Exhausted

So what did he do with the broken exhaust?

You guessed it; jubilee clips, exhaust putty and a home made stainless steel sleeve then baked for 4 hours at 100C. A home brew repair!  Will it work, find out later when he fits it.

Luckily he took measurements and the photos might help someone work out what they are supposed to be. If he ever gets some money he might spend it on a proper engine but I won't hold my seacocks.

A mixed weekend

So his plan was to sail me down to the Roach on Friday evening, anchor in Brankfleet then motor / sail round the islands south of the Roach the next day and back to Bridgemarsh before the low water on Saturday afternoon. My predictions were several groundings, get stuck in the racing boats on the Crouch and finally miss the tide. I am not saying that I have little confidence in my owner but history does have something to do with my pesimistic view of his abilities.

As it turned out I couldn't have been more wrong. We had a very gentle sail down on Friday evening passing Baltic Terminal

and the Stella yacht Polaris of Burnham

Anchored south of Branklet Spit, echo sounder wasn't working so he chucked 15m of chain over the side and it seemed to hold. Spent a pleasant hour re-wiring the sounder and VHF which now work fine. Then he had a beer and slept reasonably well until the wind got up. At 8AM on Saturday we set off down the Roach against the wind and then via Yorkfleet Creek and Narrow Cuts to Havengore bridge. Although the fool seemed worried about depth and the sounder and almost everything else the trip was fine, only managed about 2 knots into the wind which was force 4. At Havengore Bridge he turned round the end of Rushey Island and headed for Suttons Boatyard. Then sailed back up past Potton Island along Yorkfleet back into the Roach. This was one of those creek exploring trips that can go one way or the other. It went really well, although it took about 2 hours to get to Havengore from where we'd anchored, it only took 30 minutes to get back into the Crouch.

From there it was head into wind again and motor back to Bridgemarsh through the racing yachts etc. Things were going very well so just off Baltic Terminal I decided to throw a spanner into the works. My exhaust broke in two just by the cooling water injector!!

To his credit the fool didn't panic, he checked to see how much water was coming in and then sailed back up Cliff Reach and into Althorne Creek. Some idiot had anchored in the entrance which made things a bit tricky. Back on engine for the final approach so plenty of pumping the bilges and low revs and we made it back in.

Alround, a good trip but I guess it will take him a while to sort out the exhaust problem.

I suspect that he'll try some sort of home brew fix but I doubt if it will work for long!!

Back stay chain plates

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my back stay chain plates or lack of them was a problem. What had happened was that a previous owner had drilled through the upper molding and fitted 8M eye bolts without backing plates or chain plates. The result was that the eye bolts pulled through the coaming and the gel coat had disintegrated in the area.

To get round this my new owner tried several methods of reinforcing the fabric to mixed effect. The fool tried fibre-glassing through the inspection hatch. Dripped resin all over the stern sheets, made the wood doubler too big for the hole, lost a fibre glass matt into the engine area and generally made things worse. Next attempt was to put in stainless plates inside and out to spread the stress. Unfortunately the only sensible place to locate the eye bolts meant that the triangular plates had to mounted upsidedown. Hardly a good outcome.

Final attempt, at least the last one to date, was to fit 9" plates through the rubbing strake and into the lower moulding. This seemed to do the trick.

 So far so good, much stronger and I can now apply some tension to the back stays when sailing upwind.

Next job is to try and sound proof the engine room. Photos might be a bit more difficult as The Fool doesn't seem too good with a camera.

First voyage

Delivery, concerns from will the owner be able to steer to will I stay afloat ran through my mind as we set off. It was a very poor start, the idiot ran aground in one way or another four times within the first hour! First off the tender he was using to reach my was stuck on the bank of the river, then he tried to leave the buoy whilst I was still on the mud, next came the mud bank near the quay which I saw him looking at from the quay earlier and he still got stuck on it, finally he put me on the mud by the quay. If this was a sign of things to come then we had a problem.

