(For those who don't get the title, it's a Terry Pratchett reference)
Today I got to go boating. Yay!
OK, it was only up and down the river but beggars can't be choosers
As we're coming out of the water tomorrow, I wanted to get off the mud berth a day early rather than leave it to the last minute. So having finished off the handover of SV Laurin to her owners, I set about getting ready
That entailed dropping the cockpit tent onto the aft cabin roof (I saw no point in removing it completely), sorting out lines and then starting the engine for the first time since March
A good dose of preheat, as I haven't fitted the new high power glow plugs yet, and she sprang straight into life. The tickover is a little high and on investigation the control cable is sticking slightly. That'll have to be sorted out but for the purposes of today's exercise I could live with it
I patiently waited until the tide was definitely slack, resisting the temptation to go for it any sooner and when the time was right carefully maneuvered out of the berth
It's tricky as there is a line to a buoy dead astern of us so we can't simply reverse out but a slightly undignified shuffle under power did the trick
With Tony aboard to take notes, we set off up the river to carry out a speed trial. As previously mentioned, I'm fairly certain the prop is pitched a little too fine
The trial involved noting our speed through the water, and over the ground for comparison, at intervals of 200 rpm between tickover and full power
We confirmed what I'd thought on the delivery trip in that she picks up speed smartly up to about 6 knots at 2,600 rpm bit thereafter just revs away freely with little gain in speed. At 3,300 rpm, with the lever hard against the cross beam that limits it's travel, she'd gained just 0.4 knots
So with our 42hp Merc screaming away we were flat out at 6.4 knots. The theoretical hull speed for the Westerly 33 is 7.15 knots so we're well over half a knot shy of it.
What's more, my feel for the boat is that there's just no power there. She's not digging in and the engine feels like it's lightly loaded. It is, in every sense, like driving a car in third gear
I'll send the results of the test off to the prop people in the morning and see if they agree
With the speed test complete, we moored Pagan alongside Pleinair temporarily
I then popped down to Burnham to do a car shuffle. Well, actually a van and Landrover shuffle to be precise!
On my return, we eased Pagan out and Tony slipped Pleinair and put her back on her buoy
Before heading off to the truck for the working week, Tony helped me get the genoa off - it's supposed to be off while the boat is ashore and I'm going to ring round and see if anybody can replace the UV strip whilst we're out
And that was that for the day
Oh, the hole!
Quite impressive I think! She's really dug herself in and it's a rather nice shape to my eye
Tomorrow is lift out, pressure wash and chock up day and then the work starts
Today I got to go boating. Yay!
OK, it was only up and down the river but beggars can't be choosers
As we're coming out of the water tomorrow, I wanted to get off the mud berth a day early rather than leave it to the last minute. So having finished off the handover of SV Laurin to her owners, I set about getting ready
That entailed dropping the cockpit tent onto the aft cabin roof (I saw no point in removing it completely), sorting out lines and then starting the engine for the first time since March
A good dose of preheat, as I haven't fitted the new high power glow plugs yet, and she sprang straight into life. The tickover is a little high and on investigation the control cable is sticking slightly. That'll have to be sorted out but for the purposes of today's exercise I could live with it
I patiently waited until the tide was definitely slack, resisting the temptation to go for it any sooner and when the time was right carefully maneuvered out of the berth
It's tricky as there is a line to a buoy dead astern of us so we can't simply reverse out but a slightly undignified shuffle under power did the trick
With Tony aboard to take notes, we set off up the river to carry out a speed trial. As previously mentioned, I'm fairly certain the prop is pitched a little too fine
The trial involved noting our speed through the water, and over the ground for comparison, at intervals of 200 rpm between tickover and full power
We confirmed what I'd thought on the delivery trip in that she picks up speed smartly up to about 6 knots at 2,600 rpm bit thereafter just revs away freely with little gain in speed. At 3,300 rpm, with the lever hard against the cross beam that limits it's travel, she'd gained just 0.4 knots
So with our 42hp Merc screaming away we were flat out at 6.4 knots. The theoretical hull speed for the Westerly 33 is 7.15 knots so we're well over half a knot shy of it.
What's more, my feel for the boat is that there's just no power there. She's not digging in and the engine feels like it's lightly loaded. It is, in every sense, like driving a car in third gear
I'll send the results of the test off to the prop people in the morning and see if they agree
With the speed test complete, we moored Pagan alongside Pleinair temporarily
I then popped down to Burnham to do a car shuffle. Well, actually a van and Landrover shuffle to be precise!
On my return, we eased Pagan out and Tony slipped Pleinair and put her back on her buoy
Before heading off to the truck for the working week, Tony helped me get the genoa off - it's supposed to be off while the boat is ashore and I'm going to ring round and see if anybody can replace the UV strip whilst we're out
And that was that for the day
Oh, the hole!
Quite impressive I think! She's really dug herself in and it's a rather nice shape to my eye
Tomorrow is lift out, pressure wash and chock up day and then the work starts
An addendum to the speed test - further research suggests we shouldn't even be able to rev the engine to 3,300 rpm! Data from a W33 owner following a re-pitch of his over-pitched prop suggests we should be achieving over 7 knots at around 2,800 rpm at maximum throttle (2,800 is giving us 6 knots). I'm even more convinced the pitch is too fine
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