April-May 2021- Crossing Sicily channel to Trapani for Pius refit

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 The 20th of April 2021 We leave Tunisia 🇹🇳 after 7 month stay full of joy.

The crossing has been pretty fast but not comfortable with a wrong wind force and direction forecast. We had 22kts from 100° of TWA that means 70° AWA !



In Trapani we hauled Pius for a major refit to :
- all seacocks, valves and hoses
- Webasto and Air conditioning systems
- new Plotter touch screen and Sonar device
- new solar panels and regulators
- new life raft Viking


Changing all all seacocks, valves and hoses has been a big job...almost 14 seacocks after 15 yrs were completely corroded, hoses clogged.









For the new seacocks and valves, no compromise... Bronze ONLY 
with INOX handles from Guidi!





New solar panels from Solbian mod.SR186L (186Wh each)

to install on my personal design tilting frame made by Walid in Tunisia ;)


Air conditioning/Heating and watermaker pumps as new.



Ready for a light hull sanding and 2 layers of antifouling....the exceptional  "Boero Admiral 933 Plus".




After 2 weeks of hard work back to the water but....




I discovered our Turbo was stuck probably since our last April crossing from Tunisia to Sicily !




The Raiser, just after 1yr and a half is badly corroded


So we can't leave Trapani another 10 days waiting for a new Turbo from KKK the original! I discovered that in Italy there's SAITO srl specialized in regenerating Turbo and selling new original Turbo from KKK, IHI etc. Our turbine was too corroded inside so they kept my old turbine but they charged me just  1.100euro instead of 3.200 euro from Volvo Penta marine parts .




Fortunately the 3 weeks stay in Trapani were nice. Good food to buy, new friends ans especially a good chandler supplier Matteo Stabile that helped me so much in dozen of pieces to install. Emma could study quite well through Zoom lessons with the Sousse school and Anna producing new bags that she actually sold out in the Francesca's nice boutique La Marina house.

And the Sicily's beauty, like Grotta Mangiapane, a small cute village created inside a cave.




or like Riserva dello Zingaro Riserva dello Zingaro,
a great trail along the coast between San Vito lo Capo and Palermo.











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