Luckily his mates seemed to agree with me, get a grip new boy! I gave him the benefit of the doubt and to my delight he and his mates took me down the Deben for the first sail I had done for a couple of years. At least we didn't run aground again and he seemed to have some basic ideas about how to sail. It was brilliant, we reached 5 knots and although under genoa the whole time it felt great. We made it back into the Tidemill marina without too much drama but someone was a bit too eager with my gear selector so I stopped it from working. That would teach them!

The next day the plan was to leave on the tide and reach Felixstow Ferry at high tide then sail round to Shotley Marina. Good plan, unfortunatley it meant leaving at 3pm and again we touched the bottom. This time it was the sill at the Tidemill. No major scares except that they tried to use this oversized outboard engine to manoeuvre me out of the marina. Not too clever, they forgot to lock the engine in place!!

At Shotley one of the crew had to operate the gear selector with a line and the boat hook! We got there in time to see them rush off to the bar. A really pleasant sail down the coast so things were looking good.

The next day we sailed from Shotley to Althorne where I now live. Again a long day but at least we didn't end up on the mud again. It was good to be out on the water again and things were looking good for the future.   

Love at first sight

It's hard to believe considering some of the things my current owner has done to me but he claims it was 'love at first sight' when he saw me in the boatyard in Woodbridge. My hull was very chalky, some of my woodwork was rotten and my hatch leaked.

Despite all of this I still felt that I could be made to look good by someone with a bit of patience and willingness to put the effort in. I knew I was sound under all of this and I think my owner did as well because he didn't bother with a survey. I am glad because I hate all the prodding those surveyors feel is necessary.

A month later I was ready to go into the water again, at times I doubted if this would happen again. Two very experienced men at the yard repaired my woodwork and sorted out my engine. The hardwork of sanding down my hull and antifouling it as well as polishing my topsides fell to my new owner. He also washed all of my running rigging and rebedded by bow roller on a new hardwood block. The old one had gone soft and leaked. There were a few other jobs but basically it was a mission to go sailing as soon as possible.

At Home

Chantilly at home in Bridgemarsh Marine

Life at 39

I am 39 years old and while for some this is no age at all, I do sometimes feel my age. On a broad reach I can still make 7 knots in a force three but under engine I can just about do 5 knots. As with most of my contemporaries, the list of jobs to be done never gets any shorter and varies with the funds available and the urgency of the repair.

Currently it is my back stays that need work. They are fixed to the transom through the upper molding and the fibreglass has started to break up. To cure this we tried putting more glass and resin in through the inspection hatches from the cockpit but this didn't work too well. The next alternative was to add inner and outer stainless steel plates but there was too much lateral load and the plates buckled under the strain. Next attempt will be to try chain plates that pull the load down further. Depending upon how this goes there will be a picture to show the final result.

Over this last winter the usual antifouling and routine jobs were done. In addition the comapnionway hatch was stripped down, repaired, veneered and varnished. When it went back on it looked great but we'll see how it stands up at the end of the season. Also carried out over the winter was a mini refit on the mast. New cabling and the addition of a steaming light on the elctricals and blocks for the lazy jacks on the rigging.

My owner had some valuable assistance from two of his friends but the mast came down and went up without a problem.

Where I realy show my age is in my gel coat. It is like the skin of an aging lady, it needs plenty of ointment and care, I like to think that it is beacuse I have been smiling too much.   

My life so far

My life so far as I can tell has been a series of rather nice and caring owners. I can't remember all of them but from when I was born in Littlehampton in 1972 I have spent most of my life on the East Coast. I spent several years on the Deben where I was tied up in the river near to Waldringfield. I think that I was based on the Oare for a while. During a particularly good year I was kept in Ipswich at Neptune Marina. Most of my early life is a blank but judging by the money spent on me I was well looked after.

I know that my current owner has met at least one of my previous owners, they were the ones who really cared for me. They made my curtains and made me the boat I am today.

I won't mention my owners by name and I have a feeling that my name might have changed from time to time.