Dear readers,

Charter sailors can actually stop reading at this point, sit back, relax and toast the fact that their yachts have to be serviced by other poor bastards with a beer at the barbecue. Although this has nothing to do with waiting. Owners are familiar with it, charter sailors perhaps not: you put your boat into winter storage in autumn. Everything on board is working perfectly, then the next season starts - and suddenly a part that never worked before refuses to work.

For me it was the GPS. In autumn: Smoothest data stream, positions, speed, everything available in abundance, friendly "chatting" with the other on-board devices. So everything works, as the older generation would say. Then in spring: - - - "No signal" for all data. Restart, aerial still there, cable too. Plug connection still neatly wrapped in shrink tubing in an almost obscenely tight vacuum.

Have Putin's troll hordes hacked the free world's GPS signal? There is a brief glimmer of hope, but no, the smartphone knows where it is. Sigh. It's better for world peace in the distant future. Of course, the stupid plug is at the very back of the stern, close to the rudder, where you can only reach it by crawling on your stomach with a head torch. Dear boat builders, why does it always have to be in such places?

Plug exposed. Shrink tubing around it, bone dry. No tarnishing, discolouration or anything else to be seen. Took apart, scrubbed here, scrubbed there, reassembled: Works again. It's milking mice. Does corrosion only exist on an atomic level?

Last year it was the wind indicator: after two months it was only willing to do its job up to about 10 knots of wind, then not at all. Or the engine: cleanly winterised, bilge almost clinical, next spring: a small puddle of yellow coolant, just big enough that you don't want to dismiss it as harmless incontinence and simply wipe it away. Sigh.

A quick round of questions from the editorial team reveals some interesting facts. Many people are familiar with the phenomenon: Logs, echo sounder, faeces tank, suddenly rattling winches, radio systems - the range of similar troll attacks is frightening.

It's also funny that this often has an impact on the stock of spare parts on board: For example, a colleague learnt this way that he has a lot more fuses on board than he thought. Or have you ever seen the small fuses that are installed in your on-board electronics? Only bloody greenhorns think that the fuse is on the switch panel. Of course, the ones you need are not available from the supplier or DIY store in Sweden, Croatia or anywhere else in the world. Not to mention those on Mediterranean islands with a dwindling population.

After a stormy squall, two of our mast slides broke. There were three chandlers in the next three harbours, all of them had mast slides - just never the right one. It's hard to imagine how many variants there are. And we thought that an EU-standardised charging cable for all smartphones would be enough of a need for action!

As a result, I now have a colourful range of replacement-like slides on board that I hoped I would be able to use somehow - plus two new matching ones that were ordered over the winter. I had to laugh when I asked neighbours on the jetty in search of replacement slides. Two of them also presented me with about six different ones: From the old ship, rescued from a sail found in the rubbish, everyone had their own story to tell. On the plus side, there was a lot of laughter and then beer in the cockpit. At least I'm not alone.

Then I asked my Test & Technik colleagues and a few experts. The sobering conclusion: "You do realise that 'waiting' doesn't come from 'waiting until it breaks', but from 'regular maintenance'?" There are times when being the charter & travel uncle of YACHT simply makes you feel small and miserable.

But then came a good tip, at least in terms of the wind indicator in the masthead. Do I store the top unit at home in winter? Yes, I do. "Then it's probably because it's no longer completely sealed against water, it dries out in winter and works perfectly. During the season, the water slowly makes its way back in." Wow, you have to come up with that first.

Honestly, I'm going to seal that thing like nothing else. If it works for the whole season afterwards, my colleague will be elevated to technology god status and I'll bring back a bottle of good Italian white wine from my Mediterranean cruises every year as homage!

Andreas Fritsch,

YACHT editor

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