4th June Today I intended to fit the new fuel pump on the outboard. It was rather a windy row out to the boat with a significant cross wind component as I went along the channel but otherwise not a difficult trip out.
The stern mooring strop was wrapped round the rudder again so my first job was to undo that. Unfortunately the state of the tide (Falling but about the middle of the cycle) , the sideways current due to falling tide in the lagoon and the effects of the cross wind meant that the rope went round the rudder again during the time I was working on the outboard so I eventually left the boat with the strop still round the rudder.
The attempt at fitting the fuel pump was not particularly successful as there were two problems –
- The outlet pipe is in a different position on this pump so the original one is not long enough. Rather than just extending it this gives me the opportunity to fit a filter between the pump and the carburettor which might reduce the potential for blocked jets in future.
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- The new pump is thicker than the original which means the mounting bolts are only long enough to reach a little into the gasket and are too short to fix it to the crank case. The bolts appear to be 5/16″ UNC and need to be 1 ¾” long instead of 1 ½”
Those two problems meant I was rowing ashore again at 11:45 and heading home to order the required parts. The bolts are coming by post but fuel hose and a filter (plus a spare) can come from the local Halfords.
Saturday 14th In the preceding 10 days I had obtained the fuel tube, filter and more appropriate length mounting bolts. At around 3:15 today I managed to get some spare time which coincided with an appropriate state of the tide and set off for the sailing club to install the new fuel pump & filter on the outboard.
The journey out to the mooring was hard work rowing against a strong wind which was causing occasional waves to break over the lagoon wall as well as amusing three kite surfers who were enjoying the smoother water inside.
It didn’t take too long to fit the pump but I had to have three different versions of the plumbing between the pump and filter before I was happy that the rather large plastic filter could not come to harm from any moving parts or jam the throttle (& ignition timing) mechanisms. The filter body is located in a rather narrow space between the pump and the lower casing.
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Due to being downwind, the journey back ashore took a fraction of the time of the outwards trip with me only needing to row across wind to get on the right side of the pontoon.
Sunday 15th Karl and Andy are aiming to arrive from Weymouth today and expect to be in the harbour at around 11:30 when I have arranged to meet a club member who can drive the launch to get their dinghies out to their moorings. I arrived at LSC a couple of minutes early and he was already gathering up the two tenders so we were on our way out in good time. Both boats were already on their moorings and sorting out their stuff ready to head ashore so we dropped off the tender at Andy’s boat and then headed for Karl. He was more organised and was ready to load luggage straight into the launch. We took him and Remmy ashore and helped take his luggage to the van.
As we were on our way home I got a call from another member who was on his way to the club and wanted help with the starter motor that he had fitted last week. I grabbed a sandwich and went back to help. We ended up taking one of the club tenders out to his mooring with his trolling motor – Somewhat under powered for the job today as the battery was used a couple of times during the week and hadnt been charged. The last hundred yards or so were rowed because there was a strong wind again.
It turns out that he had taken photos of the original motor before removing the connections but had not referred to it when putting the new starter back in. The phone wasn’t with him today either so I Googled a video showing the replacement of the starter and immediately identified that he had connected the battery straight to the motor so it was trying to spin as soon as the power was applied. That error also meant no power was going to the rest of the boat including the start button which should energize the solenoid.
It was a quick job to move the battery cable to the correct terminal after which the start button made the solenoid click but there was only 8 volts from the battery and no attempt to turn the engine over – I suspect the battery is too far discharged to run the starter but the owner reckons the boat battery is better than the one we were using for the electric outboard. As they both need charging we removed the boat battery and used it to drive back ashore.
Tuesday 24th Today is completely taken up by the VHF radio training with a 9:30 start and final exam roughly scheduled to be from 5 to 7 pm. This was fairly intense but did have several breaks during each session and roughly 45 minutes for lunch. Although they are allowed to have up to 12 pupils for each session they try to limit it to four because that gives each candidate plenty of practice using the specially modified training radios.
The strategy works because all four of us got close to the maximum possible marks for the written test as well as each of us doing test scenarios for Mayday. Pan Pan, Securite, Mayday relay and a couple of more routine calls using both DSC and non-DSC methods. Everyone on the course passed.
Saturday 28th Karl and I are departing on the LSC rally to Christchurch at 8:00 on Summer Breeze and will be there until Sunday.
We loaded the tender at the end of the pontoon and then headed to the clubhouse to wait for the rising tide to get into the lagoon. After a coffee and about half an hour wait there was just enough to be able to float the tender with both of us and our luggage aboard. After a few yards of paddling it was deep enough to allow the electric outboard to take over for an uneventful journey out to Summer Breeze.
The sails went into action while approaching the end of North Channel helping us to slip out of the entrance a little behind another LSC boat that had spent the night at Poole Quay to enable a similarly early start. The engine stayed on until we were established downwind in the East Looe channel. From there it was a steady downwind run past Hengistbury head and into the channel for Christchurch. We managed to overtake the other boat before reaching Bournemouth because we had both main and Genoa operating and could sail Gull winged for much of the time. They had started with Genoa only and switched to their cruising chute.
Today’s journey plan put us in the potentially somewhat depth & current challenging entrance just before the high tide but still with a following current and made the long channel up to the Sailing club relatively easy. It turned out we were the first boat to arrive so we had a free choice of tie-up position on the pontoon which would have helped Helen or Dawn get on the boat if either of them had decided to do so.
By the time all 12 boats had arrived there were 6 of us moored on the pontoon (with us double rafted) and the others rafted together along the adjacent wall.
Lunch was from a local take-away stand followed by taking Remmy for a couple of walks and a little celebrating of the journey in the sailing club bar. The booked evening meal in the clubhouse was attended by 30 people including a few who were attending by road.
The river and adjacent parkland area had been very busy with visitors all day but settled down over night so everyone slept well on the boats despite many of us being rafted up and therefore other boats’ crew having to access the boat or shore by crossing the inside boat.
Sunday 29th I woke fairly early and got up to take Remmy for a brief walk and toilet trip at around 7:30. The selected breakfast source opened at 8:30 and was doing a good trade in breakfast baps ranging from a simple bacon bap to a bacon, sausage & fried egg bap.
Like a number of boats we then set out to do a few small maintenance jobs while waiting for the tide to rise enough to let us out through the channel and bar. In our case the list was adjusting the relative positions of the stack pack & mainsail, re-fitting the stern boarding ladder and topping up the water tanks using the hose pipe.
Once we had finished and our rafting partner was also ready to leave, the mass departure began. Around 5 boats set off in a 15 minute period slotting in amongst a variety of other water traffic form local boat clubs (Including rowing teams, a dragon boat team, multiple paddle boarders and several classes of dinghies heading out for racing inside the harbour).
Although there was enough wind for boats to sail on other courses, our intended journey was straight into the wind which was not strong enough to provide a decent upwind speed so we motored all of the way back to the mooring arriving at 2:23 pm which was just about at the peak of the tide in Poole.
First posted 4th June. Updated 15th, 24th and 1st July.