Wednesday 30 September 2009

windy

Supposed to be sailing down to Burnham this weekend for a YBW east coast gathering... the laying down supper....

But forecast is rubbish....

Wet, cold and windy.... any one of those three would be tolerable... but all three together?... nah....

Looks like we'll be driving....

Monday 28 September 2009

bier

Besides producing Django Reinhardt, you might think that all modern day Belgium has going for it is the chocolate and beer production for which is rightly famous. It however has one other hidden attribute, one that is often missed by the public at large. It is a very good sailing destination.

We tested this supposition to its fullest this weekend, with a long planned 'boys trip' across the foot of the north sea. It delivered on its promise.

Poor diary management saw me in Yorkshire on Thursday afternoon, meaning a long a tedious drive down from 'oop narth' down to Shotley, and by the time I arrived, there was a full house. Mostly in the pub.

It was a sensible evening however, involving a good meal in the Shipwreck and we were back onboard by 22h00, planning on an 06h00 departure the following morning.

It was still dark when the alarm announced its presence, but the first signs of dawn where there for the observant.

What wasn't present, even for the observant, was any wind. In fact, it was distinctly possible to comb your hair in your reflection in the water. This was a boys trip. Naturally, I didn't comb my hair. I didn't see anyone else combing theirs either. Most of us are well the wrong side of 40. Therefore most of us have little hair to comb anyway.

It didn't take long for the boat to be prepped for sea, and we locked out easily onto a glassy sea. Completely and utterly windless.

This set the scene for the rest of the day. We motored and motored and motored and.....

Past West Hinder, the Belgian coast appeared on the horizon, a thankful sight after 10 hours of motoring, and 2 hours later we approached the entrance to Oostende.

Oostende has a traffic light system (OK... an IPTS for the purists), and it was on red. This was clearly because of the large ferry exiting and the large ferry arriving. They tooted merrily at one another, while we tried to decide whether their sound signals meant that they were turning to port in reverse while unclear of their intentions. Or something like that.

Eventually, after they had been gone a while, the lights remained stubbornly on red, so I called up the port control..... a rapid fire response in heavily accented English (OK, OK... I know.... but we did once have an empire you know) left me a little confused... I did pick out the key words though.... after boat... proceed.... and out plodded a small fishing boat... pah!.... so small it wasn't worth the wait after all.... as he cleared the pier heads, we motored into the channel. OK. Here was the ship coming out, that the port control had really meant.....

So I gunned the engine, and dived right over to the side of the channel, hugging a pier. Much to the disgust of the fisherman. The last I heard as I saw his line stretched out across the bow was a long list of Belgian expletives, following by a sort of 'whizzing' noise.... apparently his line coming off the reel at an astronomical pace. This was shortly followed by a loud crack, as it eventually ran out of reel, and reached breaking strain. I'm told by those brave enough to look back that the sight of a Belgian fisherman with a rod bent at 180° is quite something. I will forever more wonder if he did a back flip when the line parted.

There was however one other consequence.... as the line must have grabbed the prop, the engine suddenly stopped..... ah crap... here we are in a narrow channel, 5 feet from a barnacle infested wooden pier, with 2 foot under the keel, and a ship coming the other way, and the bloody engine has stopped. It must however have been the rope cutter doing its stuff with a few hundred turns of 60lb fishing line... as the first desperate stab at the starter button resulted in my breath being released, and the engine firing up immediately.... the ship ghosted by. Very close by.

Somewhat chastened, we turned sharp right into the Montgomery dock and where delighted to be offered a berth right in the corner.

Montogomery dock has a 'med style' mooring arrangement, with a buoy that you grab with one end of the boat, and the other end is tied to the pontoon. We always go in backwards, as getting on and off is then easy with the swim platform. However, the corner mooring is tight, is surrounded by buoys, some stretched out, some pulled in. In short its a pig of a berth to get into. But we did it... and even without too much trouble. Compensation for catching a Belgian fisherman.

One hour later, Alan arrives on Mr Tinkles. So thats a good start. Nobody has sunk on the way over.

So now we have a full complement, Myself and Alan, plus BigNick, jhr and TwisterKen. What an ecclectic bunch.

It was rapidly decided that food was the first priority. So, given the fact that there were five blokes involved, we went to the pub. This proved to be a great choice. The pub in question benefitted from a small family restaurant above, and the food was very very good indeed. Can't pronounce or even spell the name, but it did sound remarkably like "Thomas's Sponge" after a few Belgian beers.

