Sunday 22nd – Marina Rubicon – Spifurl fettling

After a busy day’s sailing and entertaining on Saturday, Kevin and I were kept fairly busy just washing the boat down and catching up on some paperwork from home following the arrival of a pile of post from my parents. Kevin has also been determined to conquer the Spifurl (additional large head/front sail designed for light downwind sailing which will be the predominant condition on our route – hopefully) since our previous attempts to furl have been rather hit and miss. We had a demonstration when we handed the boat over from FP in La Rochelle, but even Romain who performed it seemed to struggle, also curiously he did not use have of the deck gear that been fitted as part of this rather expensive option. Fitted as part of the Spifurl:
• Bowsprit - used
• Wychard Eye - used
• 2 Jammer’s - unused
• Winch on Mast - unused
• Winch on port aft quarter - unused
• Spirfurl sail & furling drums – used
• Continuous furling line - used

We think that basically they fitted the equipment used for the gennaker (slightly different design of headsail) which was the preceding optional extra then just swapped the sail even though it has a completely different furling system and therefore presumably required different deck fittings. Therefore, Kevin has been researching on the Fancor website who make the furling system, plus also checking with other people we know who have them to understand the problem we have been having. Things we have found out so far:
• You need to turn downwind to furl
• The main needs to be used to shadow the sail to depower (we had just tried the genoa which was less effective)
• The continuous furling line was incorrectly threaded on the furling drum
• The line is not continuous, but has to ends with a spliced eye lashed together that catches in the drum
• The continuous furling line need to be kept under tension, the Fancor website advocates leading back to the helm via 3 blocks, using a winch plus a bungee to tension
• The Wychard eye bolt was inexplicably mounted on the side of the bowsprit instead of the top which seems to encourage jamming of the furling drum line as it doesn’t run horizontally but at an angle
• The sail needs to be hoisted as high as possible with as much tension on the halyard as possible to avoid chafe on the guard wires.

Therefore, Kevin has removed the superfluous jammer to keep as a spare and repositioned the Eye bolt on the top of the bowsprit. He was keen to pick up an additional block and pad eye from a chandlers to see whether just leading the furling line through the furler consistently via a block and via the top rather than the side of the bowsprit would be enough to before spending the additional money for more kit to lead it back to the cockpit.

My parents popped over early afternoon for a quick hello to see what we were up to and make some plans for the evening. Kevin and Dad popped to the chandlery in Rubicon for some filler (they didn’t have the other bits) so Kevin could carry on his work. We agreed with my parents that as we were budgeting we would not join them for dinner but that they would come and join us for a drink on the way out or home.

My dad also mentioned that a friend Bill and his wife Karen who live near their villa in Playa Blanca had asked if they could come over and see our boat. Bill had found our blog on the internet when searching for mentions of Lanzarote and had been following the blog. We were more than happy to have the chance to show off our beloved Invincible and arranged via my Dad that they would come on Monday before their trip to Arrecife, which worked well to pick up the bits for the Spifurl, so they would give us a lift after the tour.

Around 10pm after a failed attempt at a meal on Femes which is one of their favourite restaurants up on the hills overlooking the whole of Playa Blanca (the owners were on holiday), my parents, Angelo & Michelle arrived following a meal in a Spanish restaurant in Playa Blanca. It seems that the hosts had recognised them from the many previous visits to Playa Blanca and had offered them liqueurs, so they were fairly merry from some large servings of Amaretto by the time they joined us!
Kevin and I had been having a fairly quiet evening with some good music and nice home cooked meal.

We served up some Cuban rum & coke and Gin & tonics and beers followed by some wine. We have converted them all to our cruisers choice of cartons of table wine, it is very drinkable and not too strong after a day in the sun and at only ~ 1 Euro a litre it is great for budgeting! It was a great evening, carrying on until about 1am, putting the world to rights etc in the way you can do only after suitable alcohol is consumed.