It was good to meet many of the people at Privilege Marine. They built Duplicat many years ago and whilst some of the things they did drive me crazy, they have improved things and learnt! We worked out a plan of action for the leaky window but due to workload it meant we'd be waiting a week, so they offered the free use of their pontoon. Sold! It was very close to a large supermarket, mid-way between the two marinas and their associated restaurants and pretty close to town. Very handy indeed. Better still - they were completely relaxed about me poking around their factory and seeing what was going on. In fact everyone we met was unfailingly helpful and we muddled through a few jobs with my schoolboy French and lots of hand waving.

I took the opportunity to permanently mount our radar reflector which meant a trip up the mast. We gained the help of another Englishman, Karl, who was waiting for his new Series 5 to be completed. Amanda took this rather unflattering photo.... As we were going to be a while and had the time, we decided to splurge out on a new radar as well. I was after something lower power than Raymarine kit we had, so opted for a new "4G" broadband radar from Navico with a Lowrance "multi-function display". Robin Marine handled the fitting of the radar - I'm afraid I was too much of a wimp to go up the mast with an expensive bit of kit! I did the rest of the install. Internally, the link from the radar to the MFD is Ethernet, so with a bit of cable hacking and crimping, I had it running though my internal switch on its own VLAN. This meant I could use my own wifi system with the Lowrance "GoFree" app on the tablet - think VNC for chart-plotters and radar. Very very handy. The definition of the FMCW radar (for that is what the "broadband" bit means) is very good - we could see jet skis moving around in the marina and also weather coming in. We'll have to see how it works out at sea, but so far so good.

We even painted the border of our windows, to help protect the bonding from UV.

Karl's boat was progressing nicely and is due at the Cannes boatshow. I know the excitement and tension at this point of the build process! One issue was the in-boom furling which we retro-fitted to Duplicat. Karl had wanted the same, but Privilege weren't keen for some reason. So when we turned up with the system, Privilege were a little suprised and Karl was a little disappointed. I know we are delighted with it! There were a number of other large cats in production too, but alas no Series 4 (ex 435/445) models, so I couldn't poke around a newer variant of our boat. Karl had a car and we headed off one weekend to the capital of the Vendée, Roche sur Yon. We found an interesting little park with some great mechanical animals. Not before time, we were all sorted and ready to go. We met the new CEO the night before we left and he showed us the new Feeling interior they had designed and retrofitted to one boat. It looks great and no wonder they've sold a few. He also gave us some freebies and asked us to stay in touch which was nice. In fact he even came down on Sunday morning to see us off (and get his pontoon back! ;)

So this was it, as we waved goodbye to Karl and Gilles, and motored down the channel - we were about to cross the fearsome Biscay. It would take us at least 2 days to get to Viveiro. What events would befall us?