Aries fitted at last

One of the things I have done to get ready for our planned August departure date is to put a year planner on the wall with planned dates for completion of various bits of work. The Aries was supposed to have been fitted by a weekend in February.

Well, as you can see from the picture below, it has finally been done - at the end of March.


It has truly been one of the more frustrating things I have ever had to do on Sarah G. Every step of the way seemed to be dogged with problems. First, we lost the two horizontal aluminium tubes that are used to clamp the whole assembly across the aft deck. I had to buy a set of clamps off Helen Franklin-Bell as well which I achieved last November. Then, after a lot of exploration we found some predrilled holes in the after end of the lazarette but the new teak toerail covered up where they emerged on top.

Each step seemed to include the purchase of more expensive tools and also a lot of bending over the stern at awkward angles and lots of backache.

The highlight of the purchases were a set of extra long wood drills thanks to Amazon Marketplace.

I used the smallest of the drills to push up from below and all of them seemed to come up in sensible places except the last - the outside starboard one which seemed to be in an odd place. Last weekend proved that it was in completely the wrong place but the one thing I had forgotten to bring with me as the long drill set which put the kibosh on finishing that bit of work for yet another weekend.

We were supposed to be in Liverpool for my friend's wedding but could not make it as an upgrade to a critical system has to happen for work so I took the opportunity to rush down and try to finish things from last weekend.

The most trying bit of work was still to come though. I had managed to get one of the clamps on the cockpit coaming bolted in place but the other had proved too tight to get the bolt with penny washer up from the inside of the cockpit locker.

Describing this is very difficult. There is a bulkhead that separates the lazarette from the aft cockpit locker and it rises up into the cockpit coaming. As the outside of the coaming slopes inward the internal space becomes very small. Now, given that no boat is entirely symmetrical, the port side left just enough room for an 8mm bolt with penny washer to slide up, the starboard side was another matter entirely. This is compounded by the fact that there has been a sort of shelf moulded into the inner aft side of the coaming to catch any bolts that a careless owner might drop rather then let them fall into the locker where they can be easily retrieved!

The eventual technique I used was to use seizing wire fed down from above and wound round the bold about a third of the way down the thread. I then pulled it up and using the long groove (I now understand why the previous owner did this!) along with a pair of needle nose plier to work the penny washer over the end of the bolt without dropping either the bolt or the washer. Needless to say, I left a couple of spare bolts on that shelf.

Eventually, I worked out how to use our little tool for retrieving junk from the bilges to recover the bolts from this ever so useful shelf.

There came a final point where I had both bolts up and started to feed the clamps onto them. This showed up my next problem. I had been forced to leave some of the windings of seizing wire on the bolts which acted as an unofficial lock washer. The lock washer bit was a good thing, extra milimeter or so of bolt was not and I barely had enough length to get up through the top part of the clamp to do up. You can guess that I kept dropping them back in accompanied by much shouting and swearing.

Next, I worked the horizontal tubes in, moved the boat back on the pontoon, undid the main halyard and tied the vane to it as I had visions of hiring a diver to recover the thing from the seabed. Of course, the tubes were not in the right place and I was left with more swearing and a vision of having to drill even more holes in my boat.

After a coffee and a look at the situation, it occurred to me that the tubes were splayed out slightly and that they were really too long as well. I pushed them in a bit after some nervewracking loosening of bolts and things improved. Then I thought I could bodge it anyway but removing the outer clamp on one side and repositioning it to what seemed to look right. The starboard clamp did look different relative to the port one and with a bit of jiggling and banging it did work in the end and the holes even worked properly though the whole structure is under considerable tension. We now have a big piece of combined cast and extruded aluminium hanging off our stern and we look like a pukka blue water cruiser.




The next stage is to work out how to use the thing!

Things have been happening

The last week or two have been quite fraught really. On the positive side, we have located the holes in the toerail across the transom to fit the Aries. Then, after removing the strip of teak across the aft end of the cockpit coamings we also found the holes for the rest of the vane gear so we should be able to proceed with that once we have some blocks of wood to build up the mountings on the toerail and we will finally have a wind vane.

I have also removed two of the hatches and after buying a load of plywood from Robbins Timber in Bristol will be replacing the rotten plywood in them.

I would show photos but forgot to take the camera down last weekend.

On the other hand, we have had a bit of a blow to our plans since Audrey's employers have backtracked on offering her two months off work. Most likely option is that we will still aim to get the boat to Gibraltar/La Linea but she will only be on board for a month while we cruise Galicia and down to Lisboa. I will then seek out other crew for the rest of the trip round to Gibraltar. This was all very tedious but is just one of those things you have to deal with.

We aren't going down this weekend but I will fill up with photos the following weekend for everyone's interest and enjoyment.

