If you havent worked that out from the previous 6 years and 11 Months, I seem to be very good at getting distracted onto other things than sailing. Even though the boat was afloat at a mooring at the beginning of this month, it was no different as Helen and I spent 3 weeks in France as volunteer members of a team emptying tents of equipment, taking them down and storing them away for the winter. On the last day of that I managed to tumble off the edge of a stage and injure my wrist. Fortunately it responded to a compression bandage and didnt prove too much of a problem for driving home however there was a trip to hospital for an X-ray immediately on arriving from the ferry. No fracture but I need to rest it and wear a splint for the next few weeks. So with that spoiler in place, here are the goings on for September and October …….
Friday 1st September During yesterday’s running aground fiasco I discovered that the shackles I had to attach my mooring strops to the riser chains were too narrow to fit the chain. Would you believe that Screwfix routinely stock galvanised D shackles with a 12 mm pin diameter in packs of 10 and costing only about £7 for the pack. Unfortunately the local store did not have enough waterproof padlocks in stock though so I only got one for the cabin hatch. The cockpit lockers will have to remain un-secured for a short while.
Set off for Screwfix and then LSC. The tender has gone very floppy since yesterday so I re-inflated it. You can hear the leaks but I didn’t trace them fully, just got on with getting out to the boat.
The tide was too high at 8:30 to make much progress with the mooring strops . Jobs done today include fitting the spray dodgers, replacing the forestay bottlescrew with a larger one and generally tidying up the standing rigging a bit (The mast still not in absolutely the right place and leaning slightly to starboard as a consequence of bending the end of a bottlescrew). I also threaded through the genoa reefing line and wound a lot of it onto the drum. That should give me a start when I hoist the sail but until I try it there will be no idea how many turns are needed.
Before I left the tide had fallen enough to be able to couple on the proper mooring strops (but leaving a loosened version of the mooring line attachment as a temporary backup). The stern one may be too long but time will tell on that.
Next time I need to tidy up, clean off all the muck from the Retford field and get some sails up.
Home for lunch about 2:30 and then had a shower, got fuel for the multiple long drives this weekend and eventually set off for Penistone at around 4. It was a long but uneventful journey. Dropped off the remains of the boat trailer on Matt’s drive around 9:45 and returned to Doncaster.
Saturday 2nd Awake at 6:30. Today is Jon’s official adoption as the leader of the Baptist church at Hereford. I am going to support Beth and him so need to be on the move again at least by 9:00 to be there for 12:00. The induction service started at 2:00 with a drinks & baked goods session afterwards. Very well attended both by their congregation, representatives from other churches from the local area and several individuals involved in Jon’s training.
Sunday 3rd Back in Doncaster and awake at 5:30.
Inflated the dinghy on the lawn and filled it with water which showed that two of the valves are leaking. They are screw in standard components so I have ordered a spare valve and the tool for removing and tightening them. Hopefully they will all arrive before we go to France.
Monday Matt was heading home around 7 pm after we had done a long day working on the house. While in a DIY store earlier in the day I was trying to work out whether to buy some 18 mm plywood to replace the thwart in the dinghy. Matt had suggested we try the offcuts from the sawing station at another store before buying a whole sheet and only using about a quarter of it. Not a lot of luck there but they did have some thicker finished oak panels for only slightly more than the poor quality external plywood. This is definitely over doing it but my logic is that it will be a much better option than having to replace failed plywood every couple of years.
Tuesday Main job today was commissioning the heating system . Heading for New Milton by 5:00 and arrived at 10:10.
Wednesday Dropped Helen off for some retail therapy with Dawn. I went to the sailing club, inflated the tender and rowed out to Rathenice to try to do some sorting out.
We are now on version 7.004 of the software on the arduino and it managed to pump out all of the rain water. However it needed a lot of help with priming the pumps so I don’t trust it to be left running while we are away.
Radio is working now that I have inputted the MSSI number – Managed to receive a conversation between the coastguard and another boat reporting having received a mayday call. Apparently it has now been downgraded to a PAN PAN situation and a ship / lifeboat is on the way to help.
Not really enough time left to sort out the mainsail and cover. So that will wait for another trip to LSC again. Maybe I can get another couple of days in and actually do some sailing before I go back to Doncaster after the working holiday.
