too cold for sailing

For the legions of readers of this blog in the UK, you will know that we have been gripped with a nasty cold snap complete with some snow which has had the usual effect of bringing the entire county to a standstill. I have even bought a shovel and put it in the back of the car. However, it has genuinly been too cold to think of doing any sailing as we are not the intrepid sorts who relish huddling in the cockpit wrapped up th eyeballs and still freezing. For the other millions who do not live in the UK, we have had one of thos periodic cold snaps that brings a few centimeters of snow and everything to a stop.

In fact it is all looking a bit frustrating and will have made a bit of a mockery of keeping the boat afloat this winter.

At least I have had a bit of an idea for our upcoming cruising plans which is to make a bit of a book called the oenophiles cruise. We can start with UK where the wine industy is advancing in step with global warming. We can then progress across The Channel and Biscay to sample some better known wines. Yesterday we went for a walk along the south coast along the Seven Sisters and encountered this flat calm but beautiful sunset.

Got the main

It arrived at work first thing. Dark green bag, large stainless rings on the "spectacles" and a funky square pattern on the cloth. So we can definitely count on pointing five degrees higher and sailing at least a knot faster! :-)

New Main Arriving

Jeckells contacted me yesterday and after forking out six hundred odd quid of outstanding balance they are shipping our new main out and it should arrive at work tomorrow.

We shall of course expect the boat to point five degrees higher or sail half a knot faster. The reality is more likely that she will point one degree higher and at least be able to power through a nasty chop with more aplomb than at present. It would be great to be able to try it out but the weather is really not looking promising for Christmas at all as the snow falls outside.

Oh well, all the more reason to sail south.

Continuing Thoughts

The thing I find myself thinking about the most in this excessively cold and snowy weather. Witness our street here,
is where we will winter next year. There are a few options all of which it is surprisingly difficult to get concrete information. The most convenient spot to stay would be Gibraltar itself. It is, literally, at the entrance to the Med while also having good communication links to the UK so we can fly down and do the inevitable work.

Other options we have considered are the area round Cadiz, La Linea and Algeciras. It is also possible that we may find somewhere to the East of Gibraltar but I am doubtful of that. More research is clearly needed.

Photos

Well, at last, I have got around to doing some work with the pictures I have got and it is time to bore the world with them.

First, we show off Sarah Giddings while stuck in Torquay where we left her for two happy weeks.


Next, for your delectation we are now in cosy Darthaven Marina, Kingswear. It is a nice place to winter. Though, as I said earlier, it is a bit odd to be "based" on the Dart rather than visiting it. The next time we manage to go for a sail and then come back will really be the strange bit.


The next two show the work to date on the Aries. We are going to call him Mars as Aries was the Ancient Greek God of war.

A mounting bracket


And the beast itself:


Work lists are growing as ever. So the winter will be busy especially as it is now sinking in that the fact that I have negotiated all that time off work now means no annual leave till August 15 next year!

Bits and Pieces Done Today

Well, I have got most of the chock like things for the new anchor on the foredeck now though it has taken an inordinate number of M6 bolts to get there.

I have also got the tubes on the Aries drilled and in their holes. Investigation of the issues with fitting the thing fully have revealed a fair bit, not least that I am going to need a proper power drill to achieve it. Also, it will not be possible to drill through the cockpit coaming so that will have to be done with stud bolts. On the positive side, there are already holes drilled in the aft rail. All, we have to hope is the original holes are in the right place.

On a completely other topic. I tried to copy the photos off the camera but found that the ubuntu I have installed on this netbook cannot recognise SD cards when they are put in the slot. Those others of you who have had to fight with linux device drivers will know what I am talking about.

Still, the weather is changing with the wind now in the south west and a spot or two of rain. Audrey arrives later and I will be able to get into the B&B shortly as well.

Still Freezing but with Aries Parts Now

Well, it is, if anything, even colder now and is forecast to drop below freezing tonight. I am huddled below with the Bengco going full pelt and gobbling charcoal at a rate of knots. It isn't too bad except that I still manage to get cold feet. Sitting still is not good for them and that is what I have been doing a lot of today.

The good news is that I now have the mounting tubes and brackets to enable us to install the Aries. An abortive trip to Falmouth was a bit frustrating but then I got an email from Helen Franklin/Bell and drove down today to pick them up. Now, all I have to do is work out how to drill the holes I need. I will start looking at that tomorrow once the sun is over the hill and has melted off the inevitable frost. The docks were decidedly slippery this morning.

Other progress: I bought sixty meters of nylon multiplait, a couple of thimbles and a single Barton block to make up some lazyjacks. I will need another block of course as well as the bosun's chair to get to the spreaders. Then we should have a much easier time of lowering the main.

Well, now is probably the best point to get eyes out and head for bed. It is too cold for anything else really. We will be in a Bed and Breakfast tomorrow as it is not very likely that Audrey will enjoy sleeping aboard at the moment.

Freezing cold on the boat

Well, I am down here now and am huddling up to the charcoal heater which is now going nicely though it did take some serious starting. I am going to have to work on my technique on that one.

There are a few plans for this week which I have down here in Kingswear. The main one is to get the Aries fitted and, to that end, I am off down to Falmouth tomorrow to pick up the parts we need to get it fitted.

Experimentation with the VHF suggests that it might well be the VHF cable rather than the box itself so we are likely to have to make a trip up the mast.

Looking ahead, I have got agreement from work to take an extended break next year so we will be off to Southern Spain or Gibraltar next August to October. This is great news but of course will require quite a lot of work done to get the boat ready for that.

Finally got some news

Well, the account of our cruise hasn't yet materialised and now all sorts of things have happened in a boaty way.

The plan to winter her in Emsworth fell foul of the atumnal weather and we wound up being stuck in Torquay for rather longer than we would have chosen. We also started hunting round for somewhere to keep her in South Devon and are now happily esconced at Darthaven Marina in Kingswear. It feels a bit odd to be based in the Dart having visited it so often.

The other item only came in today. My workplace have agreed to me taking a two month extended leave next August to October so we will be able to cruise Sarah G down to Gibraltar or somewhere in southern Spain.

Details will of course have to be worked out but it is a lot of fun to be able to definitely plan an extended cruise. We are looking on it as a way of dipping our toes in the long term cruising malarky while still having an easy route out if it isn't for us.

I will be down there working on her all next week so will try to do some updates and perhaps some photos.

Change of plans

Well, we had our annual holiday and first proper cruise on Sarah G over the last two weeks and very enjoyable it proved. A full account will follow shortly. However, as seems to be the way of our holidays, we took some big decisions and one of them is that we are going to have to withdraw from the Azores race.

Various changes in circumstances and the increasing complexity of complying with the regulations for the race have forced this decision.

We are now going to focus our efforts on our long term cruising plans in the Medditerrinean in 2012.

Watch this space and here is a picture of one of our pleasanter evenings in the upper reaches of the Fal.

