Hosting Friends and Researching the Dream

Blue Velvet was back in the water and ready just in time to take one of my friends and his son sailing in the Solent for the weekend.  We had arranged this weekend months ago assuming that summer would have arrived by June and that it would be gentle conditions.  It was their first time sailing and they did brilliantly despite the wind getting up to 25 knots on the Saturday.  Not much sunshine unfortunately but it was reassuring that after a good blast tacking into a 25 knot wind everything worked perfectly.  Despite the iffy weather we still managed to successfully cook a BBQ dinner with a cunning Cobb BBQ Nicky was given for her Birthday by her Father.  The charcoal is all enclosed so the outside is cold and therefore the  BBQ is safe to place on the deck without risk of damage.  I'm hoping it will come in very handy for searing tuna steaks as we cross oceans; I might have to get a bit better at fishing first though!

Overnight it rained heavily and Nicky found a small leak where the wires from the mast go through the deck; that, I hope, is now sealed.  Not bad considering how much the fittings there have been disturbed and the extra wires fed through.

Yarmouth, Isle of Wight

Nicky was very envious because she had to go back to work whilst I was able to take another friend sailing for a couple of days before he had to fly off to Hong Kong.  Again the weather was pretty dull but we visited one of my favourite seafood restaurants in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight called Salty's.  Good company and a very pleasant crab and fish meal.  We sat next to a really fun group of three friends staying in a cottage in Yarmouth; they joined us for drinks onboard BV after dinner and reciprocated by inviting us over to their cottage for breakfast.  We were spoilt with a fantastic cooked breakfast which set us up nicely for the day.  An easy pace of life, great company, tasty food and the chance to meet interesting new people.  All the tenants of the new life onboard that Nicky and I aspire to experience - roll on the start of the adventure!

So, confident that BV is fully functional, it is back home for a few days to keep on top of things there.  We are starting to research our likely destinations with some recently updated pilot books, and a more generic book with the latest ideas on cruising in the Mediterranean.  I'm also enjoying reading Paul Theroux's book The Pillars of Hercules.  It tracks his travels around the coast of the Mediterranean in the mid 90s and provides an interesting and amusing insight into the character of the region, the history and the people.  He started his travels out of season which changes the perspective significantly as many places are very quiet.  Probably useful information for us given that we intend to be in the Mediterranean for far more than the standard summer holiday period.

Bending on the Sails

I awoke to the sound of silence on Thursday morning.  After a disturbed night of very strong winds that was somewhat of a relief but it did mean an early start to try to bend on the the sails.

Hoisting the foresails on your own is much easier with no wind and so with around 5 kts of wind I tackled them first in case the wind got up later.

Then started the fun of fitting the mainsail, sliding in the five battens and then reattaching the luff fittings to the mainsail track cars.  An extra pair of hands would have really helped but I managed to get off lightly with only sore fingers and one blood blister.

 But then it started to rain.  Fortunately, based on the forecast of rain, I had already managed to feed all of the wires from the base of the mast through their deck gland fittings.  That meant that as the rain stopped play on the top-deck, I was still able to progress things down below.  I connected up the AIS, VHF and NAVTEX aerials; the navigation, tri-colour, steaming, and anchor lights;     the Raytheon Seatalk system for the wind vane/anemometer; and the thickest wire with all of the connections for the radar.  It all looked much simpler when the wires were tucked away neatly as in the photograph on the left.

And so that was it.  After a  couple of weeks of hard work BV was ready to go again.  It felt very strange.  Weeks of planning and preparation had gone into getting all of this work done and it had dominated my thoughts.  A milestone moment then and I guess the reality of how much we have achieved so far will sink in properly after we take BV to sea again.

Relaunch

Wednesday 20 June started off as a beautiful sunny day with very little wind; perfect for lifting BV back into the water and refitting the mast.  A quick light sand of the new Coppercoat to activate it was just finished as the travel-hoist engine revved into life.

The pictures tell the story:

The yard team hard at work plus an unknown interested bystander

Having reattached the shrouds, forestay and backstay,  the crane moved away and I was cast adrift to motor back to our mooring.  What a relief to have BV back in the water and the mast re-stepped!

