Repairs

The time has come again, Mabul is spending a few days on the hard in Panamarina so that I can replace the shaft bearing and rectify the cause. The recently installed rudder bearings are still like new, but the keel-hull joint repair from the last dry dock round didn’t hold. So I pull out my beloved angle grinder again and remove everything I laminated on a few months ago. And this is exactly where the problem lies. I laminated over the keel joint, but that doesn’t make much sense from a sober point of view. The slight movement that is always present here will and has simply sheared off two super-stiff, thin layers of fiberglass laminate. We book a room with air conditioning right next to Mabul, which makes the whole experience much more pleasant. Back in the water, we decide to have a fixed railing welded to Mabul and since the welder is already on board anyway, we could do this and that… And that one as well…

Finally, a weather window opens up that allows us to safely leave the atoll of Cayos Albuquerque without an engine, and we set sail. On the way, we are accompanied by a few birds that are still asleep when we drop anchor at eleven at night. There are lots of boat jobs to do here in Bocas del Toro. The priority is clearly to replace the cutlass bearing and find the cause of the rapid wear and tear. Before we haul out in Almirante, we spend a week close to Bocas and get all the provisions on board Mabul. The long-awaited and well-traveled gennaker has also finally arrived. Many thanks again to Stephan from our sponsor VM Sails! We tow Mabul the last ten miles to the shipyard with our dinghy moored alongside. Once there, the true extent of the damage becomes apparent after a few days. Once again, Alex works like mad for a whole three weeks before Mabul is floating in the water again.