Thyra! 2nd July

There are a couple of jobs I’ve been meaning to get around to, one being the servicing of the two winches right aft, little Lewmar 30s. They are only used for moving the main sheet car which can, generally be done by hand anyway. I’d looked at them before and couldn’t see anything to remove in order to strip them down. Normally there are allen key headed bolts or spring clips which are removed before  the barrel can be removed. I had decided that they must need to be removed from the deck and stripped from underneath.  As I was awake at 0530 I thought I’d have a look at this job. I took the deckhead lining down from the aft cabin which was actually easier than I had expected. The nuts holding the winches down were now visible, 5 each port and starboard and I removed the nuts from both of them. Up on deck I levered the starboard one up from the deck and turning it over……… it was impossible to strip from underneath. Also I had imagined that the bolts must be held solidly in the base but they weren’t, it was obvious that when being installed the bases had been screwed down prior to the winches being assembled.

I wondered whether the self tailing diverter might unscrew but to put any force on it the winch needed to be held solidly and as I’d not disturbed the port one I put the nuts back on the port one from down below and tried thumping it with a hammer. No joy and as I wasn’t convinced that this was the key to getting into it I didn’t want to risk damaging it. At this point I just wanted to put it all back together and leave it for another day but trying to get the bolts back down the holes on the starboard side proved difficult because as I lowered the winch the bolts went up inside the base  of the winch. In any event after much mucking about with long nosed pliers and self gripping pliers, (when the whole bolt was turning as I tried to do up the nut) I eventually got back to a position  where things were only marginally worse than they had been when I started. (They had been assembled with sikaflex to keep them water tight and there was no way I could try to get any with the winch assembled. Frustrating. I’ve emailed the helpdesk at Lewmar for help but suspect I’ve tried this before but had no luck.

I went to the supermarket and bought a plain and chocolate croissant for breakfast which I had with coffee and marmalade.

  I went on my scooter  mid morning when I thought something might be happening at the Viking festival site. It wasn’t but I could see that the main event was at 8 in the evening. I had tried, and tried again to find on the internet what was happening and when but couldn’t. The web stuff was all in Danish but I could translate this but still not find times. It turned out that they were putting in times in two digits which I was reading as dates rather than times. Ie, 20 was meant to be read as 2000, so I was being stupid.

I walked around the town and bought some mugs from a charity shop and some bits and pieces (including a new case for my phone so my photo’s may seem better, if I remember to take any).

I wasn’t sure what to do but as I’d come in largely to see the Viking stuff decided I’d stay for it and leave shortly after. I went for a walk and read a bit before heading to Viking venue at about1830 and it was really lively with hundreds of people gathered, wandering and eating. I queued and bought a ticket in the form of a wristband before queueing again for something to eat. I bought what I had thought might be ribs but actually looked like barbecued pork in a large roll with lots of veg, salads and dressing through it. The organisation was impressive, the queue was long and ended at a chap who took the order (choice of about 6 dishes) who shouted out the order and took the money, by the time one wandered along the tables - about 10 yards, to where it was being dished up it was ready. Amazing. It tasted good too. I had been given a precis of what the story to the show was and had read it through a couple of times by the time I’d finished eating. There were to be two acts and 21 scenes in each act. People had been bagsing seats so I bought a coke (I wanted a beer reckoned the risk of needing a pee wasn’t worth taking) and went and found a seat middlish on the end of a row. I was about 40 minutes early and the seating was about half full. The performance area was a glade in the wood with a gentle slope for the auditorium with bench seats (most people had brought cushions). About 4 minutes before the performance was due to start 5 viking horn players appeared astern of us and heralded the start of the performance. It was all very well done, telling a classic (well I presume) story about Danes fighting Christians, intermarrying and  ending up victorious but Christians , there were various scenes where the Norns  and Norse  gods were involved and without my precis I would have had absolutely no idea of what was happening and there were obviously jokes that I was missing because of the language but it was all very well put on the sound, light and effects - mostly flame throwers, were all very good and they pressed on not pausing for claps after each scene which the audience were wanting to chuck in. After an hour and a quarter the first act finished and there was to be a 20 minute pause. I went and got a beer and then it started raining. I could not remember whether I had shut the hatches on the boat, I knew I’d shut the one in the saloon but wasn’t sure about the ones in the aft cabin. As it looked like it wouldn’t finish until about 2230 and I wanted to sail before sleeping I decided to skip the second half and went back to the boat. The hatches were open so it was as well that I did. I prepared to leave, left, without hassle (no wind) and went out to anchor just South of the harbour  which was just opposite the performance and I was able to hear it going on but more particularly heard the finale which was mass singing as everybody prepared to live happily ever after.