That did, however, mark the start of a lot of work putting everything back together.  The first task was to set the tension on all of the new rigging wires.  When stepping the mast, the bottlescrews were wound up to little more than hand tight.  The mast could be at any angle and the wires were certainly not balanced and at the correct tensions.  The cap shrouds had to be adjusted to set the mast so it was vertical and then the shrouds adjusted to 15% of their breaking strain.  The intermediate shrouds were similarly tensioned making sure that the mast stayed straight.  With the correct tension on the backstay and some tension on the inner forestay, the lower shrouds were tensioned to give the mast some pre-bend shape.  All of that took several hours as quite often, particularly with the lowers, having got one set of wires at the correct tension it threw off the careful adjustments on some of the other wires.  It all came together in the end though and throughout the Loos tension gauge, pictures left, made the task significantly easier and more accurate.  Having got it all set up the only disappointment was realising that as the shrouds bed in with use they will stretch a little (0.05%) and so I will have to go through the whole process again before too long.

Once the rigging was properly tensioned, the mass of ropes sitting around the base of the mast screamed out to be untangled and re-run back to the clutches in the cockpit area.  That certainly smartened things up but it brought me to the next challenge of trying to re-fit the heavy boom on my own.  In the end I lifted the gooseneck end with the main halyard, the outboard end with the topping lift and, with an extra line from the outboard end around a snatch block at the port quarter, I was able to play three winches to position and reattach the boom.

With the boom back in place, the rod kicker attached and many of the line back in position, BV started to look much more like a sailing yacht.  Unfortunately by now the wind was blowing far too strongly to attach any sails so my last job before dusk was to rebuild the two Furlex systems in the hope that I would be able to re-attach the sails in the morning.

What a day... we had our sailing yacht back in the water and nearly ready to go again!

Last Day on the Hard

Tuesday 19 June was the last day BV was going to be on the hard.  The big task for the day was servicing all six Blakes seacocks.  They came apart very easily and needed minimal clean-up before being reassembled with lots of lubrication grease.  The bright green looks a little scruffy but is more to do with an anti corrosion waxoil coating applied to the bronze fitting by the first owner than any significant corrosion problem.

A few lengths of sikaflex sealant were replaced around the teak capping the transom and all of the old Coppercoat was given a very light sanding to help activate it.

I finally wired in an extra LED courtesy light on the bottom step of the companion way (It had been ready to be wired in for over a year!) and finished shaping and fitting the bronze liner for the goose neck bolt (pictured left).

After tackling a couple of small filling jobs the state of the stainless steel stanchions, push-pit and pull-pit caught my eye.  After all of the hard work polishing the hull it seemed sensible to finish off the pre-lift in preparation with some polishing work so that we had shiny stainless steel too.

That marked the end of the immediate list of jobs and it was now time to keep fingers crossed hoping that the weather would be suitable and that the crane available to lift BV back into the water and refit the mast the following day.

Engines and Sails

Monday 18 June saw me zip off to pick up the sails from NovoSail in Southampton where they had been cleaned.  We have not used NovoSail before but I was really impressed.  They have a special computer controlled sail washing machine, about the size of a tennis court, which soaks and cleans the sails followed by passing them though several gentle brush and coating treatments and finally onto a hot plate to fix the chemicals.  If all has worked as advertised them we have not just clean sails now but also mildew and UV resistant ones too.

De-coking the exhaust elbow

I spent the afternoon following up the advice from the Marine Engineer's inspection of the engine.  The tube which supplies lubricating water to the cutlass bearings was replaced because it  had some deposits on the inside of it with the possibility that there might be a restricted water flow as a result.  Replacing the tube was easily done and hopefully the new tube will continue to supply water to protect the cutlass bearings for many years to come.  I also removed the exhaust elbow to both inspect it and de-coke it.  No problems discovered there which was reassuring.  Fortunately the bolts all loosened reasonably easily and when I reassembled them I soaked them in copper anti-seizing compound to ease any future work on them.  The photo highlights the superb engine access we have when all of the covers are removed; it makes working on the the engine very easy and really helps checking that there are no leaks.

Coppercoat Day

Sunday was Coppercoat application day.  The forecast for sunny weather turned out to be correct and we were able to complete the application of the four coats of epoxy and copper in around 6 hours.  The results looked good - we just need to hope that it doesn't rain before the epoxy has fully set.

