Hi Barry,

I was told by Anthony (the French guy who fixed in NOUMEA) that it was caused by UV rays.

My boat had been laying idle on a mooring in NEW CALEDONIA for nearly 20 months and before that buried in a dirt-pit in FIJI for close to, at least, 8 months.

So in nearly 30 to 34 months she only sailed 10 days or so from FIJI to NEW CAL and the rest of the time stationary buried in a dirt pit (FIJI) and on a mooring in NEW CAL.

Just sitting in the sun without much different angles for 28/30 months is not good – I understand this also caused or at least exacerbated the delamination of ALL the brand-new QUANTUM carbon fiber sails.

Especially the 2 “vertical” hatches in the aft Master cabin were bad and I slept several nights on a soaking wet mattress. But the fix by Anthony was surprisingly easy, quick and economical and he told me that the special “high UV resistant sealant” was perfect and there should be no problem at all; and IF it happened again to repeat the procedure. I had him check & fix all other seals on every porthole on the boat in Q 1 2018 and never a leak again and it still looks great.

But pls realize he didn’t paste over the existing seal: he completely removed with a pen knife that part of the existing LEWMAR seal and then resealed with the black UV high resistant sealant and cut away the excess sealant when dry.

Another problem I had, and posted on this forum, that most of my OEM interior screens were in bad shape. When I ordered new ones (in NEW ZEALAND) and they arrived I optimistically removed all the old OEM screens and gave them away only to find out 2 or 3 days later that the new (LEWMAR) screens didn’t fit at all. Massive, massive headache as NEW ZEALAND sent new (OCEANAIR) screens and they also didn’t fit. Talking to LEWMAR USA directly didn’t help; AMEL SAV told me the screens were OCEANAIR; OCEANAIR was sold to DOMETIC etc. etc. Talking directly to DOMETIC didn’t help so, extremely frustrated, I gave up and had 7 external mosquito covers made while massively regretting that I had given away the OEM screens as it didn’t look good inside the boat.

Then in THE BOAT WORKS YARD in COOMERA (FANTASTIC place; expensive but, boy, all marine expertise concentrated on 50 acres) in December  2019 they told me they could fix it by using the replacement screens I had left in NEW CAL.

This replacement exercise started Q1 2018 in NEW CAL and it was just solved & fixed Q1 2020 by hatch specialists in THE BOAT WORKS YARD.

BTW this was when I had my first negative “YACHT IN TRANSIT” into AUSTRALIA experience when the hatch screens were re-shipped from NEW CAL to COOMERA and you helped me to connect to Bob WALLACE 😊)

Best Regards Teun

SV AMELIT  A54  #128

In hard storage in COOMERA (near BRISBANE) QLD AUSTRALIA

April 26, 2020 14:18:07

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AUSTRALIA cell: +61 5951 8909

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