The Holding Tank is Ready

In and around all of the delays in getting BV's mast down and lifting her out of the water, it was really good to receive a phone call from Tek-Tanks informing me that the holding tank was complete and ready for collection.   They have done a great job and the tank feels really solidly put together.

It now looks as though this weekend will be spent starting to fit the holding tank rather than working on the mast and polishing the hull as was originally expected.  Not quite the progress we were thinking of but still a step or two in the right direction.

I have also been thinking about the problem we had trying to get the mast down and the current requirement to loosen off the forestay adjuster to get enough slack in the forestay and backstay to release them.  I tightened up the forestay adjuster to fine tune the mast rake but the result is just a little too much tension in the wires when the backstay tensioner is wound fully out.  On the face of it adjusting the forestay should be a one-off adjustment and that is the way I would like it to be.  On some of the smaller travel-hoists we would expect to have to disconnect the backstay prior to being lifted out to avoid it fouling the hoist cross-beam.  When we get lifted out in the future I don't want to have to take apart the Furlex and adjust the forestay length for every lift, especially as we have a backstay tensioner that should make it all very painless.  Therefore, when the mast is down, I have decided to replace the short top section of the backstay above the HF aerial insulator with a new length of wire which is slightly longer.  That will allow the forestay length to be adjusted to give the correct rake and then left.  If I get my measurements correct then, when the backstay tensioner is fully extended, there will be enough slack in the system to disconnect the backstay easily.  I can't add too much length to the backstay though as, when wound in, the backstay tensioner must still be able to set the correct range of backstay tensions for normal use and when beating into wind.  Lengthening the backstay... another job added to the list!

Bad Luck Comes in Threes

Not a disaster but certainly a frustrating series of setbacks.

First the marine engineer I had booked to change the cutlass bearings when we lifted BV out this week called to say that he could no longer do the work for us this week because of some issues at home.  After some rapid calls to several other engineers it was clear that we couldn't get another engineer to do the work at such short notice.  Lifting BV out of the water has therefore had to be delayed a couple of weeks to when both the travel-hoist and the marine engineer are available.  On the plus side it de-conflicts the work on the mast and the hull, both of which involve quite a lot of work.

Secondly, we had some issues when we tried to take down the mast.  Floating below the crane with the mast supported by the crane's sling it was time to slacken off all of the stays.  All went well except for the forestay adjustment screw which was very stiff.  We didn't want to force it but therefore couldn't get all of the tension off the forestay and backstay; there just wasn't enough slack to safely remove the last two pins.  We therefore elected to delay the lift two days to when the crane was next available.  Having got back to our mooring the forestay adjustment screw freed up pretty quickly, however,  by then we had missed our booked window with the crane.  But, all was ready for the mast lift in two days time.

The third setback came the next morning with a phone call to tell us that the crane had a hydraulic leak and was out of action.  Getting the parts to fix it would most likely take longer than normal because of the Bank Holiday Weekend.  Of course the longer it is out of action, the more booked lifting work is backing up.  When the crane is actually fixed we'll get a better idea of  when we will get our mast taken down.  For the time being we are just waiting for a phone call....

Mast Lowering Preparations

The current trend appears to be that my blogs wouldn't be complete without a picture of the latest piece of canvas work. 

So here is one showing last week's piece of the 'transition to beige' "jigsaw puzzle"... a new cover for the wheel.

I've also spent some time working on our boarding steps for the pulpit.  When Mediterranean mooring yachts normally reverse into their moorings with the transom facing the quay.  That means that anyone walking past the yacht can most likely see directly into the saloon, so stern-to mooring doesn't seem to be very private.  Also, BV has a long fin keel and skeg which means that she can be a little awkward to manoeuvre in reverse, especially if there is a strong cross-wind.  Finally, quite a few of the mooring that I have used in Greece and Croatia actually have enough underwater rocks close to the quay to lead one to worry a little about the clearances for the rudder.  A damaged rudder would definitely be an inconvenience!  Add all of those factors together and there is a compelling argument for having the option to moor bows-to the quay, hence we have dug out the pulpit boarding ladder.  The previous owners had the ladder made but we have subsequently fitted a larger anchor and so the ladder no longer fitted properly.  The step in the middle had a support arm on it and that didn't fit past the anchor, nor was it long enough.  A bit of judicious hacksawing, filing and insertion of extension pieces has ended up with a removable and correctly sized support arm.  I now need to drill and rivet the extension into place and fit a lanyard so that it doesn't get lost overboard when fitting the ladder into position.

Buckler's Hard

The weather was glorious over the weekend so we had friends over and pottered about in the Solent.  We spent a very nice evening at Buckler's Hard where many of Lord Nelson's ships were made.  It's a great spot; peaceful, beautiful and with a really nice pub that has great garden for when the sun is shining and a roaring open fire for colder winter evenings.  Sailing to places like this is great!  A nice taster of future travels....