Retiring back to the boat we all settled in for a reasonably early night.... yeah right.

Saturday was lay-in day. Only it wasn't. At 06h00 UK, which rather annoyingly is 07h00 in Belgium, the harbour master Robert (who is larger than life) came knocking. He was off to Niuewpoort racing in no wind, so was collecting mooring fees early. Damn.

So... a breakfast of kings later, we all decided that what we really needed to do was to get on the train and go to Brugge. Which turned out to be a thoroughly good plan. 15 mins either way. We spent 3 or so hours wondering around Brugge looking for a place to get a coffee (yes, really), and eventually after giving in and commiting a crime against all male humanity (buying a map), we managed to talk a bar into letting us sit down for a coffee. They all seemed reluctant to use any seats for anything other people wanting to eat. Which I suppose wasn't to be unexpected, given that it was the end of September, and it was really hot, in fact shorts and tee shirts weather.

This needed to be worked off, so we attached ourselves to the thronging tourists masses, and took the canal boat trip around Brugge. An utterly remarkable tour, including some real highlights like the smallest window in Begium, a statue of a lady who had just exited the shower and was looking for a contact lense on the floor, and finally the most photographed dog in Belgium. I think the dog was dead.

Not long later, we agreed to head back to Oostende mainly as we had 'done' Brugge, managing to pass all the shops without entering a single one. A great performance from a well organised crew.

So, we headed back towards the station. On the way, we managed to get sidetracked. We passed a nice looking bar, sat alongside the water. With space.

So in we went. It was with dissapointment that we saw the barman hand us menus. It however was quickly turned to delight when we discovered that the 6 page menu contained nothing but Belgian beers. Result. It was marvellous to sit in the sun, looking at the water, drinking excellent beer.

A short train hop back to Oostende, and we found another bar, along the sea front to sit and enjoy the view. Only, their was a large concrete mixer in the way. The view was somewhat compensated for by the comely barmaid climbed up on the bar, cleaning the wall sized mirror at the rear.

All this time, Ken had dissapeared, muttering something about curry.

So, back to the boats, and as we finally relaxed, Ken reappeared with a bag full of curry enhancing ingredients.... and what a curry it was.... absolutely top notch... in fact, two curries.. even better.

The evening was rounded off by the creation of a new game, involving a pile of ten cent pieces, a few 'flicking' coins, and excessive quantities of port, starring CPD as the game developer. A real laugh.

Sunday seemed to arrive far too quickly. In fact, too little of Sunday had arrived by the time we departed, so by 06h15 we were motoring out past the pier heads again.

Another completely windless crossing beckoned, but this time with a little added fog thrown in for good measure.... the fog fortunately vanished as the light appeared.

The TSS proved somewhat more challenging than normal, with extensive avoidance looking like it would be required. In the end we had to duck one in the first lane, and slow down for a couple in the other lane. We did however, make full use of the radar, even plotting CPA's and time to CPA.... not 100%, but not too bad.

10hrs later, as we passed Rough Towers, suddenly the wind filled in, and a few mins later we are doing 6kts under sail.... we sailed the whole of the rest of the way back into Harwich, reaching 7.4kts through the water at one point... what a perfect end to a perfect weekend... even topped off by getting to the lock and finding it on free flow.....

Wish all weekends were like this.

Miles logged 158nm
Miles this season 684nm
Miles since this blog started 4,581nm

Wednesday 23 September 2009

this weekend

Forecast is for very light winds.... which is kind of a good thing, but not that good!

I'm off to Belgium again, this time with a group of friends.... leaving early Friday, back late Sunday.... looks like i'd better make sure the fuel tank is full...

Hopefully we'll get a bit of a sea breeze, and have enough wind to sail at least some of the weekend....

Sunday 20 September 2009

Accidental gathering

We'd set off down to the boat, with my niece in tow, planning on heading down to the Blackwater, and not sure what our plans were from there.... when Alan on Mr Tinkles (yes - that really is the name of his boat!) contacted us to say fancy meeting up to anchor at Osea Island... so that became a plan....

A completely and utterly windless trip along the wallet followed.... only made acceptable by the lovely warm weather.... it was an unexpected bonus to be in shorts and t-shirts in late September....

