August Wareham Pirate day.

10^th    You may  have seen from previous blog entries that the handle came off my outboard and several bits of the throttle control were lost into the water. The red box in the image show the missing rollers, pin and plastic spiral insert that are missing (Online image clipped from a 25 HP version because the images for 5 HP motors all show a much older design without the twist throttle). These parts convert the twisting of the handle into push – pull movement in a cable attached to the throttle.  I have had no luck finding replacement parts locally or on the internet.

This morning I went to the boat and made the necessary measurements to try to make an alternative throttle control.  The idea is to use a 5mm stainless steel bolt through two bent washers as a sliding control. This will replace my temporary fix which gave control but steadily slipped and the motor slowed down as we were moving – A definite safety hazard  on our last trip out as I needed to adjust speed every couple of minutes so had to steer sat down on the port side of the cockpit.

I spent the afternoon shaping the two stainless steel washers, gluing butyl rubber on to them and making a handle from the extra piece of nylon rod left over from making the stanchion stoppers.  By the time this was finished the tide was down to 1M above chart datum so I will try this out tomorrow  (Actually it ended up being installed on the 13th.).

 

18^th Helen has a hospital appointment 11:30 Poole   Karl, Paul and I have a planned departure around the same time to take the boat to Wareham. Paul from Helen’s band in Wareham is coming with me and Karl is taking Summer Breeze.  The ladies will be coming over by car sometime in the afternoon with the dogs.

Our departure was slightly delayed because Karl had to deal with the traffic congestion caused by the New Forrest fire, in the end I loaded all our stuff in my tender and rowed out behind Karl who took Paul out and dropped him off at my boat. Meanwhile I rowed out in my tender against a moderate breeze and in a sudden rain shower that hadn’t been forecast.

Departure from the mooring went about the usual degree of difficult even though it initially seemed to be going well. The stern swung clear after casting off the two strops but the outboard still managed to find the tender painter among all the submerged forward strop collection.  That wasn’t too much of a problem as we managed to re-moor the stern using one of the nominal bow strops and sort everything out.

The trip to Wareham went OK but had to be done on the outboard alone because the track always seemed to be straight into the prevailing relative wind. There was also a slight holdup as we headed off in the wrong direction after the first pair of buoys in the Wareham channel and we ended up heading through a channel towards the other side of Brownsea island.   I solved the problem by starting the navigation tablet and connecting it to the boat WIFI.  That immediately showed where we were and allowed us to head in the right direction (Satnav position from the boat WIFI and heading details from a sensor in the tablet.  The only negative was that the screen is not bright enough to be seen easily so I had to consult it in the cabin rather than in bright sunshine in the cockpit.

On arrival in Wareham there was a little difficulty because the Wareham based river tour gentleman had apparently suggested we couldn’t raft up 3 deep but we managed to do so without blocking his access through the non-silted arch.  After he had done his last trip we moved my boat into the area where the tour boats moor and stayed there overnight.

The total Lilliput Sailing club contribution was four boats. There was also a local’s boat moored up to do some work but he didn’t join in the evening.

19^th    Helen did not have a good night despite being on the new foam mattress pieces which she helped specify – They turned out too firm for her to be comfortable. The other problem was a fairly steady rain storm at about 5:00 which caused leaks that wet her quilt, the mattress near the window and several clothing items she hadn’t brought spares for.  She decided to go home rather than stay for the day.

Willow got three walks today among the preparations for the afternoon and evening.

1. First thing we went for a quick trip along the river bank to sort out her toilet needs.
2. During the morning I took Willow and Remmy round a circular walk that I usually use on Thursday evenings while the band practice.
3. At about mid afternoon Willow was fussing and doing her ‘please’ paw thing so I took her from the boat right to the end of the mineral railway and back.

The three of us worked on dressing our boats and preparing for the water fight before heading to the chip shop for tea. We could have waited a little for the food stalls to be ready but wanted to get our meal early so we could fully participate in the water fight.
Basically this event starts with kids (up to age about 80) having a water fight among themselves along the quay while waiting for a boat trip of ‘Pirates’ to arrive from Poole and attack the town.  The moored boats end up as targets until the main trip arrives. After the mayhem has progressed for about quarter of an hour the trip docks and the pirates land for an evening of drier entertainment and food on the quay, bridge and the rest of the town.

This event is part of the series of “Wareham Wednesdays” in August and  raises money for charity while encouraging local residents and tourists to visit the town.

20^th   Willow and I were both awake at 4:15 due to a very noisy motorbike crossing the bridge but managed to get back to sleep until about 7:30  when I started to organise breakfast for myself, Willow, Karl and Dawn .  Neither Willow nor Remmy seemed enthusiastic for their morning walks today. Maybe yesterday was too much for them.

Dawn was heading home by car and Willow wanted to go with Remmy. Dawn was happy to do that and drop her back home with Helen.   That meant I could do the rest of the boat tidying ready for the trip back.  Karl and Nick were doing the same but I was ready first. My departure was around 11 when I thought there should have been enough water in the river. After about 50 yards I grounded on a patch that was 0.7 M on the echo sounder.  A bit of rocking and reverse gear got the bilge keels out of the mud and I managed to continue downriver the rest of the way with nothing else less than 0.9M.

I was tempted to try sailing the section which is marked by posts but decided to wait until I was guaranteed a decent stretch in a consistent direction.  The outboard was off and about 80% genoa between the last of the posts and the first of the buoys. The rest of the journey as far as the North Channel was under sail alone. There was one squall with near horizontal rain but the boat handled it well even with the almost full genoa. During the river section there had been one patch with a fairly significant heel under the bare mast but fortunately most of the route back was either downwind or a broad reach so the gusts just altered the speed.

Picking up the mooring was fairly stress free with a cross wind approach slightly up wind of the bow strop. The longest of the pair was picked up easily and secured allowing the boat to pivot into wind while I pulled in the connecting rope to get the stern strop attached.  That was a total of 15.6 nautical miles spread over the three days.

 

Originally posted 11th August 2026.  Updated 20th.