However, after two days of great company, good sailing and cloudless skies, we dropped off our friends, stopped dreaming of our new life, and turned our attention to the hard work of preparing BV for her mast to be lowered.

All of the sails needed to be removed.  Control lines and halyards also had to be pulled back, coiled and secured to the base of the mast.  With the weight off the boom, the rod kicker could be removed followed by the whole boom.  After several hours of work we had most of the upper deck prepared...

... so we turned our attentions to the 'wiring spaghetti' coming out of the base of the mast and through the deck.  Radio aerial coax, TV cables, lighting and radar control cables were all carefully marked up and disconnected.  I also took several close-up photos to try to make putting it all back together as painless as possible.

We've taken sails off, tinkered with wiring, and nearly all of the bits and pieces we took apart and removed several times in the past.  However, taking everything off at once seems a bit drastic.  I guess everyone feels the same the first time they have to get a mast ready to be lowered.

After what seemed an age, we finally were able to settled down in the cockpit for some well deserved glasses of wine.  It was quite strange without the boom in place; much more open.  

So the next phase will be to work with the shore team to crane off the mast so that it can be worked on.

A Little More Progress

Well the sun has been shining a bit between the rain showers and so I have had the pleasure of spending a few days down on BV.  The transition to beige canvas is progressing well.  We await the production of the new spray-hood to get the full effect but various covers have been finished and the attached photos shows the old spray-hood down with the new beige protective cover hiding it and some straps I have made to secure the bowsprit and the jockey pole.

The mast will be coming down in a couple of weeks and one of the planned jobs was to fit the track for the storm trysail.  The lowest section of track needs to be carefully curved around the other fittings on the mast.  The idea is that we will be able to bend on the trysail whilst being on our hands and knees on the deck.  We therefore want the new track to come down as far as possible on the mast so that it will be easy to reach.  It dawned on me that when the mast is down the halyards and other ropes around the base of the mast won't be in position thus making it difficult to accurately work out the route for the trysail track.  So, it was out with the drill and the rivet gun whilst everything was still in position.  After several hrs of very careful measuring and drilling the lower track has now been riveted into position.  We'll fit the remaining lengths of the track when the mast is down.  These sections will run straight so will be easy to fit; just one area where it passes close to the lower spreader bracket where we will need to check the clearances diligently to make sure that there is no possibility of a car snagging.

It was not all outdoor work.  Some varnish work below needed touching up and I had the joy of crawling around in the machinery room fitting a support bracket I had made to ensure a straight run for the holding tank breather pipe which was sagging slightly in the middle.  I have also secured the fuel and water tank breather pipes to the bracket so they are no longer sagging either.

We have found the logbooks on the market don't really record all of the details that we want and their layout tends to waste pages.  Therefore, for several years, we have used a logbook of our own design which we have had produced at a local stationers.  Nothing special, just lots of photocopied pages spiral bound with a cover.  We were on our last logbook and so another task we've completed was updating the templates slightly and then getting some more printed ready for our big adventure.

Little by little we are getting though or task list.  I will, however, be a lot happier in four weeks time when the mast is back up completely re-rigged and the myriad of other jobs we are going to complete when BV is out of the water are all finished.  It will be a busy time but she will be in really good condition for our summer holiday.

May Bank Holiday Weekend

The May Bank Holiday weekend was mostly miserably wet and grey.  A forecast of some fairly strong mid-Channel winds also put us off going over to France.  On its own not too much of a drama but to get across to France and be able to visit shops when they are open we have to leave on the Friday night.  From our perspective a trip to France would not be complete without the chance to indulge in some nice seafood and cheese shopping.  But after a busy week at work the last thing Nicky needed was a weekend of limited sleep and a Friday/Saturday night being thrashed in a mid-Channel gale.  Also I'm far from good in bad weather suffering from seasickness until I have spent a long time onboard and acclimatised.  Therefore the delights of French seafood and cheese were put on hold for the time being and we elected to go for a relatively local sail.  

We got up at 7 am on Saturday to get BV ready and then took the tide west aiming towards Poole.  BV has grown a significant beard on her underside and is definitely not performing at her best under power or sail.  That will all improve when she has been hauled out and cleaned up at the end of this month but for now it's a little frustrating knowing she is at least a knot or two slower than she should be.  It was close to Spring tides and so by getting up promptly we were able to gain an extra few knots of tide heading in right direction to compensate.  The weather forecasts still talked about gales due  imminently in the Wight sea region but we saw none of it.  Having made good progress west, getting into Poole Harbour would have been a slog against a strong outflowing

Chapman's Pool

tide.  With NE winds set to continue there isn't a great sheltered anchorage there we could have got into so we elected to continue on to one of our favourite passage anchorages, Chapman's Pool.  Situated just west of Anvil Point in Dorset, Chapman's Pool is an interesting spot with good protection from northerly winds.  It is a fairly wild spot really only accessible on foot or by boat.  The 400ft high cliffs dominate and in certain light they can glow or conversely look a little dark and sinister.  It's full of character with just a couple of old fishing sheds (one of which used to be a lifeboat station) on the shore and it has a sense of raw nature about it which we like.  A nice spot to watch the sun go down after a pleasant day sailing.  The photo is one I have picked up from the internet; it gives a better feel of the place than my photographic attempts from sea level.