Removed the backup stern mooring line and brought it home to dry out and to kill off the algae that has been growing on it – Less than a week but already very obvious. All the seacocks are off and so are the battery isolators & the engine ignition switch / fuel solenoid valve. The boat will be safe enough like that while we are in France.
Made it back to collect Helen only about 10 minutes later than she had planned and then we went to get the “UK” car sticker, spare car light bulbs and headlight deflectors ready for France. Took Lexie to the beach for a paddle then tea for everyone.
Thursday Heading for Norwich to leave Lexie with Grace. She is on a late shift so I will stay overnight and travel back to New Milton tomorrow.
Saturday 9th Need to be at the ferry port in Poole for 7:30. Did that via shopping in Poole as we needed bug spray from the pharmacy.
Lots of checks at the port because of the prisoner who escaped from Wandsworth prison and was re-arrested in London later in the day. Managed to get a rather pixelated image of Rathenice as we passed down the ship channel. Not too bad given that it is a digitally zoomed mobile phone shot.
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The channel was basically flat and the remaining 250 miles of the journey also went without major hitches.
Journey to LPO went OK although there were a couple of deviations from the satnav route as it failed to clearly identify junctions quickly enough for me to be in the right lane.
We are staying in the staff village so met some of the team and more will be arriving tomorrow and on Monday.
Thursday 28th September
While working on the stage today I managed to fall off and land on my right wrist. It is somewhat painful but I am managing to use it still so I think it is only a soft tissue injury. I got it strapped up with some elastic bandage so I can drive with it tomorrow.
Friday 29th September Today is our departure day so we set off about 20 past 8 leaving just 10 people from the team. Fairly clear journey to the ferry although there was a delay due to road works on the Nantes anticlockwise ring road. That had us in a queue of standing traffic for 75 minutes or so.
The crossing was a little rocky but tolerable as we had seats in a lounge with unlimited tea & coffee. Back to home about midnight.
Saturday Today was the “Mud fest” sorting out the lagoon moorings ready for winter. Thanks to Dawn’s messages to the club about my injury, I am not expected to participate this time.
In the evening Helen was doing a concert at Portland with the Wareham band. One of the other band members is a volunteer watch keeper at the Coast Watch station on Hengistbury Head and she asked me if I would be interested in being trained to do some shifts there. Sounds like an interesting use of my time when I am not actually sailing so I may take up the suggestion once I am more settled down here.
Sunday 1st October We set out at 9:00 to drive to the motorway services near Bicester to pick up Lexie. Matthew had gone to Svetlana’s for 9:00 to pick her up so we did the exchange and had lunch about 12:00. Home in time for a walk to the beach with Lexie before the latest attempt at fixing Helen’s phone.
Monday We both have appointments at the GP this morning for our Covid and Flu immunisations.
Wednesday We are going to Karl & Dawn’s house this evening so went to LSC towards the end of the afternoon so I could try to sort out the leaking inflation valves on the tender. The tool doesn’t fit the original valves perfectly (slightly wider grooves needed) but it worked well enough to get the valves apart to work out what the problem was. In the quiet environment of the boat yard I could hear a hissing from the affected valves when the tender was inflated.
This is a view of the dismantled new valve – The wall of the air chamber needs to fit between the two threaded components and tighten up to give an air tight seal. That was not being achieved because the whole assembly was off centre and the hole in the material was larger than the threaded portion of the valve making it impossible to check the alignment and meaning the rubber fabric can bridge the sealing ring creating a leak.
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My solution to this was to liberally smear bathroom sealant over the external valve component and tighten it up as well as I can. Although only two of the original valves were leaking I did this on all three and then re-inflated the tender. There was no audible evidence of leakage when I had finished and hopefully once the sealant has set the tender will remain inflated.
This job took me until 6:15 and then we set off to Karl’s house arriving at 7:10. The curry recipe that Grace gave to Helen and Dawn worked well and a good evening was had by all.
Karl had several old thwarts and gave me two which might fit and would save me creating something from scratch using the oak plank that I bought recently.
