Lift out approaches....

...and I'm still 20 miles short of my yearly target..... 

..."Papillon" is scheduled to be lifted on Sunday so I have the rest of this week and Saturday for the final push... I know it's not critical, but it would be nice to come in on target...

That my friends, is a weather window...

 

...I have my eye on a weather window this Saturday - the forecast is for lighter winds than of late (and locally they've been F6 and F7 most of the week so far), and sunny weather - if it comes off it'll be just the job for a little perambulate round the island [clicky for the last time I did it]....

Added bonus will be no need to drop the mast when I come out on Sunday, as I'll be the "right" side of the bridge...  fingers crossed......

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"Marker" tacking session....

Yee gods, it was good to be back on the boat... 

First time out since the Bosham trip at the end of July (10 weeks ago!), a huge hole in the middle of the sailing season, but couldn't be helped.. if the weather had been better I'd have been out well before now..

As  it was the sun shone (for some of it), but blimey was it cold...

Nothing exciting - tacking practice again as only Chichester can teach you; when the channels are narrow, the tide is against you, the wind is light, and a slightly southerly SW'ly (if you know what I mean)

Little over two hours to Marker, carried on past for a while, but the sun was disappearing along with the wind  so I turned for a gentle run back to the mooring... lots of people out so some conversation as we drifted with various club members... oh, and good to meet you Chris but I'm still not convinced those oar things are a good idea..  

Coffee needed more than the Coke today..

 

An afternoon of gentle exertions - much appreciated..  track for the day as follows:

Look at all those tacks!

Scores on the doors:

Distance: 8.57 miles (cumulative total in the 2012 mileage tab at the top of the page)
Wind: Force 1 gusting two .. south, must have been a little westerly in it as well...
Sail Plan: Full main, full jib..
Speed: GPS says max speed was 4.9 knots which was almost certainly under motor, average speed of 2.4 knots... 

An average video of an average day..  


...we're now just 20 miles short of our 2011 mileage, and lift out is the 21st October... can we do it??

View over my shoulder as I turned for home..

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Messing about...

Not mine but gives an idea!

With Friday off to go sailing, I was watching the forecast with more than a little interest most of the week....  first time out in five weeks so also more than a little anticipatory!  

Forecast looked good so plan was to go out to Pap as early as possible and use the first half hour to replace a couple of blocks (rope guides for the topping lift and main halyard), and re-fit the boom which I'd left off when the mast went up. At the time I figured it would be better off in the cabin in light of the weather - good decision.. lots of wind and rain, so the decreased windage was a good plan.

Anyway...  Friday dawned grey and wet, not the plan, was supposed to be bright....  an hour later and I was on the boat by 9.....  errmmm...  is it supposed to be this windy....??

Nothing gained, I pushed on with the plan - blocks were replaced, the boom was reattached, the mainsail sliders were re-threaded....  then disaster....   cooker wouldn't work - no tea! 

 

Bloody thing....  gas canister (check), bang it on the side (check), hold it upside own (check), I even stripped down the equivalent of the carb, still no go....  settled for a beer instead  while I contemplated what was now a solid force 5 gusting 6 through the moorings... not optimal...  in fact no good...

Rather than waste the day completely (it wasn't wasted anyway...  it was good just to be back on the boat messing about...) I decided to go and recover my mooring tackle from the old mooring [clicky]..  I'd have to do it anyway and the longer I left it the more manky it would become...  much to my surprise, even after a seasons use, the galvanised shackle actually unscrewed  (but had to bash it a few times with a hammer just to free it up slightly). 

 

So mooring chain recovered...  five weeks and it was covered in weed at top, and bottom.... (after a quick going over with a pressure washer it's as good as new, and it's home now hanging in the garage waiting for next year..)

So that was it...  little bit disappointing as there was no option to go sailing over the weekend (and Saturday was very nice though still windy), but on the other hand she's ready to go when I do get an opportunity..... only 30 miles off my 2011 total...

PS. New cooker purchased - we shall have tea!

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Southampton Boat Show 2012..

Saturday was the Boat Show in Southampton - briliant day out with the bro in law mooching around all the stands - I don't think we missed very much - certainly had the sore feet at the end of the day!

This beauty was sailing past the pontoons in the afternoon - there were all sorts of boats, including "Independence of the Seas" which headed off to Gibraltar mid-way through the show....

This one was out as well - despite all the gleaming plastic and luxurious interiors it's funny how these older boats catch the eye....

This was the Bordeaux 60 and she was just exquisite - of the luxury boats I went on (Hanse 575, Dufour, Halberg Rassy) she was my favourite - I came to the conclusion that despite the fact that this was an exercise in imagination (lottery win!) the others were just too big....

This however was the boat I fell in love with - she's a Yarmouth 22 and eminently within my capabilities, if not my wallet unfortunately...

Just loved her...  22 foot long, long keel (but with a bilge keel add-on option).. if you buy her in the stripped down version only £39K..  almost as much imagination required as that for the Bordeaux 60!

An excellent show - busy busy busy - couple of pints of Guinness, load of blarney with the bro in law, lots of boats, gadgets - it doesn't get any better....  roll on next year.