Needles Lighthouse

Sunday morning was an early start again but straight out sailing to use the east going tide.  We were beating into the wind and did not make the tide gate to pass through the Needles Passage back into the Solent.  We therefore tried an anchorage just south of the Needles light house.  We have not anchored in Scrathchell's Bay before but from the chart it looked as though it would give good shelter from the NE.  The anchor bit in very hard bringing us up with a  sharp jolt; clearly our Rocna anchor likes chalk seabeds.  Great holding was a bonus as the NE wind was somehow channeled around to be more southerly in the bay and it was 'a bit rolly'.  The photo on the right (again poached from the internet) shows the view from the top of the cliff.  The anchorage allowed us a few lazy hours for lunch and to wait for the east-going tide to build to get us into the Solent.  A new anchorage for us but we have marked it down as one for settled weather only.

At 5 pm we were on our way again, motoring up the Needles Passage into a 10 knot wind trying to find an east going eddy in the tide on the south side of the passage.  That worked well and, as we were

Moonrise

pushed into the Solent by the building tide, the wind also picked up and even the sun came out.  We had a chilly but very pleasant beat east.

Beaulieu River was our chosen anchorage for the night but the river has a bar at it's entrance.  We arrived half an hour before my tidal calculations concluded that we had the water to get into the river and so, whilst I stowed the mainsail, Nicky motored gingerly along the entrance transit.  We figured that with the seabed being mud we wouldn't do any damage and on a rising tide there wouldn't be too much embarrassment if we touched; it might even have cleaned off the bottom of the keel if we had ploughed a small furrow across the bar!  As it was Nicky found a path with 20cms to spare and so we were able to drop anchor earlier than planned and, over a glass or two of wine, watch the steady progression of yachts progressing up river with the sounds of the Oystercatchers calling out from the bird sanctuary behind us.  After dinner we picked out Venus from a starlit sky and enjoyed a fantastic moonrise.

The tradition of it raining on British Bank Holidays was perpetuated with rain for most of the Monday as we tacked across the Solent back towards Portsmouth.  Even with our 'dirty bottom' we made reasonable progress despite the wind against tide producing a short sea which regularly kept stopping us from getting up to speed.  In comparison with the yachts which had elected to motor into wind, I think we had a much more comfortable passage as they appeared to have a ride more akin to a bucking bronco.

And so back to our mooring.  It was great to get out on the water but having to get back before we had really got anywhere emphasised how exciting it will be when we are free from our current routine of being tied by work commitments.  We are very much looking forward to the day next Spring when we set off knowing that the adventure lies ahead.

Little Steps

HF Radio Locker vent

A few days down on BV this week and I've managed to tick off some of the little jobs on the list.  The vent for the HF radio locker is now in place and looks the part, as shown in the photo in the left.  I have also delivered the mock-up of the holding tank to the manufacturers.  Having talked everything through they will produce a technical drawing and assuming that matches all of the dimensions expected then we can give the green light for the tank to be made.

A very similar job to the HF radio locker vent was moving the bilge pump switch and fitting the electronic gauge for the aft holding tank.  Not very technically difficult but it takes time and you want to make sure that it is all absolutely accurate with the holes in the right place so that it looks smart.

The finished job has all of the panels lined up as I wanted them to be which I was pleased with.  The gauge does not work yet but it is in place ready for wiring in when the the tank is finally fitted.

I also spent quite a bit of time shoe-horning our folding bikes into the locker under our bunk in the forepeak.  Reading about other peoples adventures, most seemed to strongly advocate taking along some folding bikes.  Avoiding the bikes with the really small wheels

seemed sound advice so we went for medium sized wheels and lots of gears to help with any hills we need to cycle up.  However, even folded up the medium sized wheel bikes have proved to be surprisingly large when you get them inside a cabin.  Fitting two into the locker took quite a lot of wiggling.  It was quite a relief to find that our measurements were not far off and the bikes do actually fit.  It doesn't look like it in the photo but there is also enough space for the storm jib to sit on top of the bikes as we had hoped.

The rest of the time was spent starting to clean up clean up BV on deck after the winter.  All of the teak on the toe-rail and in the cockpit was looking dirty but lots of careful cleaning (rubbing across the grain to minimise damage) has made a big difference.  The deck needs a really good clean next.  I still hanker after that gleaming new boat look but that will take many hours of scrubbing, cleaning and polishing.  The end result is a nice idea but for the time being I suspect the other tasks will take precedence.  Maybe a job to be completed on those long passages to far off sunny climes?