AIS installed and working

Well, we have finally done it and the bloody thing is now installed and working. We actually did the deed over last weekend and wound up not sailing anywhere but it is now done. The unit is on the bulkhead, the splitter is on the side next to the chart table sailing instruments and the switch panel. We had to run an extension from it to the AIS unit itself and finally, I had to thread the wire from the GPS aerial on the pushpit through all the cockpit lockers, along the quarter berth and finally behind the switch panel and bookshelf but it is all in and working.

We start our holiday this weekend so will be trying it out for real now. Off the boat, I have become addicted to the AIS tracking web site

Marine Traffic

Keep an eye out for us.

On a side issue, congratulations to fellow AZAB entrant Marco Naninni who has just successfully completed his 1000 mile qualifying passage for the Route du Rhum

Marco Naninni

More AIS blues

The saga of the AIS transponder continues. We have concluded that the process of running a second aerial up the mast and getting it two meters away from the other one is not likely to be a goer. So, we have bought a Comar splitter. Now the problem is to install the splitter.

A lot of head scratching later and we have decided that the only practical place to fit it is immediately above the bookshelf. This means lots of hole drilling as we not only have to fit it but also get the co-axial cables routed. There are however different sorts of co-ax connections. The VHF has a PL-259 socket and thankfully, the cable coming out of the splitter has a nice PL-259 connector crimped onto it. However, the AIS cable has a BNC bayonet connector while the AIS unit has a PL-259. It transpires that a BNC to PL-259 adaptor is not an easy thing to find and no chandler stocks them. Grrr.

Thankfully all is not lost thanks to a Ham Radio site who do stock them. Martin Lynch and Sons. They sell everything possible to do with radios and can be found on:

Martin Lynch & Son

Hopefully, that will bring an end to it and we will really be able to test the thing out though I still have to work out how to get the GPS element wired from the pushpit to the chart table. I suspect that this will need lots of cable ties and contortions into uncomfortable positions in the cockpit lockers. Watch this space.

Bit of a slow time at the moment

Not a lot has been happening recently. We had hoped to get down to Sarah G last weekend and try out the cruising chute properly on a short trip to Fowey but were defeated by rowdy neighbours keeping us awake till the early hours of the morning.

We will be down next on the weekend of the 31 July but have guests aboard so will not be going far. We do however hope to finally get the AIS transponder working. After a bit more reading it seems that having two aerials on the masthead really would be a bad idea unless we rigged up some complicated contraption to give them 2 meters separation which really would make us look like the roof a cold war embassy. Instead we are going to put a splitter in and run the VHF and AIS off the same aerial. Reports seem to say that this will work well enough.


And so it goes on. We are planning a long weekend in Falmouth at the middle of August with the objective of fitting the Aries. We will also leave here there for a week and start our holiday from Falmouth rather than Torpoint. Here is a picture of her dried out and also one of me looking not very heroic on the foredeck.

Got a Satellite Phone

The whole business of an Iridium satellite phone was looking highly vexatious. A new one is around £1300 plus air time which is way out of my price league. Second hand ones do not seem to appear in the yachting press. They do however appear quite regularly on Ebay and I was lucky enough to get one for £250 odd on there. It is of course an old 9500 series which is now out of production and does not support data connections.


However for my purposes, it is fine and will serve it's purpose perfectly. I have purchased an airtime deal from mailasail so will be testing it this weekend.

The phone it self is wonderfully retro compared to today's mobile phones. It is styled like mobiles from it's era which is the mid nineties and is also about five times bigger than most phones today. It even has the meaningless flip down cover for the key pad as inspired by the star trek films.

Met one of the Jester Challenge entrants

Gus Davidson who had entered Jester Challenge now works in the same office as me and I was lucky enough to have a bit of a chat with him today which was both an honour and also very enjoyable. I have nothing but admiration for anyone prepared to set out across an ocean and to do so in a boat so much smaller than we are planning is even more awe inspiring. He undertook the project to raise money for McMillan Cancer Care. His website is below

Gus Davidson

Meanwhile our plans continue to come together ever so slowly.

Still in the race

We have heard back from Colin Drummond on the RCYC committee and his pronouncement is that so long as the second qualifier with the full 500 miles we will be deemed to have qualified to enter. I would still very much like to enter if we can though I will not be devastated if it does transpire that we have to withdraw.

As outlined earlier, there are various plan B scenarios. My favourite would be to take a couple of months but leave it will August or even September and work the boat round to Gibraltar or similar ready for our Mediterannean cruise in 2012.

We shall just have to see.

Tried out Crusing Chute

After the qualifying passage, Audrey came down and joined me. Friends were due to join us on the Sunday but we had the boat to ourselves on Saturday and as the winds were light we decided to try out the cruising chute that Matthew had bought us. I had the whole of Friday to spend in Sutton Marina and the wind was so light that I decided to have a go at hoisting it there. I was glad I did as it gave me a chance to work out the procedure.


It was great to get it up for real and it looks fantastic. It will also be a great help when the wind is light and on the beam - pretty much never then but we managed to sail through the "Bridge" at six knots with only 12 knots apparent wind.


All in all a great sail and much easier to set than a symmetrical spinnaker.

Qualifying passage number one

Here is a more complete description.

Matthew and I had both managed to set aside a week right at the end of May and into June to try to complete our AZAB qualifying passage. There was not too much preparation to be done for the boat but a lot for getting away from work of course. The weather forecast was not too clever with all sorts of variable weather including a gale warning. We arrived down very late on Friday and promptly went straight to bed.

The next day came with loads of wind and also plenty of rain. We arranged to pick up Matthew and also to go to the chandler to get some charts both of north Brittany but also of the area round the Fastnet rock.

Finally around mid afternoon we were ready to go and Matthew and I cast off into a brisk westerly. The forecast was for strong westerlies until the following day so it was decided to go to Fastnet rather than Ouessant. It was still blowing properly, somewhere in the region of a five in the shelter of the land but it got up to a seven the further offshore we got. Also, for the first time in nearly thirty years I got seasick! I think that it was brought on by apprehension at the proposed passage along with some quite rough weather as we sailed out past the Eddystone. The galley sink was the place I reached and that rendered any cooking impossible for the time being. We continued to bash south with the idea that we could get round the Lizard point on the next tack. The wind direction suggested that we needed to get about thirty miles south unless the wind changed direction. Once well clear of the land the wind and seas built up will we had a solid force 7 and were pushing into some decent sized waves. It was quite uncomfortable. When I came on watch at midnight I joked to Matthew that I would prefer it if he didn't drive my boat into concrete floors. Nevertheless, Sarah G showed her pedigree and continued to bash into them at around six knots.

I took over at midnight and continued south for another couple of hours. As usual, I felt much better when on deck though it was still quite uncomfortable. We went about at 0200 and started heading towards the Lizard though it became apparent that we had miscalculated and should have tacked much earlier rather than trying to clear the Lizard after getting nearly a third of the way across the Channel. As dawn came up the visibility was not that great but we were heading more or less for the Lizard though the tide had turned against us and it was very slow going round.

