500 miles... new Gennaker... repaired bilge pump...

4 nautical miles

We had hoped to try our new gennaker yesterday, but what with moving berths there was too much on for us to get the time to attach the new gennaker which we got from Crusader Sails to the Magic Furl. So, first thing this morning we attached one end of the magic furl to the railing on Tim's balcony and then stretched it out right across his flat (it's a big flat) and with Tim tensioning it and Erika winding and me making sure it wound correctly we wound it onto the magic furl.

So what are the differences between a gennaker and an asymmetric spinnaker? Wikipedia comes to the rescue...

The differences that distinguish a gennaker from an asymmetric spinnaker are blurry; they are both high camber downwind sails. One difference is the amount of camber, which dictates the points of sail. A gennaker is optimal for a beam reach, while an asymmetric spinnaker is optimal for a broad reach or run.

So then down to King Malu and try it out this morning while the winds were low. But before that I went up the mast to fix some new spreader protectors over the ends of the main spreaders. The last thing we want to do is to damage this brand new sail!

We went out and tried unfurling and re-furling - it did much better than the old asymmetric we used to have, partly this is because it was cut to work with magic furl and partly because the old asymmetric was actually a cut down full spinnaker and partly because it is a brand new sail. Anyway we were very pleased with it. The shape is better, and it pulled better in 6-7 knots of wind we were getting more than 4 knots SOG with only the gennaker up.

We did try the genoa with it briefly but need to work out the lines better to try it again in the future. Yes, Malu Marine is the name to watch. It's the name of the company Tim and I have formed to supply specialist sailing equipment that is currently unavailable in Cyprus.

When we got back to the marina Tim berthed the yacht as he wanted to try in the new mooring. He took it about 1 knot faster than I do into the marina and round into the main waterway. With the extra turn before the new mooring we slowed down well on that, so I will do his speed rather than mine in the future. The old mooring had only two turns to slow with, the new mooring has five turns to slow, so we can come in slightly quicker, like many of the other boats in the marina. It's just I have this fixation with trying not to hit the floating dock!

We did about 4 nautical miles today which just tipped us over the 500 mark to 502 nautical miles we have sailed in King Malu. We are both becoming much more comfortable with her, so we expect the next 500 to go very much more quickly as we will try some longer trips.

Anyway, we then looked around for a small job to do before lunch and decided the manual bilge pump was to be that job.

The manual bilge pump has been leaking ever since we had the boat. I don't know if it was original or had been replaced, but the pump housing which takes the inspection hatch moved whenever you pumped it which in turn moved the inspection hatch which then leaked water into the engine room. Not a good idea!

We had tried replacing the inspection hatch but that didn't help at all.

About a year ago we had bought a new Henderson/Lavac Mark V pump for the for'ard heads since that had been leaking and we thought best to just replace the whole unit. But... although it claimed to be a Henderson/Lavac Mark V it wasn't the same size and the pump wouldn't fit. However, the inspection hatch did, so we replaced that from the new unit and the old one stopped leaking. Hence we now had a new Henderson Mark V pump with an old inspection hatch.

The Mark V bilge pump appeared well and truly fitted to the bulkhead so the thought of changing the whole thing was somewhat daunting. So what we did was replace the front housing from the old one that moved when we pumped with the front housing from the new one. This worked wonderfully... no more water in the engine room!

The 'new' Henderson Mark V pump we are still keeping as parts, though less than 50% is now new.