Sojourn to the Solent

Coming soon ....

Although at times I've been tempted to be more ambitious, I've cast off that temptation!

Pagan will be coming off her berth a week on Monday (10th July) as I've booked a lift and scrub on the Tuesday. I don't think she's badly fouled, in fact she's still clean as a whistle above the mud line (well below the waterline!) which bodes well and I'm interested to see how the lower hull and keel, which sit in the mud, have faired with the hard racing antifoul

The Bosun (Glen) arrives late Tuesday to crew on the first leg of the cruise

Leg 1. North Fambridge to Portsmouth via Dover and Newhaven

Weather permitting (as always), we'll be departing North Fambridge early on Wednesday 11th July towards Dover. We plan to spend two nights in Dover as Glen has never been to the castle

On Friday 12th we'll make a decently long day sail to Newhaven (alternate Brighton) and then on Saturday we'll head for Portsmouth. We'll probably go into Haslar although Royal Clarence would be cheaper. Haslar though will be more convenient for the ferry to Portsmouth and has better facilities

I plan to go to the Mary Rose exhibition on Sunday which was closed when Jane and I visited the docks some years ago. Glen went recently and still has a valid ticket so he gets to go again!

Glen leaves on Monday morning and Jane arrives on Tuesday afternoon so it looks like four nights in Haslar at £32 a night. Hence the temptation to go to Royal Clarence which is a Transeurope marina where we get up to seven nights half price. I'm in two minds and neither of them is made up!

Leg 2. Isle of Wight, Chichester Harbour, Beaulieu River finishing in Poole

Jane and I have ten days to get to Poole where we'll meet Rik. We're hoping that my cousin Maire will be joining us for at least part of this leg

Given that Cowes Week starts on the 28th, we'll get the Isle of Wight out of the way pronto so that'll be our first port of call. We'll certainly head into Cowes, for the experience and maybe somewhere else too but we'll be heading back across the Solent by Friday

Then the weekend of the 22nd/23rd will probably be spent in Chichester Harbour (my cunning plan is to get settled down at anchor or on a mooring by Friday lunchtime and let the weekend madness pass us by!). We may well stay in Chi until Tuesday or Wednesday

We'll then move on to the Beaulieu River and Bucklers Hard for a night or two before fetching up in Poole on Friday 28th to meet Rik

Leg 3. Poole to North Fambridge via ... who knows? 

Jane has to be away on the train again on Monday the 31st so we'll probably toddle along the coast from Poole to Weymouth over the weekend.

Then Rik and I have 8 days to get back to Fambridge.

If the weather is good and looks set to stay good, we might get a wee bit more ambitious with the sailing on this final leg. A channel crossing and a port hop along the North French coast is tempting. However, that's as detailed as the planning is going to get at this stage!

Working on the chain, gang

Yes, I know I've used that one before but it was ages ago and I'm a great believer in recycling!

50m of chain doesn't look that impressive laid out!

After my efforts earlier in the week to make the aft cabin habitable and sort out the cockpit lockers, my mission this morning, which took longer than I expected, was to lay out the 50m of chain from the chain locker and clean it up

We've had a problem, when recovering the anchor, with the chain sticking on the windlass gypsy and jamming underneath it. This was caused by a combination of rust and crud jamming the links and rather large cable ties that had been used to mark the chain

A further problem was the rather odd spacing of the chain marking which seems to have been done to some esoteric unit of measurement (about two foot six and a half I think!).

So it was out with the pressure washer, then off with all the old cable ties. Progress was only slightly delayed by my dropping my favourite side cutters in the mud where they promptly disappeared without trace. With the chain cleaned up, I set about marking it at 5m intervals with a cable tie for each 5m. I gave up at the 40m mark (8 cable ties!) but there's only another 10m after that anyway

Then I set about winding the whole lot back into the locker whilst applying the entire contents of a can of WD40 to prevent further rusting and jamming of the links (at least in the short term, a new chain is going to be needed before long). Happily, it went away without a single jam

A messenger conversation with my cousin and some business discussions interrupted proceedings until late afternoon at which point I set off for the supermarket on a mission to start stocking up for our extended summer cruise (of which more anon)

First of two barrow loads of shopping

This provisioning mission, the first of several no doubt, was aimed at stocking up the Tinned Stores, No.1 Beer Hold and No.2 Soft Drinks Hold

The young lad at the checkout was a little taken aback at the rather unusual contents of the over-full trolley but seemed genuinely interested in the explanation and we chatted about cruising under sail whilst he rang my shop through and I packed it away

Of course, once back at the moorings I had to barrow the lot down the pontoon, heave it all on board, then transfer it below decks before stowing it away!