Friday 6th Trip to the sailing club for Lexie and myself. This had been intended to be work on the boat as well as checking on the tender and testing the two
thwarts which Karl has given me. When we arrived the tender was rock solid so the work on the valves has been a success. As I anticipated, the longer of the two thwarts was correct so I can now row more comfortably however I had forgotten to bring the oars so that was as much as we could do. I took Lexie to Hengistbury head for a walk instead.
Saturday We headed for the sailing club after breakfast. Helen and Lexie went for a wander to a coffee shop and then lounged about on the balcony to wait for me to come back ashore.
During the 2 hours on the boat I was able to drill the hole for the tiller fixing pin (6.5 mm diameter so I will need a 6mm pin at least 55 mm long), attach the mainsail and cover it (the cover will need revising as the flap round the mast does not line up well and wont reliably stay closed with the Velcro), wire up the echo sounder (which only works on one rotation speed so seems to be indicating depth in feet).
While I was there the coastguard was busy with mayday calls again (possibly one diver who came up too quickly and got transferred to another boat hence 2 different boat names making mayday calls) and another boat taking on water.
Monday 9th I came back to Doncaster yesterday because there was supposed to be a plasterboard delivery this morning (potentially 7 to 12) but that is now postponed. I spent most of the morning investigating what Matthew & Volodimir had been doing while I was away and correcting a few misunderstandings.
Thursday 12th Packed most of my stuff into the car ready for the drive back to New Milton . Left at 12:00 for a drive to the bungalow via the chandler at Lymington to get the pin for the tiller. Arrived just after 5, having driven through a couple of rain showers.
Friday I took the dog to LSC to collect my tender. There are still another four in the storage rack and they all need to be cleared before moving the rack. There were a fair number of people there putting together cradles for their boats and otherwise getting ready for the lift out on Monday. Fairly windy and low cloud there but not actually raining at the time. Forecast today includes an 85% chance of rain and up to 30 kph winds (somewhat better tomorrow & Sunday but back to 20 kph winds on Monday). Karl’s boat and a couple more are already alongside the pontoons so there has been and still is quite a bit of advance preparation going on.
Headed home about 3 and then took Lexie for a walk to the beach. Again it was windy and a little bit of dampness in the air but no actual rain.
I have still not found the laptop supply brick anywhere, I do wonder if it got taken out of the box last time I was at the boat and left in the cabin. However the likely difficulty rowing a light displacement tender in today’s wind made me decide not to try to go aboard to put the proper pin into the tiller or look for the power supply. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday will be better. Alternatively maybe I need to get hold of a temporary replacement .
Monday 16th October Today is the first of the lift out days starting about 6:00. We ended up setting off at about 5:30 and arrived at the sailing club at 6:10 having parked rather further from the club than we needed to. We will know better tomorrow.
The crane was already there and setting up so, after a quick drink, we started work at about 20 past. The boats tied up to the two pontoons were first because the tide was still out and nothing could get in through the channel yet but that was possible fairly soon after we ran out of pre-positioned boats that the crane could reach.
By the time we left at 12:30 the list for today was finished and we had also done at least 5 boats from tomorrow’s list and one planned for 2 weeks time. The area beside the clubhouse balcony is now full and there are one and a half rows of boats across the back of what is normally the dinghy parking area.
There were still a few crane jobs to do because the equipment is coming off the dredging barge so it can be taken out tomorrow and there is one more boat to be lifted out once it’s cradle has been welded. We left before the end because of having a busy afternoon with other appointments..
Tuesday Second lift out day. I woke at 10 to 5 and arrived at LSC just after 6:30. First lift was the boat that was delayed yesterday by the need to repair the cradle. That lift was done at about 6:45. Having done the two that were alongside the pontoons we moved one of yesterday’s boats towards the water a little to make room for another boat and then moved the crane to the centre of the space. There were 12 more boats to move at this point but still not enough water for most of them to be approaching the pool.
There were only a couple of lifts where there were any signs of wind affecting us. We had finished today’s list and also brought the dredger barge ashore by about 12 so I was heading home about 12:30.
Later I took Lexie for a walk along the beach at Barton on sea. Really quite windy on the coast there, mainly coming from the south east which may be why we got away without any impact on the boat lifts today. Home again about 5.
Saturday 21st Awake before 7 and got organised by a bit after 9 as Helen has a flute lesson to do. I went to the sailing club to drop off my tender.
