So after all the upheavals and disruptions which contrived to thoroughly bugger up our plans for this year, one thing led to another and we ended up with a whole two and a half weeks on board!
In the end though, we decided not to actually go anywhere and stayed at our moorings for the whole time. This was down to a combination of factors as follows ...
Firstly and critically, our lack of battery capacity and charging. As the regular reader will recall, our mains battery charger committed suicide a while back and before ending it's life, it took out all our batteries for good measure. So we're currently reduced to a single 100a/h battery for all purposes (engine starting and domestic) and with an average draw of between 60a/h and 80a/h a day, it ain't enough
To compound matters further, our ancient but previously reliable 20 amp battery charger, which has been kicking around the family since the time of Voltaire, isn't, we discovered, charging at 20 amps any more. It appears to be stuck in float charge mode charging at around 6 amps which meant it needed to be on for 10 to 12 hours a day minimum just to keep up with our usage.
So we tried, we really did, living on the buoy as much as possible but it meant having to run my suitcase petrol generator for long periods of the day and well into the evening and even then we struggled. If it had been bulk charging at 20A it would have been feasible but it just wasn't.
The solution to that was to fit the 80A alternator upgrade to the engine in place of the existing 30A alternator. That would enable us to keep up with our electricity demands by running the engine for an hour or so a day. I'm not a fan of running the engine off load like that but needs must. Or needs would have musted if the damn thing had worked. It took me a whole day to fit the new alternator and sort out the absolute shambles of the wiring (discovering in the process some really dodgy bodges which could potentially have led to an electrical fire ... eek!) only to discover that the brand new alternator is dead.
Reinstalling the 30A alternator got us back charging off the engine anyway but it left us dependent on getting on shore power far more than we ideally would have liked.
Which leads me to the second consideration ... a distinct lack of enthusiasm for anchoring. Once again, the regular reader will recall that we planned to fit an electric anchor windlass and new anchoring gear last winter. Plans which went west with the engine problems and have been deferred to this winter.
The final factor was the weather forecast. Far from being bad, it was, with the exception of Storm Amy, almost too good! There just wasn't going to be much in the way of good sailing winds to be had and if we went anywhere we'd have to spend money on marinas. After due consideration, we concluded that it made rather more sense to stay put as we can go alongside on the pontoon for less than half the cost of a night in a marina.
This did give us the opportunity to do a lot of sorting out on board. I wouldn't claim that Pagan is fully sorted back to how she should be, but she is a lot closer to being ready for cruising than she was! The simple fact is that she's been a shed / yard bound liveaboard for some six years now and it's taking time and effort to put things straight and fix all the things that need fixing.
It was also a really good opporunity to spend some time simply living on board and getting a better handle on what works and what doesn't, how often we need water, fuel, food etc., all data that we can draw on for our future plans.
So we spent the two and a half weeks alternating between our mooring buoy and the pontoon including spending the weekend alongside during Storm Amy. We'd seen what was coming and although the worst of it would pass us by, we decided to make a move onto the inside of the pontoon sooner rather than later. I've known worse conditions at Fambridge but it was bad enough and a very peculiar thing happened with our bow line pulling through a proper cleat hitch. It didn't part, it didn't come undone, it just pulled through until the spring took the strain leaving the bow about eight feet off the pontoon!
I've never known a cleat hitch (the classic O-X-O as taught by the R.Y.A. etc.) pull through like that. Most odd! No harm, no foul other than having to get out on deck in the early hours and pull the bow back in and make it off again adding a locking turn for good measure this time (I don't normally add locking turns, I'm not a fan of doing it, but it seemed sensible to add some extra hold to stop a repeat of the exercise). It did demonstrate the necessity of never relying on one line to do a job, if I hadn't set up proper spring lines as well as the bow and stern lines we'd have been all ends up, quite literally!
The last couple of days on board were rather spoilt by our going down with the dreaded lergy. Jane had been complaining of a chesty cough for a couple of days and then I developed, as I invariably do, full on man flu. Quite where we picked up the bug is anybodies guess given that we'd been all but self-isolating for the previous week but hey ho.
Despite the lergy, we got all the sails off and bagged up safely in the aft cabin and offloaded all that needed to be offloaded. We're booked in to be lifted out into our usual spot in the boatyard next week and then we'll go from there.
We're ten years into owing Pagan next year, doesn't time fly? What that does mean is that it's time for a survey and there's a few thing I need to sort out ahead of that. Nothing drastic but there's some odds and sods that are bound to be picked up on which need sorting anyway.
Plus we need to sort out our battery and charging situation of which more anon and we really want to get the electric anchor windlass etc. fitted before next season. Add to that, the genoa furling gear needs an overhaul, the winches need servicing, all the running rigging needs washing (I think it's all serviceable but it's suffering from lack of use) ... there's a lot to do!
P.S. On looking back, there was a total lack of photos during the trip! So there aren't any!!
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