Friday 14 September 2012

She's in....

...and 24 hours later - leak free - phew!! 

Rod the Mod gave me a hand - she's easy enough to launch from the trailer, but a bit*h to get back on if we needed to - it needs two people.

As it turned out no pull out was required - forecast on the day was exactly right; light winds & sunshine but it was a whole lot warmer than I expected despite the northerly's..

Tide was at 10:30 but was only 4 mtrs - so not optimal as it was a bit early, and a bit neap'y, needs must though as the time is drifting away towards lift out in 6 weeks time...

So it was that I found myself at the club at 7.30, Rod joined me shortly after...  outboard was loaded, chocks removed and we moved Pap down to the bottom of the slipway in a far more controlled manner than usual....

After that the plan was to unload as much from her as I could so that I could get a clear view of as much of the inside of the hull as possible, but in the end the sheer quantity defeated me and I settled for having the floor boards up so I could see the bilge...

Then we waited for her to float - to make life easier I'd come up with a cunning plan to leave her strapped to the trailer until I could confirm there was no no water coming - it looked a bit "funny" but she's big enough to float the whole lot if she had to... 

Half an hour after floating later no sign of water..  Good news so I released the straps and she floated free - took her over to the pontoon and we loaded in the last of the gubbins, before motoring over to the new buoy. 

Ten minutes later and Rod had lassoe'd the buoy, and I'd recovered the mooring chain and all was secure (no pick up buoy hence the lasso - I've replaced it now).

Went out for a quick trip this morning just to do a final check - still leak free so she's definitively "fixed"...

This weekend she gets a top to toe clean (she's filthy - she was parked next to a blackberry bush that the local flock of starlings had taken a liking to - from what I can tell they would stuff themselves stupid on blackberries and themn come and sit on my boat to empty themselves from the throat down, before for the next feed!). I also need to put the mast up, and boom on...

..and then we can go sailing!!

2 comments:

  1. Steve - it's probably in your archive somewhere - how do you raise the mast - I've got a pair of legs but it's a hazardous process - thinking of converting them to an a frame on the forestay Max

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    1. Hi Max - there's some stuff here...

      http://fantasie19papillon.blogspot.sk/2011/03/frame-more-work-done.html

      ...I've used that set up since I first created it and it's definitely better but still not perfect... because of my mastfoot design (you can see the picture a couple of posts ago) the mast can have a tendency to swing to the side as it goes up and before the stays take the strain & brace it.... I get round this by doing it quickly, if I can get someone in to hold it even better... but it doesn't help if I'm on my own - and that was how the mast foot broke when I tried to get it in after finding the water....

      ...I was reading about "bridles" which basically allows you to put in a temporary set of stays to support the mast until the permanent ones take the strain... two ways to do it...

      Some people use three ropes linked by a metal ring (you could use a shackle I guess) one goes up the mast, one to a cleat forward, one to a cleat backward, but the key is to tighten the ropes so that the ring is in line with the mastfoot - you have one of these one each side....

      The other way is a little simpler (and is what I'm thinking of), just a bit of wood braced sideways across the boat at mastfoot level, with an eye bolt at each end, and then a rope from there to the mast.. I'm thinking of using the cross trees - rope up and around the cross tree on the opposite side of the mast to the eyebolt - then put some strain on... it doesn't need to be perfect I'm just trying to limit the amount of side ways swing rather than stop it completely.... I have a spare piece of wood same length as each side of the A frame that I'll use... with a bit of pipe lagging in the middle to protect the deck.... brace it in place with ropes to cleats as the back and front of the boat... should work... :o))

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