Karl was trying to jet wash his boat with their 110V electrical pressure washer. It wasn’t staying running until I suggested turning down the pressure setting. – Looks to me as if there is no automatic switching on the motor to regulate pressure, just a bypass back to the inlet which would take the load off the pump if it was able to release excess flow. That did seem to help although it didn’t solve the problem entirely as it no longer tripped out immediately. It was still tripping out on a thermal overload at the motor if he stopped spraying or tried to use different jets but some of the hull got cleaned.
There were a couple of rain showers while I was there so I wasn’t motivated to go out to the boat and sort out the Genoa even though that has to be the next step towards doing any sailing. Even just testing the roller furling would be a step towards adding the UV protection strips but there is no point getting the sail wet at the moment and having to bring it ashore to dry.
Karl has offered to store my dinghy deflated inside his rigid one and underneath a cover. He also told me to bring the surplice thwart to the club’s boat jumble event in December as he can check whether it fits his inflatable dinghy and sell it if he doesn’t need it.
Sunday 22nd Church this morning as usual then home for a quick lunch before setting off back to Doncaster. Helen packed for me in a bit of a rush before starting her flute lesson which ended up meaning I didn’t take the rucksack with all my electronics.
Wednesday 25th October In the evening I went to Meadow Hall to meet Matt & Annabel and pick up the oak that was intended for the tender.
Thursday Off to Svetlana’s around 12 to pick up the kids and then head for New Milton. It was a good journey until we got close to Winchester when we joined a long traffic jam (2 miles on the A34 followed by 3 miles on the M3). All caused by a 4 car accident in the right hand lane of the motorway. After 6 hours of travelling we arrived for a quick comfort stop and to pick up Helen for her band practice in Wareham. We tried to go on a walk along the river bank but it was flooded so hid from the rain in the car and waited for Helen’s band practice to finish.
Saturday It was not as windy as forecast this morning in New Milton but everyone was rather slow getting up and it was after 10 before we were ready to set off. Quite rough in the main harbour area and lots of rain clouds building upwind so I decided not to go rowing out to the boat with the kids aboard. At the time we were there it was almost high tide (a 2.2 M spring tide as well as all the rain water from recent storm clouds) so the water was well up the slipways. After a quick show round we set off to Compton Acres to go to the café there. There was nothing interesting in the souvenir shop for the kids so we then headed to WH Smiths in the shopping centre at Poole (mainly prompted because Grace hadn’t found the same deal on the hungry caterpillar book & toy that we found in Southampton yesterday). First major deluge of the day as we tried to leave the shop.
After spending Viktoriia’s money on a couple of things we headed to Macdonnalds for lunch and then home. Another major deluge while driving round Bournemouth (wipers on full speed and still not happy to go faster than 30 MPH even on a dual carriageway!).
I then took a bit of a gamble and took Lexie to the top of the cliffs and back home – Only drizzling so we both got a little damp but nothing too unpleasant. There was so much rain around that I could only just see the Isle of Wight and totally failed to capture it on the photo.
Sunday Church then home for dinner and packing up. Set off for Doncaster about 1:30 and arrived at Svetlana’s house a few minutes after 6 following an uneventful journey. Svetlana had been cooking and left me some supper which was organised by Maria & Volodimir.
The tide today was even higher than yesterday – Not sure quite how much of that is due to the tide itself or even more flood water from the named storm (Tide at Bournemouth yesterday was 2.4 M, today is 2.5 and tomorrow 2.6 but today was definitely more than 10cm higher going by the photos posted by a club member).
Monday Today is the third lift out day but I am not helping with this one due to having to take the children to Doncaster ready for being back at school today. It could be interesting given the amount of water in the yard yesterday and having several of the boats alongside the pontoons already on Saturday.
Tuesday 31st October The plan was to return south tonight as Helen has an appointment at Southampton hospital medical imaging tomorrow afternoon / evening. It was generally a good journey until almost off the M27 when there was a major jam for the last 2 miles. Not all that clear what was going on as the matrix signs claimed there was a blocked lane then showed “end” although everything was still moving at around 2 MPH. I eventually got far enough to get access to the junction and was home about 30 minutes later.