Yesterday I went up the mast to fix the deck light before leaving and spent almost 4 hours up there with a soldering iron in what felt like 30 knots of wind only to come down with the dam thing still not working. During the 4 hours I broke the plastic case holding the steaming light in place, broke the connection for the steaming light, briefly managed to get the deck light to work, repaired the plastic case for the steaming light, finally re-soldered the steaming light connection and gave up on the deck light because every time I attempted to re-solder its connection I broke the solder connection to the steaming light. A good hour or more was also spent shouting back and forth to Mick down below as he tried to figure out what wire did what by switching the lights on and off whilst I measured the voltage and resistance between the connections. The design of the unit was certainly not made with repairs in mind on a windy day 15 feet above the deck. Three small pins sticking through plastic onto which the wires had to be soldered were more like a device of torture for the hapless sailor....
Anyway by the time I had finished wasting the entire morning I was in no mood to go sailing so we put of departure once again until today.
The above was written after we got up. In theory all we have to do now is breakfast, download the latest weather forecast, top up with water and fuel and go. I estimate we should be departing around 1100 GMT. Check the tracker later to find out!
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