In a flash of inspiration I also worked out how to solve the problem of fitting the halyard for the storm jib.  We taped the sail battens together to make a 40 ft long pole which allowed us to thread the rope through the mast without it going under any of the other ropes.  With the halyard properly run we were able to rivet the sheeve into position and tick off another job as completed.  A good end to the day.

Damn that Shiny Racing Boat!

And so it was the weekend and Nicky came to double the workforce.  But boy did it turn out to be tedious work!

We had both looked with envy at the shiny topsides of a local racing yacht just back from being repaired and polished up after its third T-boning incident on the racecourse.  She looked so shiny and nice in comparison with BV's hull that we decided that we would cut back the gelcoat and polish BV up when she was next out of the water.

And so started a very long day going over the hull twice with a polishing machine.  First with gel coat restorer and second to buff up the polish.  Damn that shiny racing boat for seducing us was a thought that crossed my mind often through the drudgery.

Reflections

The results were spectacular though, so all the effort was worth it.  We felt fully justified in enjoying a glass or two of wine at the end of the day as we nursed our aching shoulders and admired the mirror-like finish.

66 Rivets

Friday saw several more jobs ticked off the list.  It had stopped raining overnight so the first job was to drill and rivet the top section of the track for the trysail.  I was pleased to get the last of the 66 rivets into position so that I could move onto other less repetitive work.

My days as a potential cockpit dictator were secured with the attachment of the loudspeaker to the mast.  To stop it from filling up with rainwater whilst the mast was horizontal, I taped some plastic sheeting to it.  I was then able to cut the cable at the foot of the mast to the right length and drill the waterproof deck-glands for all of the new wires to go through.

The mast was washed and Stalok rigging screws were fitted to the bottom of the new shrouds so that they were ready to hold the mast up again.  I also sanded and filled the bottom of the keel so that it would be ready for antifouling to be applied at the weekend.

The last job I tackled was shaping and fitting bronze sleeves to the kicking strap (vang) and boom bearing surfaces.  These have stainless steel pins that bear on aluminium castings which have worn slightly.  This wear, and that the pins were never an exact fit, means that there is irritating slop in the system as the boat rolls at sea.  The bronze sleeves will provide a better bearing surface as well as taking out much of the unwanted movement.  The sleeves for the kicking strap rod kicker ends were easy to cut to size.  The one for the gooseneck fitting at the end of the boom is ongoing work as, whilst the length is correct, the outside diameter needs to be reduced.  Easy if you have access to a lathe - I don't.

Storm Preparations

Thursday was spent fitting some equipment that I hope that we never have to use.  We have already had a storm jib and trysail made and Thursday's work was modifying the mast so that these sails could be hoisted if we every get caught in a severe storm or hurricane.

Firstly, I cut a hole in the mast to fit a sheeve for a dedicated halyard for hoisting the storm jib.  The picture on the left shows the sheeve ready to be fitted.  It was slow work but needed to be accurate.  Cutting the hole  went well but running the halyard was not so successful.  The picture on the right shows a view up the inside of the mast.  I had to get a rope from the bottom of the mast up to the small pool of light from the new hole I'd cut.  In what felt like doing keyhole surgery at 40 foot range, I managed to fit the halyard three times but each time the rope had gone under one of the other ropes in the mast; not good as the ropes would wear against each other.  Time for a cup of tea and a bit more thinking!

I moved on to fitting a dedicated track on the back of the mast for the storm trysail.  I was really pleased that I had had the foresight to fit the lower section of the track before the mast had been taken down because I would never have been able to have fitted that section accurately with all of the ropes at the foot of the mast out of position.  The main issue I had was where the track runs past the lower spreader bracket.  Had the track been flush-mounted to the mast, at this point there would not have been enough clearance between the track and the spreader and the the cars running up the track would have hit the spreader bracket.  I therefore had to fashion two small ramps from aluminium so that the track could have a little 'hump back bridge' for the cars to get past the spreader bracket.  All was carefully drilled and riveted in position but the rain came before I could fit the top section of the track.  It didn't seem like a good idea to be using an electric drill in the rain!