The second night in particular was very frustrating as the wind progressively dropped to nearly nothing and poor Matthew only managed three miles in a whole six hour watch. The wind, what there was of it did at least swing round into the east and I was able to inch across Mounts bay and was off Wolf Rock by the time my watch ended at 0600.

Matthew had a much nicer sail with an easterly pushing us out to and past the Isles of Scilly. My seasickness had finally cleared up properly and we enjoyed leaving Bishop Rock behind us and setting a course for Fastnet as well as my cooking a chilli for lunch.

As the darkness fell around us, it was too cloudy for a sunset I turned in and left Matthew running before a slowly dropping wind. I heard a bit of swearing in my sleep and it became plain that the weather was not good. Visibility had dropped to near zero and the wind was both dropping and swinging round to the west via southerly. We had a look at the chart and it became clear that we were not going to make it to Fastnet and then have a chance of getting back in time for our leave to expire. I was also concerned about the shipping TSS off Fastnet with this very poor visibility. We therefore turned round and headed for home at about 0100. It was a big disappointment to have to abandon our trip but I think that it was the right thing to do.

The night watch was truly not a nice one with the southerly wind though it did go round to the south west. Visibility remained very poor and it was also bloody cold. I am resolved to get some suitable gloves sorted out for such night watches.

As the night progressed, the wind became lighter and lighter, the rain became more persistent and I was feeling distinctly fed up. Thankfully, as the sun got up the rain eased off. Poor Matthew came on watch at 0600 and I grabbed my now regular two or three hours sleep. At least our six hour watch pattern was working out well. I cannot imagine how a four hour system could be better for short handed crews.

We had made very slow progress on my watch and still had a good few miles to go till we reached Bishop rock again. In total we were looking like spending nearly 24 hours in the Irish sea – west of Bishop Rock for only about 60 miles sailed.

Finally,the weather looked like improving. The wind backed further into the north west which suited us very well. It filled in a bit as well so we were sailing quite well by the time we got to Bishop. The sun also came out at last and we had a great time past the western rocks and the Isles of Scilly. Indeed, had we not been required to be back in Plymouth, I would have been extremely tempted to stop for a visit to Hugh Town on St Mary's. It looked extremely enticing as we past. We also encountered some other traffic at last, not having seen any other yachts since leaving Plymouth. That, combined with a couple of fish boats, the helicopter and fixed wing planes as well as the sight of the Scillonian made for a positively busy water. There as not much shipping around though.

The north wester held on quite well through the afternoon into the afternoon and we hoped to be able to get round the Lizard a bit quicker than the outward trip. Of course the wind continued to drop into the night and I took over from Matthew with us about nine or ten miles west of the infamous Lizard. We had mis read the chart and were actually bucking the tide so it took the whole rest of my watch to get us just one mile east of the point. It did feel like an achievement though and we did feel that we were on the final leg with about fifty miles left.


I always seemed to come off watch to leave Matthew to cope with dreadful visibility. Just as he got up I saw a bank of positive fog developing ahead. The wind also fell away entirely just next to a crab pot. The main was slatting terribly so I simply took all sail off. The wind sort of filled in from the east and Matthew took her into the fog which proved very thick and not very nice at all. I felt him putting a tack in and found out that the area off Falmouth was quite scary. It was just lifting as I came up about ten and we could see Dodman point dead ahead. The wind was in the south east but a nice gentle force three and we enjoyed a nice coastal sail towards Rame Head. All was going well till we got within a mile of Rame.

The haze had been steadily increasing and suddenly, I noticed that not only had Rame head disappeared into the haze but that everything else was disappearing as well. Once again, the wind dropped though not quite to nothing. The tide was against us and we could hear warships blowing their horns in the offing. I really did not want to be out there as it got dark so we decided to call an end to the passage and got the engine on.

We still had zero visibility but Matthew did a sterling job at the chart table and took us round Rame Head and brought the red buoy off Penlee point up on the nose. We could still see no further than a couple of boat lengths but we knew where we were going. The only thing was I was definitely not going to tangle with the inner part of the sound in zero visibility so I had Matthew take us into Cawsand bay.

We had been looking forward to a curry at the Spice Well in Plymouth's Barbican but the fog did for that. It did lift a bit as we got abeam of Penlee point and we were able to get into Cawsand bay easily. We dropped anchor at about 1900 and so ended our trip. The sound was still as thick as ever and we heard lots of hooting from warships coming back into Devonport. We tuned into Plymouth port operations and heard lots of naval conversations about how poor the visibility was.

I think that in reality, it was much better to spend the night at anchor rather than rush back into civilization. We had a really peaceful night and the sunset was very spectacular with the fog falling down the hills into the bay.


The next day was much clearer and we motored across to Sutton Harbour where we first luxuriated in their fantastic showers and then went ashore for a very welcome pint. That evening we had our curry at the Spice Well which had not deteriorated at all and brought a very nice celebratory conclusion to the trip.

While in Sutton Harbour, I sorted out the third reef in the main and tried it out for size. It really is very small indeed.



We had logged just over 400 miles which falls short of that required for qualifying for the AZAB. I have contacted the RCYC who say that so long as I can complete 500 mile with Audrey we will be OK. We have given a lot of thought to it though as it is quite possible that we will not be able to complete the qualifications when Audrey and I try ours at the end of August. There is an innate problem with sailing any sort of triangle as you are more or less guaranteed contrary winds at some point which makes it more difficult to keep up good averages. We have various plan Bs. These include: cruising to an Azorean Island, cruising down the Atlantic coast of Iberia to get ready for our planned Mediterranean cruise in 2012 or scrapping all idea of any long distance sailing in 2011. We will just have to see what happens.

Anyway, the end conclusion was that our trip into the Irish sea was a success and we both enjoyed. I certainly was pleased to have my choice of boat confirmed to me as a good one.

Sort of done one qualifying passage

I'll get around to doing a proper account soon. We didn't manage the 500 miles or getting out to Fastnet Rock but we did have a mostly good time. I am going to contact the RCYC to get an idea of whether what we did will qualify us.

Watch this space!

mini cruise

We had our first cruise with Sarah G at her home port last weekend. We deliberately didn't plan anything ambitious and only went as far as the Yealm but it was a good weekend and we had an excellent meal ashore in the Dolphin at Newton Ferrers.

We also managed a nice gentle sail down the river, out through the Bridge and on to the Yealm. Once past the breakwater we had a go at setting the cruising 'chute for the first time but the wind suddenly changed direction to the south west and freshened just past our predetermined threshold for setting such a big bit of nylon, particularly for the first time. Still, we carried on under normal canvas and dropped sail in Wembury bay and motored up. There were a couple of moments when we were a bit feeling our way as we had contrived to arrive at the Yealm bar at pretty much dead low water and there was not a lot of water under our keel.


All, was well and we savoured being back in one of the most beautiful rivers in the West Country.

The meal was all we wanted and we slept well through the night.

