2009-06-17
(Pictures from Telefonica Blue Team page and private pictures from TBB)
After three very intense days, Telefonica Blue is on her way to Stockholm.
We got a call on sunday evening: "Telefonica Blue will need some repairs, can you assist their boatbilders with more manpower, tools and material?"
Of course the answer was "Yes".
From monday morning until wednesday lunchtime, five of us worked closely with the Telefonica Blue boatbuilders to get her ready for launch as soon as possible. She needed to be in Stockholm in good time before the In-port race on sunday.
The first thing to do was to get all tools in place: Electricity, heat, electrical cords, hoses, pipes, scaffold etc.
Next focus was to locate a supplier that could help get the correct material and to do the milling to replace
damaged parts in the daggerboard case. Short notice but with good help from various connections the first parts was mounted already on tuesday evening. Many thanks to Semcon for their quick respons!
The Telefonica Blue crew had their hands full fixing the damage done to the hull and interior by the daggerboard.
The main focus for our guys became the bulb and the rodder.
To mend the rodder in a way that it could work as an emergency solution if the spare didn't arrive from in time for the launch.
The bulb was a whole different challenge.
The easy part was to clean it from grovel and dirt. The tricky part was to straighten the bulb. Big hammers, manpower and a Volvo Digger...... and it still didn't move enough.
As described by Gabri Olivo -Media Crew Member - "The best solution was to warm the aft end of the bulb up to a surface temperature of 150 degrees and we ended up using a lifting beam as Archimedes lever. The beam, that is normally employed to lift small boats out of the water, was lashed down at one end, the fulcrum was on the bulb and at the opposite end there were seven people acting a force of nearly three tons on the bulb.
Few seconds of leverage and job done, the bulb was incredibly straight again. We were all very surprised to see how close to perfection it was."
The bulb then has to be faired, sanded down and painted.
The spare rodder has arrived and is put in place.
Bouwe Bekking and Thore Berntsson inspecting the new rodder.
Finally, everything is ready. Time to launch and leave for Stockholm.