We entered the Blackwater, and motored towards Bradwell, where Alan keeps his boat, to be radioed as we passed the entrance saying "we're just coming out... are you far away?".... remarkable!

4nm further down the river, and we dropped the hook at Osea.... it set almost instantly.... in fact, the anchorage was so nice that we were thinking about spending the night there..... until....

We all tendered ashore replete with BBQ's and picnic equipment, to find the beach completely overrun with wasps.... so many in fact that 20 mins later we bailed out, and headed back to Bardwell....

And there, we found Full Circle and Beyond Reason..... before we knew it, Jim and I were pulling together a Chili con Carne for everyone, and we had a cockpit party under way.....

What a grand (and unexpected) evening!

Sunday dawned slowly.... we didn't need to leave until lunchtime, both to ensure enough water for the entrance, and also to get a fair tide back up the Wallet...

But sure enough, the law of sod was working well, and the wind had built to a perfect 12kts, but bang on the nose....

So, we motored.... it was greyer than Saturday, and motoring directly into the wind, with a big spring tide, we had 19kts apparent wind... and it felt cooler... much cooler....

We went back most of the way with coats on... a massive contrast to the previous day... but even so... we were out on the water...

Can't complain at what turned out to be a pretty good weekend all in all.

Miles logged 55nm
Miles this season 526nm
Miles since this blog started 4,423nm

Sunday 13 September 2009

more fixing

Yep, the weather was shite on Sunday, so we continued with the jobs list...

Well... sort of...

I'd plumbed in the satellite systems, so Grand Prix coverage took a fair chunk of the day up...

The main task I achieved was installing the Active Carbon water filter... this removes all sorts of nasties from the tank water, including Chlorine, which makes the water safe to use to flush the watermaker..... I had intended on fitting it just by the watermaker itself, and then realised that I could fit it at the main junction between the two tanks and the water pump, thus ensuring that every last drop of water being used on the boat has been through it...

However... nothing on a boat is straightforward.... the obvious physical location for the filter was where the current crude 'mesh' filter sat... this is nothing more than a fine mesh that removes particulates.... it was however, mounted with two screws from behind a panel that was mounted with more screws, and needed another panel removing to get at the screws..... phew.... it took nearly an hour to remove the old filter....

With this out of the way, it should have been straightforward to mount the new one... both had 1/2" BSP fittings, so a direct drop in replacement.... oh no.... nothing is ever that straightforward.... the new filter, a Jabsco Aqua Filta, has plastic fittings.... handy in that they can be swivelled through 180° to allow flexibility in location.... but robust... erm... no..... the mounts have a male thread, and then a short 'extra' piece so that a 1/2" pipe can be mounted instead.... the instructions tell you to cut this extension off if just 1/2" BSP mounts are required..... only once they are cut off, then getting a watertight seal is difficult.... and as they are plastic, you can only tighten so far.... which I did, and still had a drip.... one more gentle turn to stop it, and POP... the threads stripped..... arghhh....

So I ended up having to buy another complete unit from the on-site chandlery (not too drastic, as it gives me a spare cartridge for a not a lot more than a replacement cartridge anyway).... and also a metal 1/2" BSP to 1/2" hose tail, plus a length of 1/2" pipe.... and did what I should have done to start with, and used a length of pipe.... perfect.... complete watertight... and only took me 3hrs from start to finish!!!!!!!!

Other than that, just cleaning up this weekend.....

Saturday 12 September 2009

forecast and fixing

Well, We listened to the inshore waters forecast this morning, and after hearing F5 to 6 increasing 7, we decided that it needed to be a day in the marina, doing a bit of fixing instead...

So, here we are set on the boat at 20h00, and there is no wind at all... none.. zip... nowt....

So much for forecasts...

On the positive side, we've got a fair few jobs done.

During the week I bought some of those little wheels that fit on the guardwires to ensure that the sail doesn't snag up on the guardwires... they are fitted..

Next I had noticed a small worn bit on the furling line for the main... closer inspection showed it to be a bit worse than I thought... so it was cut out... this proved somewhat more challenging than I expected... the knot tying the line to furling drum was inside the furling drum... and the correct way of getting at it was less obvious than you might think... but eventually, I worled it out... the furling line is now 12" shorter, but without a worn bit..

Next I took a long look at the lines coming down the mast, through blocks, and back to the cockpit... they weren't sensibly laid out... several were slightly crossed, and they could have been better routed through the oragnisers, so that was addressed... now I need new labels for the clutches as the lines are in different places.... I did find one wheel on the starboard organiser was jammed solid... it took some time to free it... but now everything should run much more easily..