Sunday dawned with a leisurly start but a rather gray sky though not too much wind was forecast. We cast off at 1030 and motored down with the new ebb. Out of the river, I started to get sail up only to find that we had contrived to wrap the main halyard round the radar reflector and no way of coaxing it back round. In huge embarrassment, we motored to Cawsand and anchored there while I had a go with light lines to throw it over the spreaders and then to untangle the wrapped halyard. All to no avail and I was resigning myself to coming down the following weekend with a bosuns chair.

We therefore, motored back to Torpoint after lunch where I had a bit of inspiration. I had clipped the halyard to the end of the boom as we usually do and it occurred to me that if we pulled a messenger up the halyard over the spreader, it might then be possible to untangle the main halyard. The wind was blowing hard which both helped in throwing my light line over the spreaders but made it more difficult to retrieve the end. Eventually, though, I did and pulled one of our spinnaker sheets which has a nice big snap shackle on it up and over. Clipped to the main halyard which I slackened off as much as possible, I jiggled it round and suddenly we were free!


All in all a very nice weekend.

Proof she is in Torpoint

We really are on our mooring at Torpoint and it feels very good to be there. We have drawn a couple of conclusions, anything but earth shattering ones but we do need to do some stuff. Firstly, we definitely need to fit a tiller extension. The nature of the coachroof and such like mean that the best way to sail the boat is perched on the cockpit coamings.

Slightly more is that we feel the need to fit more hand holds below. I am also very keen to get the Aries up and working asap so that we have as much time as possible to get to grips with it.

All in all, good stuff and we plan to be down there next weekend as well.

Delivery Trip Part 2

The next day and a fair tide was to be had about 10:30 so we didn't rush to get up but did wake up to a good bit less wind and a more favourable looking sky. We had a bit of breakfast and provisionally planned to try for Weymouth which we hoped to reach around midnight. After hanging round a bit we decided to push off about 09:30 since we would be pushing a bit of flood but it would give us longer to get down the Solent. Leaving Sparkes was much less of a drama and we got away smoothly and started down the main Chichester channel again. There really was not much wind and we found ourselves motoring into a very gentle westerly. The various landmarks of the Solent slipped past and even speeded up a bit once past the Horse Sand Fort when the tide turned in our favour.

Just about lunch time we were passing Osborne bay and the house where Queen Victoria lived. Now it seems to be a very popular lunchtime anchorage but we continued on towards Cowes. I was down below making toasted cheese when we sensed that the wind was starting to fill in. Out came the jib and off went the engine so we could pass the home of yachting in proper style. We proceeded to have a great sail down the western solent with lots of tacks being crossed and even a session with a thing called boatphotos who take pictures of boats on spec and publish them on a website where you can then buy them.

With a strong spring tide under us and a good force 4 to 5 we fairly whistled down the Solent. The only two moments of minor drama were when we encountered a surprising but short lived tide rip just off Yarmouth and then just as we were in the Needles channel another boat avoiding action didn't work for him and we were forced to make a hasty tack from starboard to port. As we raced down towards the famous chalk escarpment of the Needles I took a decision and floated it to the other two which was that we should carry on past Portland Bill and aim for Torbay rather than Weymouth. A bit of discussion and we agreed on this. I also suggested we try two six hour night watches rather than the more conventional three. In retrospect I am not sure about the wisdom of it. Mostly it was nice to get a full six hours sleep but when 0400 came round I couldn't help reflecting that I would be getting relieved at that point rather than facing another two hours.

Anyway, that was for later. First we tacked right off the lighthouse but could only lay the entrance of Poole wit the persistent westerly. We arrived off Bournmouth about six and I set a course offshore and instructed Matthew to hold it for a good ten miles or so to give us plenty of offing to make it to the Bill. I then retired below. A few hours later I felt the boat change course and definitely slow down. A bit later on still and the engine came on. Finally, about two hours later I came up with us about ten miles south of St. Albans head and no wind whatsoever. The tide had definitely turned against us.

The weather was not so nice either. The wind persisted on it's absence apart from a very small puff from due west and bands of rain made themselves known as well so it was down to a monotonous chug first up to Portland Bill and then across Lyme bay. It seemed to take forever to get round the Bill but then I felt like a cork being popped out of a bottle as it seemed the next time I looked the light was some ten miles behind us. Six came around and I woke Matthew up and retired back to the forward cabin.

About three hours later I heard the jib being got out and the engine died. We were sailing again. I dozed for another hour or so and came on deck to see the Devon coatline ahead of us. The wind was freshening and I suggested we bear off a bit to make for Dartmouth rather than Torbay. There followed a lovely fast reach though she became a bit overpressed as neither of us really wanted to put a reef in. Then we were coming in past the Mew Stone and had arrived back in very familiar waters. For the first time we were in a boat too big to go on the small boat pontoon just outside the Dartmouth Yacht Club and we tied up to the 'DL' pontoon just above the Town Quay. After a bit of a rest, we rushed ashore for showers and a celebratory lunch and drink in the DYC. We were out of time as we were faced with a mammoth train ride to get back to pick up the car in Emsworth so made plans to move her on to Torpoint the following weekend.

It was great to finally use Sarah G for the sort of passage making we aquired her for and our faith in her also increased, the bit where we were overpressed on the approach to Dartmouth was particularly instructive as she became quite heavy on the helm but not unmanageable though I do usually work to not hang onto too much sail as the wind rises. All in all, a very good time was had though we would have preferred more consistent winds and less rain that is the sort of thing you have to put up with in UK waters.

Made it to Torpoint

Well, we had a very successful if cold weekend and Sarah G is now swinging to her mooring at Torpoint. We had a very pleasant sail from Dartmouth the the wind in the NE which accounted for the cold but did make for an initial run then a broad to close reach after the Start.

The journey home was a bit of an epic taking ten and a half hours. We had left the car in Dartmouth so had to get the train back. There are, by the way, no buses from Totnes to Dartmouth on a Sunday so we went on to Newton Abbot and changed for Paignton. Of course, none of the trains meshed and we had a 50 minute wait at Newton Abbot. Still, we did get the steam train from Paignton to Kingswear which was enjoyable.

Now, the big thing to plan for is the qualifying passage with my Brother which we are planning on doing from the weekend of 30 May. I also really want to get the Aries working by then so will have to see what we can do about that.

We didn't take a lot of photos and I am a bit behind in the the narrative of the delivery trip from Chichester so will have to buckle down this weekend.

Got to the West Country Part One

Well, we have managed our first passage on Sarah G now. She is currently on the visitors pontoon at Dartmouth waiting for us to take her the final bit round to Torpoint next weekend. Overall the whole thing was a success though, as ever, it certainly didn't go to plan. I arrived on Thursday evening after work and had an initial panic as they had moved her from where she was last time we were down. At least I found her on the “A” line and all ready to go. After ensuring that the cat was happy as this was also to be Schrodinger's first real passage, I tried the engine out and was delighted to find it starting exactly as the engineer had said.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting her ready with the last bits such as putting the now good diesel back in the tank and stowing all our stuff. The weather forecasts were very variable but seemed to be promising north easters of some sort but they were a bit vague as to strength. Audrey arrived and while she had chicken and chips I proudly cooked myself some pasta with pesto.