I therefore sheltered as best I could under the hull and spent a few hours polishing the propeller and fitting new zinc anodes to it.  I also made some brackets to fit the speaker under the radome and, in between showers, sanded the epoxy 'measels' smooth.

A Very Honest Marine Engineer

After we had cleaned up BV's underside Nicky spotted what
looked like small bubbles in our anti-fouling.  It tured out that they occurred where there were small traces of the previous red anti-fouling paint.  When we had the Coppercoat applied a few years ago, we had the hull slurry blasted to remove all of the old anti-fouling paint so that the Coppercoat would adhere to the hull correctly.  It would seem that the quality control of the slurry blasting was not as diligent around the waterline as it was elsewhere on the hull.  Therefore, Wednesday started early for me as I needed to open up all of the little blisters, clean off the traces of the red anti-fouling and then fill the holes with an epoxy resin suitable for use under the waterline, prior to starting the myriad of other jobs on the list.

By the time I had finished BV looked as though she had a bad case of the measles!  This was an extra job we had not expected.  Maybe the small blisters could have been left but we felt is was better to get it all sorted out whilst we could for peace of mind.

The rest of the work on Wednesday went very well.  What follows is a bit of a list but I was pleased to be able to managed to tackle so many of the planned jobs.  The new cap and intermediate shrouds were cut to length and the spreader end caps clamped into position.  I fitted a new VHF radio aerial and ran a new length of coaxial to the mast head.  I had expected that to be an awkward job but was able to pull the old coaxial cable through with a thin length of mousing line.  This was then used to pull through the new wire and I left the line in place to make life easier if we ever have to run another wire up the cable duct inside the mast in the future.  I also fitted a new aerial for AIS.  We don't have that transponder system onboard yet but knowing the callsigns, headings and speeds of all the big ships in your area and letting them have the same details about your yacht seems to be a good idea, so the aerial was fitted whilst it was relatively easy to do so.  I had originally wanted to fit the aerial to the top spreader but there was no easy way of getting the cable there.  The masthead was not suitable because of the likelihood of interference with the VHF radio aerial.  The new AIS aerial therefore went on top of the radome.  I also ran a cable for a high power speaker which will be bolted underneath the radome.  Despite Nicky's jesting, this is not so that I can use it as a megaphone to bark orders at any poor crew on the foredeck; it is so that we can take advantage of the foghorn facility on our VHF radio.  We currently have an air-horn to make fog signals but the system using the radio and the speaker will be much better as the radio will keep sounding the correct signal at the right interval leaving us free to look-out and work the boat.

The final bit of news from Wednesday concerned our plan to change the cutlass bearings.  This was always going to be a precautionary job to try save us from having to change the bearings in an awkward location.  I had arranged for a Marine Engineer to do the work and he turned up promptly.  After spending an hour looking over our engine and drive chain he proclaimed that it was all beautifully engineered, there was no appreciable wear on our cutlass bearings and that he didn't want to disturb the system.  This prompted a lot of discussion; I had believed cutlass bearings to be wearing parts and therefore to have a lifespan but I knew not what that lifespan would be.  The engineer confirmed that though cutlass bearings are wearing parts, their lifespan is very unpredictable.  He changes the cutlass bearing on one yacht nearly every year but on other boats the bearings can last the life of the yacht.  Our driveshaft has a cutlass bearing at each end so the shaft is fully supported.  Additionally, our the cutlass bearings are fed pressurised water to provide excellent lubrication.  Finally, the thrust from the propeller is transmitted though a bulkhead fitting rather than through the engine mounts as it is on many yachts.  Adding all of those factors together means that the set-up on our yacht incurs very little in the way of lateral forces on the driveshaft that would prompt wear on the cutlass bearings.

So the decision was made not to disturb the drive chain as all was working well.  Not only did that save us several hundred pounds for a fairly lengthy job, it was also very reassuring to get a professional's view on our set-up.  He did recommend that we carefully de-coke, and probably change, the exhaust elbow at the back of the engine because if that starts to fail then the cylinder head can be damaged (very expensive to fix).  Job added to the list!  The Marine Engineer wouldn't even bill us for nearly two hours of his time; he said it was just a pleasure to see such a beautifully engineered set-up and he preferred to take money off people for fixing broken things.  What an honest chap, and well done Rustler Yachts for making everything as it should be and not cutting corners!