Final Countdown

It's all got to fit somewhere!

There's no way that packing can be described as fun but having re-organised everything on BV and catalogued where everything is stowed we both feel a real sense of achievement. Earlier, having loaded the spares and other technical stuff, we both had a slight fear that there would not be enough space left for the books, clothes and personal belongings that we wanted to take. However, it has all fitted in and there are even still some empty lockers. Just the last few small belongings, such as mobile phones, and some food to load and we'll be done. The plan is to move onto BV full time in less than a week when Nicky is back from teaching an RYA Day Skipper and Competent Crew course.

Passerelle and jerry cans secured

With Nicky away I took one of my best buddies sailing for a couple of days and, around that, worked on the last couple of projects. The first of those was finishing the teak beams and securing straps for six jerry cans. With their covers on, the jerry cans are fairly unobtrusive on deck. Perhaps a little overkill but they will give us an extra 120 litres of fuel capacity which could come in handy on some of the longer passages; particularly crossing the Atlantic when we get around to that.

The final project I am working on is an insert for the gas locker. It is safest to carry gas bottles secured in a dedicated self draining gas locker. BV has one of those and it is designed to carry two 6 Kg and one 3.9 Kg Calor Gas propane cylinders. The issue is that Calor Gas is a UK company and the gas bottle designs are different around the world so we know that we are unlikely to be able to exchange them for full Calor Gas ones when we are away.

For the first part of our adventure in the Mediterranean the most readily available gas bottles will be Camping Gaz ones and we have worked out that we can fit two of them into the space that the 3.9 Kg Calor Gas propane cylinder sits in. Whilst there is space for the two 6 Kg propane cylinders and the two Camping Gaz bottles, the locker is not shaped to secure the 2.75 Kg Camping Gaz bottles, hence the requirement for an insert for the locker. It's fairly crude at the moment but I should just have enough time to tidy it up and get enough layers of paint onto it before we move onto BV next week.

The Anticipation is Building

With the odd warm, sunny, Spring-like day and less than four weeks to go we are definitely experiencing a sense of 'ground rush' as 1 April approaches fast. The boatyards and marinas are alive with activity as the sailing community is rushing to get ready for the season. It's good to know that we have already achieved the work that we see going on around us on other boats but we still seem to fill all of the time available working towards our own goal of being ready for 1 April.

New cover to protect the saloon table

We are splitting our time between work on BV
and tying up loose ends at home. The jobs are diverse; at one end of the scale the sobering job of getting our Wills updated to, at the other end of the scale, the seemingly more trivial task of fixing of a tap in the garage that has started to drip. The reality, however, is that it all has to be attended to in order to minimise the chance of any issues whilst we are away. We are really pleased that we have given ourselves plenty of time to properly prepare.

On BV we have finished a padded cover for the saloon table. We hope it will stop the beautiful varnish being damaged when we are at sea, particularly when the sea is rough and we have harnesses and safety lines on with heavy metal clips that seem to always bash into things when everything is at an angle with BV heeled over.

Our few days on board BV have also resulted in four more empty drawers through more efficient use of space and removing unwanted kit. We now have all of our spares stowed and we have also taken home a pile of 59 charts for areas which we won't need, which will help make space to stow the very large pile of charts we think we will need for the next year or two of our adventure.

Watermaker HP and LP pumps

One of my most useful gadgets, the Pela oil extractor, came out for two last jobs before being stowed away in the space we've found for it in the aft lazarette. The engine gearbox was due for the transmission fluid to be changed so with that now done all of the servicing on the engine and drive chain is complete. We have also started to re-commission the watermaker; a job which required a bit more poking around in the darker recesses of BV under the aft cabin bunk. We have two fairly beefy electric pumps (one high-pressure and one low-pressure) as part of the watermaker system. The Pela came in very handy for changing the hydraulic fluid in the high-pressure pump. We won't fully re-commission the watermaker until we have left the silty waters of the Solent as it makes no sense to unnecessarily clog up the filter elements and pipes. There is, of course, a risk in that strategy in that we will not be so well placed to get spare parts if something doesn't work properly when we apply power. However, we are going to have to get used to that minor frustration because inevitably bits on BV will break in the harsh marine environment and probably at the most inopportune moments and in the most awkward locations to get spares.

Sunset in Newtown River

We did escape from our mooring for a couple of days but stayed in the Solent so that we could keep chipping away at the chores list. Our peaceful evening and night at anchor in the wilderness of a delightfully uncrowded Newtown River whet our appetite for more.

Whilst out we were able to try out a new position reporting system. As payback for submitting a weather and sea state report using our HF radio, our position is logged on a googlemaps website. It seemed to work so the link has been included on our 'Where are we now?' page accessible through the tab at the top of the page.

The sail home was brisk with winds of up to 30 knots across the deck. We tacked backwards and forwards enjoying seeing BV in her element. We kept crossing the path of yachts that had given up sailing and were motoring straight into wind and the short wind against tide waves. Despite travelling twice the distance, judging from how much these yachts were bucking up and down we think we had a much more comfortable passage.