We had a bit of a drama with the cat as I had left the forehatch open to get some air moving and we suddenly heard this scrabbling sound and realised she had climbed out and was on deck. Without the harness, I was worried about her going over the side and not realising that the stuff beyond the scuppers would be very wet and not nice at all. I scooped her up and tried to persuade her back down the forehatch with Audrey below but she didn't like that so it was back to the cockpit. She seemed to settle down OK after that and looked quite happy on the dinette.

The next morning we did the final running around to get the last wires to the mast connected – specifically the VHF which was a right pig for Audrey to manage as she had to solder some very fiddly bits together under the mast. At least we got it all done just as Matthew arrived. An hour later and the tide had risen sufficiently for us to make a departure and bid a final farewell to Emsworth. The first passage however proved a bit short. We got sail up as soon as it freed a bit about half way down the channel and sailed out of Chichester Harbour on the last of the flood. We then found plenty of wind from the west and were quite pleased to have put a reef in the main. The sailing was a good bit brisker than I would have chosen for a first sail of the season and progress down the Solent was feeling a bit slow despite making around six knots through the water. Then, we noticed water coming over the deck sole as she heeled more and an inspection of the keel sump showed quite a lot of water in there. Without knowing if it was a slow leak or something worse,we took the option of running back to Sparkes to take stock and work out what was wrong. A very fast reach to West Pole and and a bit of drama trying to go starboard side to a berth to windward and we sorted ourselves out. The leak was, thankfully, a slow one, most likely from the zinc anode.

So ended our first day of the delivery trip with a total distance achieved of about 2 miles but with 16 miles logged through the water.

The rest of the delivery trip will follow.

Got to Dartmouth

We have had our first successful serious passage with Sarah G. Lots more boring detail will follow but I leave for now with a picture of Schrodinger on board to prove what a successful ships cat she is shaping up to be even if she does create merry hell when being put in the basket to take down there!

Good to go

With rather a lot of despondency and in the immortal style of John Major, not a little trepidation, I called a recommended engine guy at Thornham Marine to have a look at our beleagured Bukh engine. I had all sorts of horrible visions of gunk completely clogging up the high pressure pump and such like with irreparably damaged injectors. He said he would make a quick visit, probably on Tuesday (tomorrow as I write). This afternoon he called me to say that it was running fine and was suffering from lack of compression owing to no oil being on the cylinders against which the piston rings can form a seal. Apparently, the trick is to spray a good few squirts of oil into each cylinder at layup time while you have the air filter off.

I am definitely going to do a diesel engine maintenance course next winter! Anyway, that means we are now good to go for the weekend and can finally get sailing. Hooraah!!

Second half of the weekend

For Sunday, we took a break from fighting with masthead wires and such like to go to Beaulieu Boat Jumble. This is the first time we have been to this event which seems to be as important in some people's calendar as the two boatshows. It was a very enjoyable day out and we even got some useful stuff.

We didn't see much of the Beaulieu estate though we did also look round the motor museum which is well recommended.

We managed to buy a sheep crook boat hook, some cockpit cushions and most usefully, a pelican hook bottle screw for the inner forestay.

Apart from the extremely indifferent lunch it was a great day out.

Two steps forward, two sideways and one backwards

It was mostly a good weekend with frustratingly lovely weather. She has been afloat for two weeks now and we are still in no position to move her. The two steps forward involved getting the rig sorted out. We have set up the standing rigging and bent on the sails. The picture is as we got the jib ready for use. The two steps sideways were discovered by Audrey. Some of the wires from the masthead had had to be cut which means that we need connectors for them under the mast. These are for the VHF aerial and the data lines from the masthead wind indicator. Needless to say, we were not able to get our hands on a crimp fit co-ax adaptor and we need to work on a suitable connector plug for the wind instruments. At least both those tasks are easy to achieve.

Of more import, is the one step back. The engine has so far refused to start. I had a go at pumping some fuel through and the glass bowl on the primary filter filled up with a nasty brown sludge. Clearly we have some contamination in our fuel. I sought to pump out the fuel and filter it. The fuel we managed to pump out looked quite clean so we put it back in the tank using our water trap filter and no rubbish was kept back though we did make a bit of a mess of the cockpit. I then changed the fuel filters and sure enough, there was quite a lot of rubbish in the primary filter. I bled the system through and little gunk appeared in the primary filter though she still refused to start. I suspect now that we do have some dirt in the fuel line and it is time to call in a professional. The Chaldler at Emsworth has recommended one at Thornham who I will have to ring and see if he is available. Hopefully, that will not all prove too expensive!

Assuming all is well, we will still move her next weekend though I may try to take Thursday off work to speed things up with the final wiring and such like.

It was very satisfying to get the sails on at last and feel like a sailing boat again.!

Engine fun now

We went down on Sunday to find her beautifully afloat and the mast in the more familiar position. No more crouching under the horizontal mast to get down the companionway. However, the rigging has not been tensioned properly and the boom hadn't been fitted either. At least we fixed the boom and Audrey started work on connecting all the masthead wires.

I had a go at starting the engine to no avail. After operating the pump a bit the fuel in the primary filter took on this awful brown sludge colour so we seem to have been afflicted by the dreaded diesel bug.

Next weekend will now be dedicated to getting our engine going again. The plan is to pump out the dirty diesel, change all the fuel filters, see if we can filter out the sludge and then refuel with clean fuel and hope for the best.

I fitted the AIS box to the chart table bulkhead and we will look at connecting it up properly soon. I will have to get the bosuns chair off Matthew and pay a visit up the mast. The idea of putting the arial at the spreaders is not now appealing. The GPS receiver can go on the pushpit as previously planned anyway.

Always something to worry about anyway.

Located aa Trysail

More good news. We have located a trysail. There was a wanted ad on the ROA website and when it also appeared in the quarterly journal I was contacted by Ian Nicholson who has one available "new and unused". We have agreed a suitable price and I can pick it up from his Daughter who lives outside Devizes - conveniently close to my Mother.

Another thing ticked off the list of stuff to get.

Of course, the list of things to do is still growing. Just now I remembered that we need to rig up the preventer properly to make it easy to rig when running downwind.

Boat in the Water

I got the call from Emsworth and our lovely Rival is back in the water now. The mast should have been stepped now. Now we just have to get her ready for the sea and move her to Plymouth.

We are still holding out for the bank holiday weekend but may, hopefully be able to fit a quick shakedown sail in before then. I am going down soon to finish getting her ready for sea. As ever, this seems to involve endless lists.

1. Run engine up and make sure it is working OK
2. Bend on the sails
3. Start process of fitting the AIS jobbie.
4. Sort out boding wire for zinc anode
5. Sort out process for flying the cruising chute.
6. Loads of other stuff.

Plans Keep Changing

Owing to all sorts of other committments, we are now not likely to get the boat moved till the bank holiday at the end of April. We have provisionally booked the Friday off as leave and I will have to let Emsworth know our plans. It is particularly galling to have such perfect weather at the moment - the forecast is even for northeasters at the moment.