The No.1 Beer Hold still has some stowage space left but not a lot! There's wine, cider and lager in there too (shhh, keep it quiet, but we may have a lager drinker on board this year)

The No.2 Hold is well filled with coke, diet coke, ginger beer and bottled water (for drinking) which can be transferred to the refrigerated hold in small quantities as and when required

The No.5 (Emergency Rations) hold is fairly full of UHT milk (it suffices and I've become tolerant of having it on my breakfast cereal) whilst the No.6 (Tinned Food) hold is rammed with all sorts of goodies!

The next shop will be for snacks and lunchables

The object of the exercise is to only have to shop for fresh whilst we're away.

One extant problem is that Tesco are once again on their "we can't get Kwells" nonsense. That means a trip to another chemists as I occasionally need them and so does Jane. Nothing else works for either of us so it's no use offering alternatives Tesco!

Watch this space for plans for our Sojourn to the Solent (and beyond) ...

Fixing and fettling

It's just two weeks to departure on our big summer cruise (of which more anon) and there's quite a lot of little jobs need doing on Pagan before we're ready to go

One important job has been a bit of a nuisance. I noticed when Jane and I were out and about a few weeks back that the ring bolt to which the starboard genoa sheet block is shackled was loose. Not good!

Getting at it has involved the removal of several lining panels and the locker front above the starboard berth in the aft cabin and created a fair old mess in the process. The bolt has now been rebedded and tightened plus I've added a locking nut to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Now all I have to do is reassemble the cabin and clean it up again!

(This coming off-season, I'm going to have to work around the boat and remove, clean up or replace and re-bed every deck fitting. There are obvious signs of rust stains on the deck around over a third of the fittings which is indicative of water getting under the fittings. With a cored deck, this is not good)

I also had my doubts about the condition of the engine battery so it was out with my drop tester. My drop tester promptly failed in a shower of sparks! Looks like it's dead (it's burnt out which shouldn't happen). Whilst the battery voltage seemed OK, it only just managed to start the engine. I've pretty much made up my mind to bin it and buy a new one for the peace of mind if nothing else.

That led me to a job I've been meaning to do for some time ...

I upgraded a 100A NASA BM1 battery monitor to a 200A BM2 a while back on SV Laurin to suit their new 120A high output alternator. I acquired the old unit intact and it's been sitting in a box for months

So today I set about cutting out a hole in the battery compartment, mounting the display and wiring in the shunt ...

It was a lot more conveninent to mount the display on the side of the battery box under the navigators seat than up on the switch panel which is running out of space. It's not quite as instantly visible as I'd ideally like but it does the job

It will doubtless prove useful because we found that after three days "off grid" we were starting to run short of electrickery and I want to monitor our usage to determine the best solution.

(We need solar panels above all else but I need to work out what capacity will meet our needs. I can do it theoretically but far better to base it on our actual usage)

There's more fettling to be done but tomorrow I've been invited to go racing and next week looks busy work wise so it'll have to be fitted in as and when

Odyssey i.e An epic voyage

Some weeks ago, having a gap of a few days in my work schedule that coincided with the new owner's plans, I volunteered to join the crew on a delivery trip from North Fambridge to Falmouth

Odyssey under full sail in earlier times

"Odyssey" is a 55' (overall including bowsprit and davits) 22 ton ferro-cement staysail schooner built around 30 years ago in Australia. Under her previous ownership. she has sailed all over the world but in recent years she's been laid up at Fambridge Yacht Haven

I joined ship last Friday and the crew, consisting of the owner, his father, myself and a friend of the owner set about making ready for the trip. "Odyssey" will need a fair amount of cosmetic work and, as you'd expect given that she hasn't been sailed for some years, no small measure of TLC to return her to her former glory but the basics seemed sound, the engine checked out OK and all seemed well for the fast blast down channel under, in all probability, motor.

