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01/02/26 Sun. Yesterday we collected John's helm seat for recovering, stripping it down to the framework. Today, Ana is starting the recover fitting.
03/02/26 Tues. Took John's helm seat back, all recovered now in blue and white simulated leather.
15/02/26 Sun. Stripped the toilet pump out and dismantled it, found the diaphragm had a small split. Fortunately, I had a couple of spares so I cleaned it all up and fitted the new one and with Ana's help refitted the pump in the heads cupboard - all good now.
17/02/26 Tues. A few weeks back, we inherited a Chinese clone of the Sailrite sewing machine. It takes up too much space for us to keep so it is going to be sent to Ana's home in Manila. Sadly, the previous owner took off the motor to put on his Sailrite machine to make it 220v instead of 110v, so now we've had to find and order a 220v motor to replace it. That came today, so we can install that and get the machine sent to Manila as soon as.
18/03/26 Weds. I'm tired of companies buying out other companies and producing the same things but inferior quality. This has come about because of our recent toilet troubles. The boat has a Lavac toilet, in my view the best type as the Blakes variety invariably leak. Lavac originally produced two types of toilet, the Lavac Popular and the Lavac Zenith. For clarity, these toilets work on a vacuum principle, the seat and lid both have ru bber seals which form an air tight seal with the bowl when down, the pump then creates a vacuum which sucks in sea water on the upward stroke and pumps everything out on the downward stroke. OK, now we have the Zenith model, the Popular model is smaller and more economically made by cutting corners in production. The Zenith is now no longer made and spares are no longer available, so any future problems I have will result in a complete replacement of the entire unit. Zenith lid and seat seals are no longer available and the Popular ones will not fit. Now, the pump is another story, originally I had a Henderson Mk5 sanitary pump, they were taken over by Whale, so now we have the Whale Mk5 pump which is nowhere near as good a quality - all so that manufacturers can cut production costs and force buyers to buy new units. Rant over! Oh, and one other thing, I did a long search for a new Whale Mk5 pump online, most suppliers will not ship to Asia but I found one that would, the pump costs £87 but the shipping is £120 which I refuse to pay. This is a fairly light plastic construction in a box measuring about 10 inches square and weighing around 3 lbs.
23/02/26 Mon. We took oiur genoa sail and the Sailrite machine over to the seaplane hangar this afternoon for replacement of the UV strip, it's going to be a fairly long job to do this as the old UV strip (Weathermax 90) has to be removed first - a lot of stitch unpicking!
25/02/26 Weds. Couldn't get into the hangar today as the ground crew were having a rest day after working all night.
28/02/26 Sat. All but finished our genoa sail by the end of the day but too tired to bring the machine back to the boat. Also had a look at John's genoa, which has a couple of tears in it but I noticed it's the wrong type of sail for the boat, so no point in repairing that one.
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