We will go Beaulieu now. Specifically in search of a trysail but also for any other bargains. It might be fun to go there by boat if we can. We will have to give it some thought.

AIS arrived

It was actually sent yesterday but I only picked it up today. At least we do now have a "simple" black box AIS transponder and we don't need to get a chart plotter and all that sort of rubbish.

Initial plans are to install it at the chart table with the GPS aerial on the pushpit and the VHF aerial at the spreaders. Ideally, of course, it would be at the masthead but that would interfere too much with the radio aerial. Echomaster Marine say that this will work OK so I will have to work out a way of getting the co-ax down the mast.

repaired hatch finished

After a lot of dithering, we do now have the rotten plywood in the cockpit hatch cover finished now. The SP expoxy coating on the inside is just curing. It was an interesting experience doing this as it is a very long time since I have tried any sort of carpentry and I have never worked with the modern epoxy stuff.

Essentially, as described earlier, I chiseled out the rotten ply and then cut a new piece of ply to fit and glued it in. Things were complicated a bit by my managing to break one of the edge pieces off and the end product is not therefore quite as good as it might have been. At least I know what to do for the next one. My error was not to ensure that the facing teak and edging pieces were both well bonded and sealed from the inside. Quantities of the expoxy seeped through which has made the outside not quite as neat as it might be.

The SP epoxy is fascinating stuff and is able to take almost any form you need depending on what you add to it. Most of my stuff has been done as a glue with microfibers added but there was also a lot of filling to do with the microballoons and finally I have done a varnish type coating on the plywood with no additives at all. If this last bit is a success, I may thing about using it on all our brightwork.

Easter Sailing/Delivery Trip Scuppered

The spate of gales we have had have now scuppered our start to the season. Today was too windy for Emsworth to launch us and now we have missed the tides which means another two weeks ashore before we can think about getting launched and out of the harbour.

Oh well, it doesn't look like we would have been able to sail anywhere anyway given the weather forecasts which are a string of low pressures bringing alternating freezing weather and gales. We will just have to see if we can have any luck later in the month. Grr though.

AIS Blues Now Looking Rosy

Just had an email from our contact at Echomaster Marine to say that our AIS transponder has shipped so we are due to get it early next week. All thanks to Echomaster Marine who have worked hard on this despite all the frustrations of lack of stock at Navico.

Now we just have to fit and learn how to use it.

Finished and ready for the water

How she looks now. The weather is not looking too clever though so we are not sure exactly when we will get in the water. We are still hoping for Thursday.

Ready for the water

If not the season.

As noted, the coppercoat was finished yesterday. Today, Audrey and I both went down and did two main jobs.

Firstly, we did the boot top in an exhorbitant hard white antifoul. She now looks very smart and ready for the best/worst that the English channel can throw at her.

Secondly, we finally got the new zinc anode studs in and refitted the anode. They were both too long so had to be cut shorter so as to be able to put a nut over the inside end. We pulled the electical bonding cable through and tried to crimp a new fitting on to it but found it too corroded. Cue a trip to the chandler for a length of new wire and a decent crimping tool.

Working on the anode was a backbreaking job with the studs protruding into the port aft cockpit locker which meant me upending myself and working a spanner in the true boat maintenance mode - head down a locker, backside and legs pointing at the heavens and the air in the locker turning a bright blue colour.

On other fronts, the repaired hatch cover is coming along and should be ready. Working with SP/West epoxy is a very interesting experience. I suspect that I will want to replace all the hatch covers in the fullness of time. Perhaps when we have spent a season or so in the Med.

Now, we just need the weather to hold so she can go in the water as booked on Thursday and then some sort of sailing and possible delivery over the Easter weekend.

Coppercoat Done

Yes. I managed to get the final bits on today. Emsworth Harbour moved her in the cradle enough that I could get at the bits behind the props and she is now completely covered in coppercoat!

It feels good and means that, barring problems with the zinc anode studs we can launch ready for the Easter weekend. The original studs were so rusty as to be useless so they have to be replaced. Getting new studs has not been a problem but they are too long and so I need to cut them shorter so as to be able to get nuts and washers and such like on the inside.

Pictures should follow.

AIS Blues

Well, lots of other things may be going well but there is still no sign of the Simrad AIS transponder we ordered at the show. I chased our contact today and she said that there was still no sign of it and latest indications from Navico would be sometime in April. I phoned Navico in frustration and got the same story with little or no sign of apology that they were messing people around.

At least Echomaster Marine are being helpful about it. The one we want if more or less the best bet for what we want so I will resist the temptation to go for some other option. At least it is not a show stopper.

Getting Closer

After the success of the weekend it is good to be able to report that we have been able to make appropriate arrangements with Emsworth Harbour to move her in the cradle ready for next weekend and we have provisionally booked for her to be in the water ready for Easter. So, we should be sailing very soon!

Initial plans are a bit sketchy. I had originally thought to deliver her to Plymouth over the Easter period which might still happen but we may take it in a more incremental way. Say, a day or so day sailing in the Solent to get hitches ironed out then a passage to Weymouth where we could leave her till the following weekend when we could take her on to Plymouth.

Of course any such plans are almost certainly doomed to change based on the vagaries of the weather at the very least.

And so it goes on!

Big Step Forward

The coppercoating is mostly done. We still have to get her moved in the cradle so we can do the bits behind the props but the majority is done and she is looking very good. The photo at the top is of course what she looked like back in January when Symblast did their work. The picture below is how she looks now.

It was a bit of a rollercoaster weekend as Saturday was much worse than forecast with persistent heavy fine rain that contrived to get in everywhere. I spent the majority of it fighting with the zinc anode or rather than studs which had become horrendously rusty. There was no way I could get the nuts inside undone so eventually I scrounged an angle grinder from Gary on the boat next door and ground it off. It is a bit nervewracking to be wielding a fast spinning disk millimeters away from the edge of your hull but it did the job in the end and I was able to start fitting the new studs. The log book pencil did duty to line the hole with sikaflex and then I built up a circle round the hole on the outside. Finally, when it was in the process of going off I inserted the new studs and left them to get stuck properly over night.

All the time it was raining (well, sometimes it stopped but not very much) and all the grovelling in the port side cockpit locker gave me several aches and bumps as well as a soaking wet backside. In the end, I pushed off to Marine Superstore and consoled myself with a French and Portuguese courtessy flag as well as a bargain on an offshore flare pack.

Matthew and Audrey turned up for the evening and we had an interesting Thai meal in the pub.


Sunday was forecast to be better and it certainly was. We started work at around nine and by dint of steady work we were finished by about four. The rain held off and I am hopeful that it will not rain till Monday evening by which time it should all have cured enough to be water proof.

Hopefully the weather gods will continue to look on us favourably for next weekend and I can finish the job then.

