In this episode of Sailing A B Sea we show you how to replace the main sail furling line, including the rookie mistakes we made. There's also some sightseein...

Closed Captions (CC):
I haven't done this before so all cameras

are rolling and we'll see how we go. What

could possibly go wrong?

I hate it when he says that!

Well looking at the wind

production websites today Saturday is

the day we are probably going to get the

least amount of wind and so this is the

day we're gonna take the opportunity to

bring out the mainsail, drop the mainsail

and then get into the furling mechanism

and replace the furling line which is

frayed just like we've replaced the

headsail furling line.

Because we want to

bring the mainsail down as fast as

possible after we've brought it all the

way out because we are still at anchor

here we're gonna prep the main halyard

first so that's just ready to release

let go as quickly as possible. And here

at the mast we've got all our halyards

marked so we know which one we're gonna

release. That's our topping lift, that's

this one, this is our main halyard and

this is our jib halyard or genoa halyard.

As you can see these things don't get

moved that often - once it's up it stays up hopefully

As one of my scuba

instructors used to say to me prior

preparation prevents piss-poor performance. The 5 Ps

We're still very lucky to have

relatively low wind and as you can see

we have brought the mainsail out but the one

thing we forgot to do here at the mast

is to take this access plate off so that

when we drop the main sail we can

actually get it out of the groove.

So now if we look inside here

we can actually see how the bottom of

the mainsail is attached to the furling

mechanism with this shackle.

All right so

we're gonna drop the sail - yep - so you

will be flaking the sail - okay.

So with

the sail now down and flaked across the

boom and tied off at various lengths

just to keep it all nice and tidy.

Now we've got to actually unhook the sail

from the furling mechanism and as you

can see here it's just held on with a

U-bolt, same as it is down at the

bottom, so this is the top and the bottom

one is down there.

The trick is to undo

this without losing anything inside the mast.

It does make a lot of noise but that's

just the mechanism bouncing around

inside the mast without the cushioning effect of sail

Cor *relieved laughing*. Well done Baz.

the screw goes in the other side

Yeah so now when it goes back on

it'll screw in that way and I got more workig space

So what do you have to do

now tell us. So I'm gonna do the same

thing with the U-bolt at the bottom of

the sail and working in there is pretty

tight so we probably won't be able to get my hands, the pliers and the camera in, so I'll get on to it. Okay

Having the sail flaked

over the boom further reduced my access

to the lower U-bolt so we decided to

drop the sail onto the deck which made

life a heck of a lot easier.

We did have a look at online at a youtube video for

how to replace the furling line and even

though they've got the screw inside the

mast like we have that the furling line

wraps around theirs tied onto the screw

totally different as in it went through

the hole, dropped down the bottom, you pull

the bottom out, put a stopper knot in,

pull it back tight, Bob's your uncle.

Ours looks like it's got a screw that

goes through from one side to the other

side of the screwing mechanism (It's very noisy).

If you unscrew the screw far enough there's

enough space to then pull the old line

out, put the new line through and then

screw the screw in, so that's what we're

trying to do at the moment but we're trying

not to lose the screw if we pull out too

far inside the mast. That would be disastrous.

So I've made a slip knot on the end of a piece of

string which I'm gonna feed around the screw head.

So looking inside the mechanism it does

just look like the screw penetrates

through here and locks it into place.

All right well what we're going to do is

we're gonna undo the screw and see what happens. Okay so you need a big screwdriver then. Yeah.

That one over there?

The big flat head yeah

Here it comes. Yay! Hoh-ah-hah! Good thing we had that on there. I'm gonna keep that on there

Yes I'll pull it back tight

Geez that's how much just that little incy

wincy bit there that the screw was into the line.

So on our particular in-mast

furling mechanism that's what happens. This screw...

this line goes through a hole and this

screw comes through a hole at a right angle and

they intersect

and that holds it inside. So what we've got to

do now is just take this back out the

way it comes to here, replace it with the

new line, put the new line through, put

the screw back in and then put

everything back together, put the sail up

and go swimming

yeah I like the swimming bit! I like the swimming bit too.

So I got the new furling line through the hole on the

opposite side of here and it comes out

here and we've burnt the end just

to be sure to be sure and so now we know

that when the screw goes in it's actually

going to be biting right in the middle

of the line that runs through the worm

so I'm quite happy about that in

comparison to what we took out. And there

is the screw hole now all we got to do

is get the screw in and tightened up.

By this point we'd been out in the blazing

Greek Sun for about four hours and we

weren't thinking correctly. We made our

first rookie mistake in that we didn't

wind enough furling line back onto the

worm because as you can see when the

mainsail is fully filled away there are

only four turns around the worm whereas

when the sail is unfurled the furling

line goes all the way up to almost the

top of the worm.

