The first job this morning was to fit the new Gipsy to the anchor winch. The lite rain didn’t help but it went on easy. We had just got everything ready for starting the hydraulic steering when Greg and his daughter Elo arrive to help. I checked the piping was connected as per the instructions and started to fill the system. B turned the the helm to port as Greg poured the hydraulic fluid into the helm. I was in the back releasing the bleed nipples. The port one was open but nothing happening? So I closed it and opened the starboard one. Big mistake. The fluid was under pressure, resulting in me getting a shower of fluid.
We stopped and checked. There was a misprint in the diagram. So I swapped the port and starboard pipes over and we started again. After filling the system and fixing a couple of joint that leaked under pressure we had steering.
Next we set up the Rockner Anchor on the new chain and Gipsy so it could easily be deployed. Then B drove Imagine forward while Greg and I manually pulled up the rope holding temporary anchor we had been using. Once up we headed out into the bay to do a few maneuvers to make sure the steering was working.
We then returned to our place of anchor and was able to use the winch to deploy the anchor with the new chain.
B and I spent the rest of the afternoon tidy up tools , cleaning the mess everywhere, reconnecting everything … A lot to do still before the arrival of some new crew this week but we are looking forward to it so we can stop working and get some sailing holiday.
Sorry no photos we were too busy.