Working on cockpit locker lid

I have finally got around to attacking the recalcitrant and rather rotten cockpit locker lid. After chiselling out all the old plywood. It made much more sense to do this than try and just let in a small bit. Last Saturday we went and bought a sheet of 9mm marine plywood and I managed to cut a bit to fit in the remains of the teak though one end of the edging had broken off. Now, I have had my first experience of using SP epoxy. The instructions are a bit intimidating but really, it is quite easy and I mixed up a bunch before stirring in some microfibers. It is now sitting on the floor with a couple of clamps holding it together and three batteries sitting on it to provide downward weight. Only time will tell but the picture below might amuse.

Better weather but still not ready

The weather seems to be improving for now but we are now almost certainly not going to be ready for an Easter delivery to the west country. Last weekend might have been OK for putting the Coppercoat on but a few things intervened.

Firstly, Audrey had caught some sort of stomach bug and was not really fit to help out on Saturday, then, it was Mother's day on Sunday and we simply delayed things for an enjoyable day out walking on the Isle of Wight. It was still a bit boaty as we met at Emsworth and fought a bit more with the zinc anode. We do now know why the anode is not working very well. The steel studs are very rusty inside and I don't think that there is a proper electrical connection with the wires completing the "cell" The studs are now so badly rusted (not corroded) that we are going to have to replace them - or one anyway. So we are back to the familiar situation of having a hole in the boat!

Anyway, we hope to do the coppercoating the coming weekend though the long range forecast is talking about rain now. Grrr!

The AIS front is continuing frustrating. No sign of Simrad getting the damn thing delivered any time soon as far as I can tell.

Other news: We found that there is a requirement in the ISAF regulations to carry a storm trysail so we have to find one now. My opinion backed by others is that they are not worth the locker space that they take up but the rules are unbendable on this one. Another Grr!

Oh well, I shall try and get some pics of the Coppercoat going on to relieve the unrelenting text stream that this blog has become.

Weather still rubbish

Progress has been painfully slow recently. I was down there last weekend when we picked up our Coppercoat as well but it was far too cold to think about applying it. The sequence of events has now become so tight that it is unlikely we will be ready to deliver to Plymouth over Easter. More likely is that we will manage to get in the water for Easter - assuming that the temperature does find it's way above 10 degrees between now and then.

It might be best to spend the Easter weekend getting back in to the swing of sailing in the Solent and then make the leap for the west country later in April.

And so it carries on. The latest on the AZAB front is that I have found that we need to carry a trysail as part of the ISAF OSR 2010-2011. For the non initiated of you, that is International Sailing Federation Offshore Special Regulations! Other AZABbers have been going through them and working out what expensive toys they need to aquire. I shall have to see where I can beg, borrow or steal such a sail. We have no experience of using one and I would much prefer to simply put a fourth reef point in the main rather then spend ages on a heaving deck in a force 10 trying to feed the slides of the trysail into the luff groove of the mast. Grrr!

Getting there slowly

It has been a bit of a slow start to the year though this is most probably always the case. The trouble is that with Easter being so early this year there is a lot of pressure to get things done quickly in March. The real thing of course, is the Coppercoat which needs minimum temperature to apply it. So, no frostbite painting here. This coming weekend is not looking good for that but maybe the next weekends will be good enough.

We still have to finish off sanding and varnishing the toe rail. Other stuff we can be getting on with though are the things still to do to the engine such as changing the fan belt and fuel filters to say nothing of putting the pencil anode back in.

At least we are going to pick up the Coppercoat from Paul at Symblast on Saturday so we can at least feel that we are getting closer to being ready for a launch. The big bit with the Coppercoat is how we are going to apply it to the bits under the props on the cradle. I put a posting on the PBO forum on this and got two bits of advice. One is to ask the yard to move the boat in the cradle by a foot or so once the majority is done. The other option which has a lot of superficial attraction is to use the legs to prop the boat up and drop the props. I doubt if the boat yard would go for this but we will have to see. I will probably also ask around a bit as well.

Happy, if cold times at present!

Waiting for bits and time/weather to do stuff

All we seem to be able to do at the moment is wait which is proving rather frustrating. We placed an order for the AIS transponder at the boatshow but are still waiting for it to arrive. The last we heard was that the order had been placed but that there was a 3 to 4 week waiting time for it. I will have to chase the supplier soon though.

Next we desperately need to be able to get going on applying the coppercoat now. Especially if we are going to meet the target of having her in the water for delivery to Plymouth over Easter. After consultation with various forums, the consensus on how to apply it to the places currently covered by chocks is to do the rest of the boat first and then get the yard to move her in the cradle a bit and do the other bits that could not currently be got at. That means at least two weekends of work. This necessarily requires non freezing temperatures such as we have had to date as the Coppercoat requires an ambient temperature of at least ten degrees.

Oh well, I have ordered myself a cheap camcorder from the usual online retailer with a view to making a video of our work and attempts generally at doing the AZAB so I should be able to start playing with that soon.

Happy sailing or at least dreaming of sailing.

Got the Cruising Chute

Woo Hoo. Acres of brightly coloured nylon in a white sock. It all looks nice and I can't wait to try it out now though we can pretty much be guaranteed headwinds all season now :-)

Unexpected job of work

One of the "joys" of owning a boat is that things keep coming up. The latest was when we found that the underside of one of the cockpit hatches was rotten. Sarah G has nice teak hatches in the cockpit but the teak is relatively thin and the bulk of the hatch is made up of plywood which, in one of them has rotted quite badly.

We need to chisel away the rotten plywood and fill it in with some suitable and epoxy glue. It will be very satisfying to be able to keep the matching teak hatches but it is a lot of work!

Further plans

The season is shaping up to be a good one. We had a charity "bash" after work last Friday where we had an auction in which a day sailing on Sarah G was one of the items up for grabs. It went for a tidy sum which helped towards a very successful evening fundraising for Action Medical. The guy who won is over the moon and we are looking forward to welcoming him and his family aboard in July. Other people have been invited down as well so we should be having a social season anyway.

On other news, I spoke to Paul at Symblast and we will be collecting the coppercoat sometime around the end of February and should be able to apply it sometime in March. The hope is to get her in the water the weekend before Easter to give us a bit of sailing before the delivery trip to the West.

We were down on Saturday and did a bit of sanding of toe rails which came up quite well. On the other hand though, we had a look at the hatch covers in the cockpit and one of them had fungus growing on the bottom and sure enough, there is a bit of rot in it. I am hoping to be able to chisel out the rotten wood and let new stuff in rather than having to replace it which would be both expensive and would not match the others which are in good condition. As a precaution we are going to have to treat all the hatches.

Finally, Harbour Chandlers have done a first class job on replacing the guard wires which are now in place and make a huge improvement on the old ones.

We are going to stay in a B&B this weekend as I really want to get the Deks Ojle on the toe rail as soon as possible.

Update on plans for the race

We have decided to add a bit more purpose to entering the race as well as trying out sailing off soundings. We will now be raising funds for three charities. These will be:

Action Medical Research is supported by my friend Peter Osazuwa at work and we are pleased to be able to help his charity out.
Action Medical Research

The RNLI is an obvious one and works to save lives at sea in the UK and Ireland
RNLI

Finally, my Mother is heavily involved in supporting a childrens home in Nairobi called Shangilia.

