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Free & BrEasy - Fiji A Tale of Two Shrouds



Here we are still in Vuda Marina in Fiji. New shrouds have been fitted but there are problems - more about that later! The Marina is the nearest thing to a resort hotel that can be imagined. There is a pool to chill by, bars to drink in, restaurants to eat in, live music to listen to, and of course world cup matches to watch. Added to that Tuesday is half price pizza night and Thirsty Thursday is half price happy hour. The Wifi is cheap and works (most of the time) so that we can Skype partners. There is even a nearby railway track for the daily jog. The track is only used for part of the year to transport sugar cane to the sugar factory and luckily the season has not started. You could not find a better place to relax. Michael has been gobbling up books and jogging while Alejandro has an inexhaustible supply of films and TV serials to watch.

Unfortunately, the burden of command had been on Rogers shoulders! It started of with a bout of food poisoning which laid Roger low for a few days. The calamari was suspected! Even Alejandro's stout Lanzarotian constitution, wobbled for a day. Then came doubts about the new rigging which had by now been fitted. Fellow sailors stop by Free & BrEasy, crane their necks to look aloft at the shroud mast fittings, give a sharp intake of breadth, shake their heads and mutter "I don't like the look of that!" The Tale of Two Shrouds started with a decision whether the mast fittings should be T-bars or Lollipops! The T-bars were rejected since the old shrouds used Lollipop fittings. These took a few days to come as every fitting has to flown in from New Zealand. Then, when the shrouds were attached to the mast and the temporary ropes removed, the Lollipop fittings did not look right and appeared to have been bent differently on the two sides of the mast. Sure enough the fittings had been bent by Bruce, the rigger, but why? Added to that is the concern that bending the fitting might introduce a weakness in the metal.

Enter Cass and Jim into the Tale. While Roger was lying in his sick lounge on the poop-deck (not literally!) an identical Manta 40 catamaran hove into view in the Marina, waving a Canadian flag. Cass and Jim expertly moored their boat (Somerset 33) near ours and they were soon aboard chatting about their extended South Pacific cruising and comparing notes on sailing techniques and equipment on the two Manta 40s. It was like two goslings that have been raised by ducks, suddenly meeting and realising they looked alike and were really geese! When we started our Tale of Two Shrouds, they told us that a Manta 40 had just lost her mast sailing from the Galapagos, due to a Lollipop failure. When Cass and Jim rerigged, they eschewed the crimped on swage fittings in favour of mechanical fittings and were sure our swaged on fittings did not look right. A flurry of emails to the Manta owners club confirmed that bending the fittings was likely to increase the risk of failure. Roger discussed all this with Bruce who said the New Zealand supplier, disagreed! Roger is currently in contact with the Lollipop manufacturer's to see who is correct. Added to this we have doubts about the quality of the new swaged on fittings. A nightmare! We don't want to be in a gale in the Indian Ocean worrying if our mast will stay upright!

We need to have all this sorted out before the next World ARC rendezvous at Musket Cove in a nearby island. Meanwhile we spend our time in the resort watching the football, jogging, eating, drinking and watching the beautiful sunsets. Dickens said it all "It is a far far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever Known!"


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