Le Quatorze Juillet. Le Jour de Gloire est arrivé!!! An erection without Viagra.

Written by Jack van Ommen on July 14th, 2011

After 12 month in a prone position “Fleetwood” got the stick up.

I had my reservations in this river port. But in the end I have to take my skipper’s cap off to Boyko the marina manager, his assistant and the port crane crew. This was probably the most painless mast stepping I have ever had.

The dock crane looked ancient and I had my reservations but Boyko had this all pre-planned.  He had the boat anchored with a line to the crane quay.

This is the place to do it, the cost was 40 Euroes ( sixty bucks). I spent all morning to get everything prepared after spending most of yesterday on the preparations. Tomorrow I will tune the rig and then I need to be hoisted to the mast head to set the tri-color and Windex. So, I plan to leave after 10 a.m. Catholic mass here on Sunday.

I have had some more suggestions on my shaft log/stuffing box problem on solving it in the water. Today, in the short motoring to the crane, I had left the stuffing box pressure on the packing fairly loose and there was no overheating at all. I am tempted to try changing the packing here here. Because, the boat is not going to sink here in about 6 inches under the keel. But the water here is very murky for me to try and dive to the prop. So, I will try and see if today’s setting of the packing pressure are a permanent solution and sail most of the way further down towards Galati where they have travel lifts.

 

 

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