it to St Kilda and looking at the weather in May and early June I made the right decision to give up when I did, although doing so a couple of weeks earlier would have in retrospect been a better decision. 

During the trip I passed 10,000 solo natical miles in Sancerre in less than 5 seasons, I'm not sure what the total will be for the year, probably less than last year despite more days, but on this cruise I:

• Travelled 1,774 nautical miles
• Sailed on 44 days out of 86, a disappointing ratio.
• Stopped at 37 different anchorages, moorings or marinas, some more than once.
• Spend 398 hours at sea, averaging just over 9 hours and 40 miles per day.

Gear Problems:

Generally, for the distance sailed and the time taken, I had few problems but a couple were fairly consequential although cheap to fix and a third was precautionary costing a bit more.

Wind generator fixed 21st June. 15 minutes
to replace the brushes and the best part of an
hour to remount with the help of a ladder
which attracted some quizzical looks when
being transported on the dinghy.

Wind Generator: a slip ring brush broke in difficult seas off of Milford Haven. The engine and solar kept me going but with extended periods of no sun (and lots of wind with which the generator would easily have kept the batteries topped up) the service/domestic batteries did go down more than usual but with lots of capacity not below about 60% charged. Not expensive to fix (less than £30 incl postage) but getting the repaired unit back into position single handed is always going to be a challenge.

Engine Water Leak: In the end I fixed this at no cost but it did cost me a day in Bangor trying to find replacement hose before shortening the damaged ones and moving the anti-syphon valve. 

When cleaning up the engine I found some minor rubs on an inlet hose so replacing the water hoses is now on the "to do" list, again not expensive with hose at £6.48 / metre, new stainless clips were rather more in total cost at £2.67 each. More time consuming was getting rid of all the salt on and around the engine and repainting where the salt had removed the existing paint.

Update: This turned out to be very expensive, when I started to change the inlet hose the inlet seacock failed threatening to sink the boat, I suppose it was good that it failed on the mooring and I was able to recover the situation, rather than at sea but at the time it was rather stressful, this and some knock-on problems are described from here.

The two original issues are covered in more detail in a single post here.

Engine Starter Motor: A slightly dodgy starter solenoid would probably have been OK but I did not want to risk it at the start of a long trip so whilst weather bound at Newlyn I changed the starter motor and solenoid which made more sense than changing just the solenoid.

Wind Instrument Plug and Socket: Leaking and causing a poor connection, it was fine from Newlyn outbound but will need replacement and will cost twice as much as fixing the wind generator!

That's it!