Here's our reaction when we attempt to

furl the sail away and discover that we simply can't

The only way to fix the situation was to

drop the mainsail, detach the sail from

the top and the bottom of the furling

mechanism. Once the sail was detached we

could then spin the filling mechanism by

hand and fully wind up the furling line

into the worm. It sounds simple when you

say it like that but that whole process

took us another 45 minutes in the hot

Greek Sun that's one noob mistake we

definitely won't be making again

One morning in Milos, we walked around

Adamas harbour town

And walked over the hill to Legada Beach

And then made our way back to the port

Another day we took a bus to Triovasalos

After a wonderful lunch with the locals in ...

Triovasalos

See she knows here stuff

I've got a map!

We have got another bus journey which should only take

minutes really to Plaka.

And it seems that

regardless of the distance traveled on the bus

the cost is always the same: one euro 80

per person wherever you get off so if

you go from one end to the other

it's one Euro 80, if you do every stop

it's one Euro 08. It was the same at the other place wasn't it - the other island? And the buses are great

All right let's find out something about

Plaka.

Do you know the only French that I

remember from school? "Vous etes ici" Oh well done. You are here. I am here.

We are here and we're going to go somewhere.

Sand Museum!

Explore the multitude colours and textures of sand from all over the world! Not to be missed!

I think we've found which way to

go - follow the foot walk.

We are foot-walking in Plaka

It might be a foot walk but there are

cars on it too.

One thing we've noticed

as we came on the bus journey was that

there are many people growing their own

veggies in lots of places on the Greek islands

One of the things that Milos is most

famous for is of course the statue of

the Venus de Milos

and you'll find reproduction statues in

a lot of the tourist shops.

One lane in Plaka led to a church with a

breathtaking view of the entrance to Milos Bay

We stopped and had a refreshing drink at

one of the little cafes in Plaka

But we were still looking for the Sand Museum

Oh we've just found Aannsha's house. I didn't

know she owned the property in Milos. And I guess when I come to visit this is where I'll be staying

This little corner of Plaka is where

all the cool cats hang out

Hello cat. Meow. Excuse me

yeah not do not disturb sign hello say

something yeah

That's it is it? Great thanks

Our search through Plaka eventually brought us to

our goal, the Sand Museum

One of the best finds so far in Plaka

has been the Sand Museum.

You wouldn't think that sand would

be so interesting but what this guy does

with sand and making art is just truly

amazing. It's well worth the visit, some

of the stuff here is just oh wow!

And there are sand samples for all of

the world including Queensland, Australia

Africa, France, United Kingdom and Ireland,

America, Oceania

Asia, Spain and Portugal

Italy, the Balkans, northern Central

Europe and this is just scratching the surface

All of this is made with

different types and colours of sand.

Judi this is for you look. Oh Lincolnshire! And Liverpool

These are all sands from ancient sites

Isn't that amazing?

Yeah.

These hour glasses have a magnet in

the base and the sand in here is

actually metal. So next time you go to

the beach take a magnet with you and do this

Or even better come to Milos to the Sand Museum and do it here! Look at that!

Isn't it great? It's amazing

Efcharistó (thanks)

And just like that we're back at Adamas

and ready to get back home

Yep I'm going for a swim when I get back. Me too

Oh we've just had a very interesting email

from Australia.

Oh yeah who from? From a lady

called Courtney from Take 5 magazine.

Take 5 magazine what do they want?

Well she's

found out about our story and she wants

to feature it in the September monthly

edition of Take 5! Wow cool! It's very cool!

There's a contract which she asks us to

read and if we're happy with the

contract then she'll give us a call

to interview us. Sweet. When's she doing that?

She wants to do it in the shortest time

frame possible. If we're happy then she'll

call this in a couple of days

Excellent! Excellent Smithers!!

Hello, yes it is. Hi good

Courtney not too bad at all. Yeah I'll

just put you on speakerphone hang on a

second. Okay go ahead

Hello. Yeah hi. How's that. Yeah perfect can you hear me? Yeah that's good

It's the middle of summer there isn't it?

Yes it is very hot. It was about

thirty four degrees yesterday. Yes bit

like a Queensland summer but with a bit

less humidity

That sounds perfect to be honest. Yeah You guys are from Queensland aren't you?

Yes we are. Where are you from in Queensland?

Beerwah. Oh Beerwah.

Yeah, home of the Crocodile Hunter

Well yes Steve Owen's Australia Zoo was

maybe five minutes away from our house.

Oh amazing! I didn't realise that. It's really cool.

So I guess it might be good to kind of start from kind of the beginning of your journey just to

understand where and how all of this kind of came to be. So how

did this all come to be. What were you guys up to ... the audio speeds up to chipmunk speed...

Join us next week on Sailing A B Sea as we

spend a couple of hours in Milos port

where we top up our water tanks and our

diesel before we sail off north towards Athens

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