And so finally the day has come when we plan to sail. Our plan is to sail to Tuarredda or perhaps CarloForte. While we still had the hire car the previous day, we provisioned for our trip, which made the whole job a lot easier.

So, Arctura readied, we slipped lines at 0953 and motored out of the marina, raising the main by the harbour entrance. We motor sailed for a while before deciding to unfurl the genoa. Nothing happened, no movement of the electric motors that unfurl the sails. So Ed went through the usual checks of checking the circuit breakers, but still nothing. Because some maintenance had been done on the chart plotter, which is where the genoa electric run also, we presumed that something had come loose. So we headed back to Sant’Elmo for diagnosis.

Taking apart the wiring, we check for all possibilities. Finally with the multimeter deployed we decided to check the voltages, but we need a good earth. This was achieved by running a cable from the multimeter, at the stern of Arctura, to the batteries in the fore cabin. It was then that Ed noticed that the circuit breaker had not been reset and that this was the nature of the problem. So with a flick of the breakers and 30 minutes reassembling the cables we were underway again.

A cracking sail to Tuarredda and we arrived just before sunset. It took us a couple attempts to set the anchor, but eventually we were in and holding. A pleasant evening with a sausage pasta care of moi.

We then heard the familiar noise of the bilge pump and upon inspection noticed quite a lot of water in the bilges. Ed went straight for the calorifire and the hot water feed was the nature of the leak. Luckily, Ed had some spare hoses and joints and after four hours of work the leak was solved and we were still afloat ?⛵️

So the day didn’t turn out as planned, but from every situation one learns and adds it to ones wealth of knowledge. That’s sailing for you….