No visits but we have been getting bits and pieces

Owing to family and work comittments - my nephew's wedding last weekend and a system upgrade to support this coming weekend, poor old Sarah G must be feeling a bit neglected though we have been getting useful little bits and pieces.

Crucially, I found some out of date charts at bargain prices on Ebay. They will obviously have to be used with some caution as they are around six years old but I don't think that continental drift is going to make them too wildly out of date for planning and offshore purposes. I had thought that they were being sold off by someone who had done cruising Iberia but it turns out it was for a chart agent who sells all sorts of charts in four different categories. First are the cancelled ones at less than £4 each, then the out of date ones uncorrected, next are corrected ones and finally there are new ones at the usual list price of £21.50 for an admiralty chart. With judicious use of new ones where detail is essential and older ones where that is less important we should be able to save a useful sum of money. The ones we got from Ebay are: Cabo Finisterre to the Spanish border and The Straits of Gibraltar.

The wedding was a very enjoyable experience and it all went well. We both of course wish Francis and Mumtaz all the best and that sort of thing and the photos will be available asap I hope.

New Main Fits

To a slight feeling of relief, we successfully fitted the new main to Sarah G and we now have a dazzling white sail under our main cover. I dread to think how much it will show up the foresail but both of those still have a bit of life in them. We had thought about going for a bit of a sail today (Sunday) but Audrey has managed to get a bit lurgied so we didn't do that but will be down there asap to see how it sets.


Full marks to Chris Jeckells and his team for creating a first class sail though. If anyone is in the market for a sail, I would definitely recommend them. Not the cheapest but the true benefit of having your sailmaker based here was shown to us as he visited the boat himself to measure up.

Jeckells The Sailmaker

When we set to fold up and stow the old one on the dock, we realised just how tired it really was!


The only other stuff we really achieved was some measuring up for the ice box, the awning and the holding tank. Once the super duper sewing machine we bought on ebay arrives, I will be getting to work on making an awning to be proud of. Or wasting hundreds of square feet of acrylic depending on how I get along with the whole process. I am also devoting rather a lot of time to thinking about how to go about making a suitable ice box. More watch this space really.

Still, it was nice to get down to Devon and pat Sarah G on the coachroof and reassure her that we hadn't forgotten that she exists.

Boatshow comments

Well, we went to the London Boatshow yesterday and were frankly quite disappointed with it. They have made big changes this year, not least the inclusion of an outdoor show for things like walking, cycling and climbing along with a huge indoor pool for events. Frankly, this all mitigated against it being useful for us. The number of small exhibitors with specialist equipment had reduced considerably and, in particular, the big chandlers all had much smaller stands or weren't there at all in the case of Force4.


One of the things that we liked about the old style show was that we could walk around and talk to the experts of some of the smaller equipment as well as finding the occasional useful little thing that you never realised you needed like a new form of self amalgamating tape.

We actually went all geared up to spend plenty of money this year but wound up not buying much in the end. The biggest single "purchase" was to rejoin the Cruising Association. Our impression was that the purely boating area had been shrunk more than the quarter that the outdoor show took up and I suspect that rates had been bumped up substantially to exclude the small companies. I think that the organisers have made a mistake here. Well, at one level I think that they have as the offerings for serious boaters looking for useful stuff for the upcoming season will, in future stay away. However, I am sure that the new format will be good for the gate which will make them profitable - for the organising company at least.

We did buy a couple of admiralty charts covering the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula. Now we have to find a source of detailed charts which at £21 a pop though Spanish charts are only €25. I will be keeping an eye on Ebay and other sources of second hand but if any of the millions of readers knows of a source contact me and I will be very interested - leave a comment!

I seriously doubt if we will be going next year though at the ROA AGM there was talk about having some representatives at the stand dedicated to Owners Associations and I quite like the idea of volunteering for that. Otherwise, we will probably stay away.

On other fronts, we have got hold of our liferaft off Ebay and have ordered a heavy duty one from the States over Ebay as well. That has been fun. We will also be selling our old rigid dinghy and a sailboard we aquired a few years ago.

Down to the boat next weekend so we want either nice late winter sailing conditions or a howling gale!

Rival Owners Association AGM

We have just got back from a very enjoyable time at the AGM in the East India Club. Guests of honour were Paul and Rachel Chandler. The usual business of the meeting was conducted but the most noticeable aspect of the whole thing was the presence of numerous strong personalities as you would expect amongst a group of boat owners but also an absence of much in the way of overly strong egos.

The dinner afterwards was also an enjoyable time with the chance to swap lots of notes about Rivals and different cruising plans. Now we just have to bring them to fruition so we can regale everyone with them at the next meeting!

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.