After this, I worked on how to finish the watermaker install.. its not done, but I've got it sussed at last...

Finally, I added a small bit of string between the dorade vent and the mast to stop the sheets dropping behind it, and then retied the sheets... hopefully that will reduce the number of snags of the genoa sheets on various things on the foredeck.

Now i'm going to sit and relax!

Wednesday 9 September 2009

waterproof cockpit tent

We've noticed that the cockpit tent isn't as waterproof as it used to be.... so i've ordered 5ltrs of Fabsil, which comes highly recommended... its unlikely to arrive for this weekend, which is a shame, as it looks like the weather will be OK, so would have been the perfect opportunity...

The following weekend we have guests (family), and the weekend after is a boys trip (to Belgium, weather permitting)... and then its getting quite autumnal, and it needs a guaranteed dry day to apply.

Basically, you paint this stuff on. Its a silicon that permeates the material, and apparently does a good job of restoring the waterprrof characteristics.

radar arches and windvanes

I've decided that there is no practical way of using the arch as davits with a windvane fitted... so it'll mean a mechanism to remove the windvane easily, and its use consigned to longer passages, where the 15mins needed to fit the windvane makes sense (and where frankly we'd probably remove the dinghy from the davits anyway)

I am still quite keen on a Hydrovane, but will explore how we could put quick releases on the supporting legs...

Its all academic anyway.... its quite a few grand away from being a reality at present... and likely to be a few years yet!

Tuesday 8 September 2009

smokey engine

I might have mentioned previously that the engine was a bit smokey....

I'm not overly concerned about it, as the smoke isn't billowing out in clouds and it isn't using oil by the gallon. The engine starts first turn every time, so I doubt it is worn bores and poor compression either.

My suspicion is turning towards the oil seals on the valves. This would fit with the symptoms experienced...

So... one of this winter's jobs will be to replace 'em....

Only, its a bit of a task....

Firstly, its an overhead cam engine, so removing the head means removing all the timing belt at the same time.... it means real care with the bearing for the cam, etc...

It also means that i'll need to hunt through the depths of my garage for a collet removal tool/spring compressor....

It'll probably also mean removing all the heat exchanger system to remove the heads, plus chunks of the fuel system...

sounds fun eh?

Only job that makes me nervous is the timing belt.... it really could do with replacing anyway as part of the standard service routine, so no bad thing.... but all my time mucking around with engines has been with overhead valve engines, so i'm not that comfortable with OHCs...

The engine is the Perkins engine that was used in the Montego and Sherpa van.... so i'll be treating myself to a Haynes manual to get the details on getting the belt back in the right place, plus all the torque settings for head bolts etc....

Hope its not too cold over the layup period!

Wednesday 2 September 2009

fitting it all in

While anchored for a couple of nights over the weekend, I spent a bit of time contemplating how everything could be organised on the transom as we slowly prep Morgana for long distance cruising....

I don't think its realistic to have a radar arch that extends far enough back to allow a tender (rib or otherwise) to hang from it, and still fit a windvanve on the transom... the tender would need to be so far back that the radar arch would need to be massive in order to handle the leverage....

So... I need to consider two things....

1] Could a windvane be easily made to be removable?... and would this make sense, eg using it for only the longer passages where it is worth fitting it...

2] How easily could we carry a tender on the decks.... or would we need to carry on with an inflatable and drop the plans for a rib?

I did even contemplate how we might put a hole through the bathing platform for a windvane to go through (and hence bring it forward), but this would put the windvane rudder a bit too close to the main rudder for comfort.... as well as make fitting and removing the windvane rudder a real PITA.....

Not sure really how to proceed on this one.... I have plenty of time to think it through, but need to have worked it out in my head before I start spending any money on things like the radar arch....

Tuesday 1 September 2009

anchor lights

I was utterly amazed at the weekend to see boats in anchorages without any form of anchor light....

Particularly on Sunday evening.... it was a dark night, with complete cloud cover.... in fact pitch black..... I watched several boats fade into the darkness as the light levels fell...

As boats entered the anchorage (HW was after dark), I winced as they sailed through areas where I knew boats to be anchored....

There weren't any collisions that I am aware of.... but it must have been pretty tough for the new arrivals...

Not good enough folks.