So late afternoon, I took the helm (being the most experienced at handling big heavy boats, after all I used to chuck loaded working narrowboats about and most of the paint stayed on most of the time!) and motored her astern out of the berth and down to the fuel pontoon

I was pleasantly surprised at how well she handled. The helm was a little vague and she was somewhat ponderous but with a big Izuzu diesel and a decent prop she's got grunt and she's very predictable at slow speeds

After filling the tanks and emptying the owners wallet, as I half expected it proved less easy to back out of the fuel berth and I had to perform a multi-point turn further down the marina to get her pointing in the right direction. I'd have almost certainly had to do the same with "Pagan" in the same conditions albeit, in all probability, with fewer points to the turn

We came alongside the river pontoon neatly all set for a fairly early 6:00am start the next day.

We were, unsurprisingly, a little later away than planned but being a cunning navigator I'd allowed for that and we were making encouraging progress downriver when, just upstream of Burnham, we discovered that there was no engine cooling and the alternator warning light was on.

To cut a long story short, we had to make a temporary fix to an unanticipated engineering problem and return upriver to the pontoon. One thing led to another and over the next two days we uncovered a series of increasingly problematic engineering faults culminating in a fault that needed the services of an engineering company to resolve. That was game over for the time being.

We set about making use of the next couple of days to properly sort out the rig. We'd departed knowing that we'd have a limited sail plan - adequate for delivery and safety I hasten to add - so now we made shift to re-rig the running rigging so that all the sails could be properly hoisted

This involved much head scratching and cogitation (do you know how to rig a staysail schooner? Bugg'rd if I do! But I do now!!). We also sorted out some non-critical domestic systems problems (such as fixing the fresh water pump and getting the fridge working).

The owner is taking the relevant engine parts back to Cornwall with him to get the machining needed done by a local firm of his acquaintance and we've tentatively scheduled a fresh attempt at the delivery for the week beginning the 19th of August (as that's the next free week in my schedule and it happens to be right for the tides too)

Meanwhile, it's not long now to our 28 day summer cruise on "Pagan" so watch this space!

For the avoidance of doubt, I would like to make it clear that whilst, because I have the most experience on the crew, I was happy to step into the role of skipper for the trip (and will do so again if asked) I was, and will be, on the crew in a purely voluntary and unpaid capacity as one amateur yachtsman helping out another

The inexact science of tides

Tides are funny things.

Us salty seadogs pore over the tide tables and do complex sums (or cheat and use an app!) to determine whether there will be enough water to go where we want to go when we want to go. The trouble is, Old Mother Nature doesn't read the tide tables!

Any number of factors can affect just how high (or low) a tide actually gets on the day and the predictions are not by any stretch of the imagination infallible

Right now I really need to get Pagan back onto her mud berth on this cycle of spring tides* which starts to tail off tomorrow. We need at least 5.0m of tide, preferably over 5.1 to be sure of getting on or off our berth. Any less and the keel will be in the mud which would be fraught with all sorts of undesirable possibilities

Yesterday afternoon the tide was predicted to be 5.1m. However, a combination of relatively high atmospheric pressure (tide tables are generated assuming a pressure of 1013, we had 1025 yesterday which will depress the tide by several inches) and a stiff Westerly wind keeping the tide back meant we came up several inches short of enough water

With a couple of hours to go today it very much looks as though the same thing is going to happen again. And tomorrow the predicted high tide is 0.1m lower and drops day by day from then on

It's not a total disaster if we can't get on our berth on this tide cycle. We'll just have to stay on the river pontoon for a couple of weeks. I prefer to avoid that though, as we're occupying space that could be used by visitors and swinging moorers, but needs must

* This is a particularly bad cycle for us which doesn't help. The height of spring tides varies cyclically with the second spring tides of each month tending to be significantly higher than the first. They also vary annually and seasonally in a complex way which I don't propose to explain (mainly 'cos I've never really got my head around it all!). Suffice it to say that this set of springs, amongst the lowest we see at Fambridge, is only just high enough if as predicted and it doesn't take much to knock those vital few inches off the tide on the day

Oh well, Orwell

When last I wrote to you, dear reader, we were planning on heading up to Southwold but you will no doubt have noticed from yesterday's passage plan that we end up in Ipswich instead!

During our run ashore on Thursday evening for beer and a rather good, if pricey, steak at The Alma, Jane had mentioned that she'd rather like to have a proper look around Harwich rather than move on. So it was agreed that if the weather served for a good sail to Southwold we'd go but if it looked like we'd end up motoring we'd stay put

We stayed put!



