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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

More T-Top Problems ! ! ! London Or Bust ! ! !

Ralph via SAT phone (transcribed)
London or bust! Those were the words I was saying to myself, London tomorrow at 11 AM or bust, when suddenly I looked down and BAM, BAM! Two more poles on the t-top busted in half. We will get pictures of that up on the internet before too long. Bob wrapped them in tape and then clamped a couple of wrenches around them and off we are away!
Now we are at Wells trying to get gas so we can be on time tomorrow at 11 AM in London coming up the Thames. Bye

1 comment:

  1. The history of our T-top from what Bob Brown knows.

    We used the same T-top 2 years ago when we went to Bermuda from North Carolina and then back to New York. 1547 recorded miles, sometimes through up to 9 foot waves and 35 mph winds. No problems

    This trip, we have gone over 7,000 miles and had huge waves break over the boat. The constant pounding and jumping of waves have serverly damaged the T-top. In Canada, we noticed some small cracks going halfway around four of the poles. We braced them with scrap metal donated to us. We glued (with shoe goop) and screwed the metal to the aluminum spanning atleast 5 inches on both sides of the crack. This appeared to work pretty good.

    Miles later, we have had to patch most of the poles as they had appeared. Some had spread open an eigth of an inch, completely seperated apart. This time we used knives donated to us from our hotel. We attached three knives when possible to the pole by a ton of duck tape. Afterwards, we used wireties, two on each side of the break.

    More cracks and this time, we had to use what was availible at the time. Ralph donated his wrenches out of our too box. More cracks developed soon after and we patched with just duck tape, We had nothing else. We also added some rope at the four corners to keep the T-top from moving as much.

    More seperations, now all the poles are cracked completely in two and some in more than one place. This repairs were now completed with strips of oak a quarter of an inch thick and about 1.5 inches wide. The top is still wiggling at odd angles and we both cring everytime we hit a wave hard and especially when we go airbourne. I find myself not even thinking of personal injury from the trip, just concerned about the top. The North Atlantic wants it bad, a toll. The North Atlantic is now teamed up with the North Sea and they both want the top. We added more ropes and tomorrow we will add more again.

    Bob Brown

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