Details on how we will be fundraising area bit sketchy at present but we will work out details and suitable publicity in due course.

As ever: watch this space!

Grit blasting done

Symblast came down and did the deed yesterday. We had originally planned that it should be done today but they had a space yesterday and I couldn't rearrange my day off so I went down today to have a look.

As before, when they did Kemara, they have done a thorough job and she is now all ready for the coppercoat. We now have to hope for a suitable weekend to crop up before Easter so that we can get it done.

This picture says it all! If anyone wants to have years of accumulated antifoul removed, I can certainly recommend Symblast. Usual stuff about no relationship and all that sort of thing. Click here for their website Symblast.

Flares and lack of them

Bloody flares. I am sure that the details on Sarah G said that she had flares that were in date till 2010. Turns out they all expired in 2004 so we have no flares. The things are quite expensive as well. The AZAB/ORC/RORC regulation pack is around £200. An offshore pack which doesn't include white anti collision flares. Other packs come down appropriately in price but the simple fact is that they are a lot of money for something that you want to have to throw away when they go out of date. Even worse than your average consumable which at least gives you some use.

Oh well, we will have to see what we can find.

Bit of work Done

We managed to get down to Sarah G today and had a nice but cold day doing things.

The biggest bit was to get a length of multiplait rope spliced onto the end of the anchor chain. The process is actually quite easy but of course I managed to make a small mistake that contrived to treble the amount of work involved.

I had picked up a bargain from ebay and had 50M of 14mm multiplait rope. A good little extra was that it had an eye with thimble spliced into one end.

Anyway, I pulled all the chain out of the locker and fed it over the bow roller. I then unrolled the rope from the drum it came on and managed to make sense of the instructions I had downloaded for the rope to chain splice. It was quite easy and I was feeling quite pleased with myself. The next step was, of course, to restow the much longer anchor line in the locker. I passed the eye end of the rope onto the foredeck and climbed aboard. Now, you will be able to work out my stupid bit! The eye was never going to fit down through the tube which the chain comes up. We therefore went through a great complicated rigmarole of feeding all the rope and chain into the cockpit and then through the cabin and into the locker. Finally, I dropped a rope down the chain pipe and Audrey tied it to the end of the chain and pulled it up. Now all I had to do was feed all the rope and chain back down to the ground again prior to stowing it properly in the locker.

We do at last have 90M of anchor warp and I have also had the option to inspect the chain link by link twice!

Anyway, here is a rather gray picture of how she is looking at the moment.

Back From the Boatshow

We had a very enjoyable time at the boatshow yesterday though we do have a lighter pocket as well. We had always intended to spend a bit of money but after looking at the various AIS options, we did plump for buying the Simrad AI50. This is a self contained transponder. It is a class B unit but has a small screen with a basic world map to display on and allows you to get the information on ships in your vicinity. In an ideal world I would like to be able to overlay this information onto the radar. This is not, unfortunately, possible with our set up as our radar is deemed too old to be able to be upgraded to accept AIS input. Eventually, we did a bit o humming and hahing and decided to take the plung, thus making the day of the sales woman on the Simrad stand.

On other stands, we did quite a lot of talking to different people about things like different anchors (Rocna vs. Delta), supplies of multiplait anchor line, satellite phones, liferafts, new engines and holding tanks. Some of the information was very useful. The satellite phone guy was very interesting. I have, so far been in favour of renting a phone but he was adamant that the best bet would be to buy one and then sell it on once we had done with it. I have a suspicion that, in this case we might well hang onto it. They are however pretty expensive though, starting at £1100.

The liferaft thing was also interesting as it is not clear from the AZAB and ISAF rules whether the ISO9650 certification is adequate but the word from the people at the show was that this is the case so may make the case for buying a liferaft more of an option.

Of course, we also verified that the Guiness was still up to scratch though it was a bit of a shock to see the Guinness stand selling other stuff like Kronenbourg!

Anyway, onwards and upwards. The grit blast guy will be down next Friday and we will spend the weekend working out how to get our new electronic toy installed and also where to site the arial that AIS needs. We can also make a start on more mundane stuff like sanding the toerail and generally cleaning and polishing her.

And so the saga goes on!

Two Bits of Good News

Now there are four Rivals in total in the AZAB. Tantine, ourselves, Emanon and Dequila. Emanon is even a 34 so we can be some sort of counterbalance to the flotilla of Contessa 32s. Dequila is a 41 but she is still a Rival.

I also had some fun today as I have commissioned a company to grit blast Sarah G and he will be doing it next Friday. It is a bit pricey but paying for the grit blasting and coppercoat is definitely a good idea. We did Kemara, our old Hurley 22 three years ago and it has been a great success though you do seem to need to plan a quick dry out and scrub off mid season.

The grit blasting is a very interesting experience as it makes and incredible noise but is amazing to see the old antifoul come off. Putting the coppercoat on is another interesting experience but also quite exciting and satisfying when it is finished though the deep reddish brown copper colour quickly corrodes to a verdigris green. It is nice though only having to pressure was off each season rather than go through the chore of applying loads of evil gunk from Blakes or International each spring.

Bloody snow

Although I usually enjoy a bit of snow, this one is proving to be a right pain in the backside. As it has effectively brought the SE of England to a standstill and I am really not likely to want to try sanding the toerail in freezing temperatures any work on the boat or even a bit of messing around is now on hold.

Oh well, we should be able to get down there sometime soon anyway.

Pre boatshow update

Not a lot of activity of course but we have been thinking about what to look for at the boatshow (apart from AIS of course).

I have also been making arrangements for Sarah G to be grit blasted and copper coated. We have become firm converts to Coppercoat after putting it on our last boat Kemara.

I have also been doing some testing on a revamped AZAB web site which should be going live soon so I will be linking to it from here.

I spent the commute into work this morning going through the ISAF Special Regulations and highlighting in green the things we will have to check on and probably spend money on as well.

Happy times!

Aries work

We started looking at our Aries today. It is basically fine though a couple of the alloy castings are cracked. The springs in the ratchet controller are a bit ropey but generous doses of WD40 are working their usual wonders. Critically, the main bearing on the rudder appear to be fine. All in all it is looking good. We have a few parts to buy from Helen Franklin and we need to replace the control and tiller ropes but a visit to a chandlers should sort that out.

The Aries really is an amazing piece of equipment. There are literally less than 90 parts to it though some of those are quite large and industrial like. It will be fun getting to grips with it and we will need a name for it. Captain Haddock is one but not a very original one. The autopilot has already earned the name of George so we need something different for Aries - perhaps something to do with a star near Aries in the sky.

On other fronts, I think that we have solved the problem of what to do with the AIS. Silva make a transponder that has it's own display so will not require the purchase of a chartplotter or new radar. Reports from others are that AIS is a fantastic invention and makes traditional radar more or less redundant. If this truly proves to be the case, I could recoup some of the cost of the AIS by selling the radar on ebay. I will have to have a close look at all the options at the boat show.

Time is passing now we are in 2010. 18 months to the start which is making things seem nearer anyway!