After breaking our fast in a leisurely fashion, we set off on a wander around Harwich to play Brown Sign Bingo on foot.

For the benefit of our overseas reader, UK road signs have a coloured background to denote the type of information the sign conveys. Signs directing you to tourist attractions, museums, etc have a brown background.

Brown Sign Bingo is played by simply following the brown signs and seeing where you end up!

Our first stop was aboard the preserved lightship right next to Ha'penny Pier. That's well worth the modest charge and I had an interesting chat with one of the volunteers aboard who had actually served on the manned lightships.

Then we visited the RNLI lifeboat station next door. There's construction work ongoing which meant parts of the station were not accessible but we made some purchases in the shop. Jane was once again disappointed not to be able to get a good look at the lifeboat (one of these days I'll drag her along to an open day somewhere where you can actually get aboard an All Weather Lifeboat. I'd rather like to get a proper look at one myself!)

We struck out on the next two brown signs. The lifeboat museum was shut and the maritime museum was closed for refurbishment.

Our final stop therfore was the Harwich Redoubt. This Napoleonic era fort is well worth a visit, or second visit in my case, and Jane, who is not much of a museum person usually, quite seriously suggested to one of the volunteers that they should put the entry fee up from the very modest £3 a head!

We dined on board before heading back to the Alma as we'd noted that they had live music on. Very good it was too with a competent three piece band called "The Remoras" playing an eclectic mix of pop covers spanning the decades.

We poured ourselves into our berth at a fairly late hour with the alarm set for a sensible start the following morning.

Having given up on Southwold for this trip, we'd decided to pay a first visit to Ipswich dock. I wanted to get off the berth before the tide turned and planned to leave an hour or so before high water which would also see us in Ipswich before the ebb really kicked in

Matters were complicated by our having acquired a Dutchman overnight! A single hander in (I think) a Folkboat had picked the wrong option out of three yachts to raft up to. I've no idea what time he arrived cos I didn't hear a thing (Jane thinks she felt a bump but didn't look at the time) and he wasn't overly happy to be awoken and asked, by means of sign language, to shift

Jane was still abed as I had no intention of mucking about with sails. The wind, such as it was, was Westerly and a couple of hours motoring would see us in Ipswich with most of the day to explore.

That we duly did and there's not much to say about it. If you have a real need of the usual range of high street shops they're ask there and some of the old medieval streets are interesting enough but I doubt we'll bother again. I'd sooner stop at Fox's

There being nothing to keep us in Ipswich, the debate was where to go yesterday (Sunday). With winds up to F7 forecast for Monday we decided to chicken out and get back to the Crouch a day early.

After some head scratching, I decided that a very civilised departure around 08:30 would serve. This would coincide with free flow through the lock into the docks, thus saving time and faffing about, and would give us a fair tide down the Orwell. It would though mean a foul tide in the Wallet but that was unavoidable

We had the sails up and the engine off as soon as we were clear of the dock and it was very pleasant sailing down river. The wind was rather fitful but it served.

From the forecast and the actuals, I was betting on getting a good deal more wind once we cleared the river and I wasn't disappointed. However, the direction wasn't what I'd hoped for from the forecast the previous evening (although it was, in average, consistent with the latest forecast)

We struggled across Pennyhole Bay and crept round The Naze but the wind was shifty and up and down like a yoyo. One minute we'd have 8 knots of wind from the South East, then it would be 18 knots from the South West then moments later a 12 knot Southerly and so on. I'd get Pagan set up and sailing well on one tack then be suddenly headed as the wind shifted and find myself sailing on the wrong direction altogether so I'd tack again, trim the sails and get settled on the other tack only for it to happen again!

By the time we were creeping past Walton Pier I'd had enough and I called it a day. Although I'm determined to try and cut down on the amount of motoring we do, we were on a hiding to nothing and it was on with the engine all the way to Burnham



We arrived shortly before five and made, frankly, a bit of a hash of getting into the allocated berth. We'd already agreed that we need more fenders and more suitable mooring lines (like most of the string that came with Pagan, the mooring lines are far too long for easy handling) and we're agreed that the money will have to be spent sooner rather than later

We also had some comms issues with the electronics with stuff suddenly not talking to other stuff that it had previously been talking to. I have a feeling I know where the problem lies and I'll investigate further when time permits

One other issue that came to light resulted from not being on shore power for several days. There's no shore power at Harwich and a visiting crowd of Dutch boats had snaffled all the available sockets at Ipswich Haven so we'd been off grid since Thursday morning with just a couple of hours engine running. That led to a low battery alert on the new autohelm. We don't have any solar panels. We need solar panels!

