One small step for John, one large headache for Javelin!
As you may recall 2.5 months ago whilst helping put away the main sail, John put all of his weight on the companion way hatch and there was a sickening cracking sound followed by the hatch cracking along its length for half a metre. This was the beginning of a saga to test the patient of a saint and the cheque book of an oligarch.
Initially, Peter B and I epoxy glued the hatch back together and retired for the night. On testing its strength the next morning, we broke it again and redid the fix with three important improvements. We roughened the crack, used screw drivers to jamb the edges together and were not so enthusiastic about cleaning excess glue off the join. The next day, I started trying to find a new hatch and after a couple of days found a UK company who would make a custom one. The problem is the hatch has a curve so a flat piece of Perspex will not work. I also went on to the Facebook Sweden Yacht group and somebody passed me the name of a company who are supplying Sweden yacht spares based in Sweden. I contacted Per Johan and received no reply. Sweden all go on holiday for the month of July and responses were slow. Eventually after 2 weeks, in mid July, I received a response, they had a hatch in stock!
The next challenge was where to get it delivered, I decided Largos in Portugal since I planed to be there in 2 weeks time. At this point, Per Johan was on holiday again so Alex took over, however by the time he responded, it was too late for Largos, so I agreed to have delivered to Gibraltar which allowed 3 weeks for a delivery which should take 10 days.
On arriving in Gib, the hatch had not turned up, tracking from Sweden and Gibraltar put it in London where it seemed to have been stuck for 2 weeks. Due to crew illness, we left Gib a week later than planned but the hatch had still not turned up.
I received an email from the marina to say they had a delivery note for the hatch last week and it had to be collected within two weeks or it would be returned to sender.
On Monday, Sue and I hired a car and drove the 220 miles to Gibraltar. We arrived Monday afternoon and picked up the delivery note but the post office was closed for the day. (Summer closing is 2:30). Next morning we picked it up and had to pay import duty because we were no longer transiting via a ship! I did not dare open the package until we got back to Javelin, but was nervous as it felt too wide. I had to buy drill bits to fit the lock and handle. On opening,I found it was the right one and already had predrilled holes. Not so fast, the hatch was too tight in the heat and would not slide in and out. This was also a problem with the old one, but I had emery paper in my boat shed and started to rub it down but soon discovered I needed an electric sander. This morning, I borrowed a sander from the boat yard and set about sanding the edges. The first sander was broken and I borrowed a new one and by lunch time in 35 degrees of heat, I had the new hatch fitted.
The new boat rule is never stand on the hatches unless you are 8 stone! Time for a large cold beer!