Got Friday off - need to go sailing....!

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Delivery Trip... Redux!

...I should have called this post "what goes round comes round"... or even "I'm sure I've seen that castle before"... 

Rod and I bought his boat Ami-Ly back round from Port Solent to Northney, this weekend just gone, to finish the repair job that he was half way through when we took her round to Port Solent a couple of weeks ago...

Not as pleasant a sail as last time by any measure - summer is coming to a close, and it was grey and overcast, and when not on the run, not a little chilly...

Either way, at 0830 Rod picked me up from  Northney where I was to leave my car, and 45 minutes later we were on Ami-Ly waiting to lock out of Port Solent...   she's beginning to feel like a second home...

Light winds dominated, but this did give us an option to fly the cruising chute - mucking huge, but a visible increase in speed while we flew it - you need to prepare for flying it though and there's al;ways a lingering sense of dread that all is going to go to rat sh*t any minute! I would love one for Pap if I could find the right sized sail second hand, I have a backstay to support the mast so could fly it from the mast head if I wanted to. Having said that, both Rod and I think that Ami-Ly's sail (which was also second hand/off the shelf) is probably a cut down spinnaker rather than a proper asymmetric cruising chute...

We ended the trip with a lovely tight reach up the harbour, before dropping the washing and mooring up on the overnight pontoon in the Emsworth Channel - this is my first time there (second first of the day), but this was also Rod's first time since they replaced the pontoons - they're very smart - no power/water, but an all water mooring, and cheap...  the surface of the pontoon is rough though, high friction....

Emsworth waiting pontoon - Emsworth Channel

We then transferred me to Northney via Rod's little rib - far cheaper on the waiting pontoon than putting her in Northney for the night....  

Scores on the doors:

• 18.96  miles (overall mileage in the page at the top)
• Average 3.4  knots
• Max speed 5.4knots (but both Rod and I saw 6 a few times - especially on the close reach up the harbour to the pontoon)
• 4 hour 52 mins door to pontoon
• Force 2, gusting 3 - SW - full rig, including cruising chute...

So what was going on here then.... answer next post if I remember.. 

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Mast raising experiments...

Saturday saw me on the boat to put the mast up... I had a few idea's I wanted to try out as despite the A frame making life immeasurably simpler, there is still an issue with my style of mast foot where the mast can swing side to side if it is not braced by a third party...given I do a lot of the mast raising and lowering by myself, this is a risk I would prefer to eradicate... 

I had an idea based on a mast bridle [click here] which was to use an additional piece of lumber, the same cross section as the stuff I'm using for the A frame. This would lay sideways across the boat, just in front of the mast, with an eye bolt at each end, and a line from the mast to each eye-bolt - this would stop the side ways swing of the mast, and because it was in line with the mast foot, would not tighten or loosen as the mast is raised/lowered, but would maintain a steady pressure to keep the mast central...

I soon discounted this idea, as the beam would interfere with the free movement of the A frame... I'd have to have a beam that would fit within the spread of the A frame....

What I ended up with...  mast crutch at the back - A frame in the foreground - line from the mast head can be seen going to the top of the A frame - the two mooring lines are connected to the D ring on the front of the mast, and tied off at the mid section cleats....  the two lines top left are the 4:1 purchase I use to raise the mast - it's my main sheet...

 

Back to square one then, as a trial lift soon showed the mast swinging side to side...

My mast has the typical spinnaker pole attachment/D ring, but above that - almost at spreader height and way above reach - I have another identical fitting. Using two mooring ropes I threaded them through, and tied off at the mid-cleat (same cleat I use for the A frame feet) on each side - this time when I lifted, the mast stayed central and I continued to heave away, but at 45' the mast would go no further, and thinking that the issue was with lifting the mast from the masthead, I dropped the mast, and attached a rope to the same D ring to use as my lift...

Re-tightening the mooring ropes (and that really should have been a clue.... ) I then had another bash - same issue...  and then I noticed that the mooring ropes were rigid....  doh....  I knew that the issue with not having a proper bridle was that the stays would loosen and tighten, after all that 's what happens to the real one's, but I hadn't realised by how much.... I tied off the lifting rope (I use my main sheet so it has a cam cleat to hold the rope) eased off the mooring rope/"bridles", went back and hauled again and before you know it the mast was up and I had bolted the fore-stay... job done....


I'm now wondering about how I get round this issue next time - OK, the stop half way, loosen off, and go back to finish worked, but it's not elegant....  My geometry is rubbish - I wonder if attaching the ropes being used as bridles, to the actual A frame would work? Longer term the solution in the article above is the way forward, but with Pap going for sale this winter, then for the next time the mast comes down I'll use the same approach as this time but get a mate along to slowly adjust the bridles as the mast comes down.....

Fascinating problem.... and clear proof I need to get out more!   Fun afternoon....though quite tiring...  boats are like giant Meccano sets really - the stuff we do on them goes back hundreds of years - Nelson's sailors did exactly the same things with A frames, blocks, ropes and muscle power - they just did it better than me....

Makes you think....

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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!!

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