I also need to get fitter. Yesterday's efforts tired me out to the extent that I was in bed and sound asleep before Jane and that's very unusual.

Today, we're in no hurry and we'll be raiding the chandlery here at Burnham after breakfast for some of the items we've found we're short of. Then we'll make our way back upriver later and that will be this mini-cruise over.

Sunday 4th June - Passage Plan

Weather

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland - Strong winds are forecast

24 hour forecast: Westerly backing southwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 for a time in south. Smooth or slight. Showers later. Good.

Meteogroup gives F4 gusting 5 with occasional gusts of 6 this evening

Tides

HW Ipswich 09:04
LW Burnham 15:41
LW Whitaker 15:25 1.3

Departing Ipswich Haven 08:45 towards Burnham on Crouch eta 17:00 approx

Alternate Brightlingsea

Harwich in two takes

Yesterday, we set off a little after high water bound for Harwich. We got about half a mile!

We'd just finished hosting the sails downstream of the moorings when the engine died with all the symptoms of fuel starvation

Our best efforts at tacking back upriver to pick up a buoy were thwarted by the light wind and ebb tide so we anchored just up from Shortpole

I knew we had ample diesel cos I'd checked! The fuel tap was on (wouldn't be the first time) and there was fuel in the filter bowl

I worked my way through the rest of the fuel system but no joy. There was diesel all the way to the injectors but no action when the engine was cranked

By now, I was starting to worry about killing the batteries so a call to the yard arranged a tow back up to the pontoon

One we were back alongside and I'd had another closer look at the engine manual I realised there is another bleed screw on the injector pump that I hadn't found

And in the process of reaching for it I found a loose blanking plug on the pump housing. With that sorted and the fuel lines bled properly she started and soon settled down to run smoothly. An hour long test in gear at cruising revs indicated all was well again

It was now late morning and we decided it was too late to try for Harwich and neither of us felt like going down to Burnham so we stayed put.

I'd noted when hoisting the sails that both the main and mizzen halyards were getting well worn so I popped out for some string and made up new ones.

With those duly rigged, we settled down for dinner on board and an early night

This morning was a case of Deja Vu. Same time, same place, different result though

In light Easterly airs we motored down past Burnham and then, with the wind shifting a bit to the south and a few knots more of it to boot we set sail and stopped the engine

It was by no measure a fast sail but we made good progress to the Spitway and then onwards up the Wallet until the tide turned foul north of Frinton

With more wind, and more had been forecast, we'd have made the Naze on the tide but it wasn't too be. We were in no particular hurry though so we continued under sail albeit at times making only a couple of knots at best over the ground

It was champagne sailing anyway right up to the point where we cleared the Naze and laid the course for Harwich. The wind had veered (or backed, I can never remember which is which) further south and we were now on a dead run with barely enough breeze to fill the sails

What's more, an oddly nasty little chop had got up. It looked like nothing much but with no real boat speed it was irritating.

So it was on with the engine and make haste to Harwich. We were pleased to find free berths on the inside of Ha'penny Pier and doubly pleased to pull off a neat piece of parallel parking and mooring up despite having an audience!

Jane promptly buggered off to buy an ice cream leaving me to put on a harbour stow. She ought to know that the ship comes first. However, she got me an ice cream too so she was forgiven



Apart from a bit of swell and the rather noisy pontoons, it's a nice place to be. We're going to take a run ashore to the Alma tonight, just like old times!

Tomorrow, Southwold beckons

Thursday 1st June 2017 - Passage Plan

Weather

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland

24 hour forecast: Southerly or southeasterly 3 or 4, increasing 5 for a time in north. Smooth or slight. Mainly fair. Good, occasionally poor in south.

Actual is Westerly F1 (typical)

HW Fambridge 05:22UT

Lw Harwich 11:11 1.0
HW Harwich 17:53 3.6

Departing Fambridge asap towards Harwich eta 15:00 approx

Mooring at Halfpenny Pier if space, otherwise Shotley or Levington