Good French services for our French boat keeping us in Noumea

From previous experience in French islands we suspected we could get several of Zenitude's maintenance jobs done here, we must say, cheaper and better than in Australia. Because Zenitude is a catamaran and she is French, it is easy to find parts and expertise in French territory. When we got an excellent recommendation for Incidences Voilerie, the maker of our sails, we immediately contacted them to have a look at our main sail. The sail now is back and repaired, the bad news is that after 10 years of sailing the material is worn and it may not survive another year. We are now waiting for a quote on a new sail. We found Helene Corr, the representative of Incidences here in Noumea very professional and reliable and her services reasonable priced.

When we removed the main sail it became obvious a little rigging issue, so next thing was to get advice from a rigger. We contacted Georges Auteret. He is pretty famous around here. Everybody knows him and everybody says he is the best. We've been dealing with riggers before in the US and in Australia and this is the first time we find somebody that really understands the particulars of catamaran's rigging. He did a full inspection and found our rigging still in good condition, however being 10 years old is reaching the age for changing. It will have to be changed sometime in the next couple of years so we asked for a quote considering that this may be a good opportunity to do it. Georges comes with lots of recommendations and the quote was very reasonable, so we decided to do it here and now.

Georges up the mast checking the rigging

Georges at work

Conferencing ....

Meanwhile,Zeni the dinghy, is also getting a face lift. We ordered a custom cover from another excellent guy that does canvas work and quoted almost half of the price asked in Australia. He found that poor Zeni had the bottom quite damaged and started to get osmosis, meaning water is getting inside the fiber. The damage comes from our many landings on beautiful white sanded beaches, carrying poor dinghy on the sand. The canvas guy recommended a friend that did a very good job, again, at a very good price.

All this means we are still at Port Moselle marina. The weather has become ugly this week so we are happy here doing all these works while the wind blows at 25 kn. at times inside the bay. It's been reported very high winds out there at sea. We are hoping by Friday all work will be finished and we can start getting ready to leave, probably on Monday when the weather improves.   

G. and O.