In case we needed the reminder this week (we didn’t), cruising isn’t all sundowners, shiny new places and triumphant cape roundings. Maintenance on an actively-cruised boat is a never-ending process. This includes the management of spares and making sure you have what you need aboard when you have the chance to buy it. Generally, during our summers spent on Lake Ontario, maintenance was a start-of-the-season and end-of-summer proposition. Occasionally, other problems cropped up mid-season and were swiftly dealt with thanks to the easy access to parts. But with this boat, as we live full-time and sail about 10,000 miles a year, maintenance and repairs are constant. From toilet motors failing to fresh water strainers needing replacement to more serious things like the generator starter motor acting up, it’s like playing whack-a-mole with a limited toolbox of solutions and spares.

Our time in South Africa has been amazing, but also marked by lots of boat work—both preventative and necessary. One of the advantages of being where our boat was built is that we’re able to get many of the small parts and pieces we have had a hard time finding anywhere else, including a new gasket for our freezer, cabinet hinges, latches for lazarets, and matching gelcoat. Last week, Sparcraft, the South African manufacturer of our rig, came to do a rig check. In addition to bringing spares, they replaced the gooseneck on our boom, answered specific questions we’ve had over the last two years, tuned the rig, and gave us reassurance that the rest of the rig is in great shape and ready for the upcoming miles across the Atlantic. This week, we’re going through our disposable spares and getting more of the basics like oil and fuel filters.

We also took advantage of the prices and availability of products to regalvanize our anchor, buy new anchor chain, and replace the very worn chainwheel of our windlass. What had been fine when we left SE Asia, started becoming an issue in Mauritius and a real problem in Madagascar. Every time we pulled up the anchor, the skipping of the chain got worse. It was a real relief to smoothly bring up the new chain on the new chainwheel, watching each link lying snuggly in its spot.

We last hauled out in Malaysia in March, prior to our Indian Ocean crossing. We had hoped to avoid hauling out again until we got to the Caribbean—unfortunately, that will not be the case. We’ve had several small issues crop up, including areas where our new bottom paint has worn away faster than expected by a too-loose strap and waterline vinyl tape that has torn and is allowing patches of growth. While disappointing, we wouldn’t haul for these yet. However, when we checked our sail drive oil after this trip to Cape Town (something we do after every passage), one of the sail drives had the dreaded distinctly milky oil—meaning water is somehow getting in. We’ve never had this problem before and had changed the oil in both sail drives less than a month ago. This tipped the scales to the necessity of hauling again. We hope seal replacement will solve the problem. Since we’re hauling, we’ll also tackle the waterline and paint at the same time. Then, after a hopefully short time on the hard, we’ll be on our way again—shiny, clean, fixed and ready for the next thing to break!