Our Lisbon days are almost at an end now as a weather window appears to be opening to let us sail south again. We've had some lovely lazy days in Lisbon enjoying the en suit swimming pool, the local beach & a few days of seeing the sights in Lisbon central. Audrey has been in her element at the pool & beach befriending everybody & anybody in her path, and the locals have been super friendly to her advances, taking delight at having this crazy blond haired little girl play with them; And Bertie has as always signaled his approval with his big smiles & laughs. We've enjoyed the custard tarts too much, the very cool yellow trams, and i've managed to somehow to give up smoking cigarettes and have a humador full of Cuba cigars instead.... The southern life style is certainly very pleasing, as the sun tans take hold & the pace of life slows, we have enjoyed our short but very aimable stay in Lisbon. To those who might follow in our path, we highly recommend the Oeiras Marina with their wonderfully friendly & helpful staff, and the free bread deliveries in the morning will be missed for sure as well as the cheap cheap laundry too.
Its not been all lazing around, we have been busy too, but at slower pace, and in between all the relaxing we were able to get a surprising amount of small boat jobs completed. The Autohelm arm was re-drilled by a local mechanic and new 12mm bolts, rather than 10mm ones now added. This has now been remounted & the hydrolic ram & rudder reference re-attached. We now need to re-calibrate when we set off tomorrow to make sure all is working well.
Its not been all lazing around, we have been busy too, but at slower pace, and in between all the relaxing we were able to get a surprising amount of small boat jobs completed. The Autohelm arm was re-drilled by a local mechanic and new 12mm bolts, rather than 10mm ones now added. This has now been remounted & the hydrolic ram & rudder reference re-attached. We now need to re-calibrate when we set off tomorrow to make sure all is working well.
Our Staysail also arrived from Saunders sails in Lymington, (thanks for the tip Matt) and we've had fun hoisting it in the marina. Looks great, cant wait to use in anger on our run down to the Algave...
Ive also made it a mission of mine to get the old Tinker Tramp to Australia..... Unfortunately two of her boards have already cracked, one in Dartmouth & one in the Ria. We had talked about buying a new tender, but i couldn't part with our super sailing tender without at least a try to save her. I managed to seal the cracks & the bolt two pieces of ply to either side. I then sealed the edges inside & out and added an epoxy cover coat. So far it seems to work and she is staying dry, and still folds.
I was also able to repair most if not all the teak deck screw dowels which were missing, although a few did elude me on closer final inspection. Hopefully this will go some why to stopping some of the minor leaks.
We were able to get our cockpit sunshade re stitched, Berties lee cloth also reinforced (mainly due to Audrey swinging from it!) & a bridal for the outboard also made from a sail tie, all for the very reasonable price of 60 euros. The diesel tank leak will have to be managed until Sicily, when we can pull them out over the winter, and run some pressure tests on them to see if the seals have gone.