A better day

I was up and at it good and early continuing the tedious and arm aching job of stripping the hull back to a good surface

A mate turned up unexpectedly with a set of hydraulic gear pullers but they wouldn't quite fit. However, we reckon that with shorter legs and the rudder removed they may work so he's bringing them back in Saturday for another try

I took a break from antifoul removal to dig a hole under the rudder. I reckoned by eye we'd need about a foot more to get it off, we'll see in due course how good my eye is!

Then it was back to another bout of stripping. I'm developing the most time and energy efficient technique as I go along

This is a close up of the problem I'm dealing with...



That's a typical area before I start on it. Just the pressure wash off when she was lifted out has left a patch that is right down to the thin layer of sound epoxy, probably a single coat of Gelshield or similar, surrounded by the thick layer of blue (I suspect) badly applied epoxy overlaid with several layers of old antifoul

The technique as it stands is to attack an area with the 100 bar pressure washer on needle jet setting. It's not quick but it removes most of the old antifoul and quite a bit of the unsound epoxy at no cost and with minimal effort

Stage two is to attack any remaining antifoul with a tungsten carbide scraper. That takes some effort but it rapidly cleans back to the failed epoxy and softer patches of that come off too

That leaves the harder areas of epoxy largely untouched. However, I've found that Nitromors paint stripper will soften it quite effectively (suggesting that perhaps it isn't epoxy after all or that it was badly mixed or applied in the wrong conditions).

It takes two applications of stripper, the second about ten minutes after the first. Then give it twenty minutes or so and a good thickness can be peeled off with a 4" steel scraper

Stubborn and really thick areas may take two or three goes to clean back. After that, a thorough pressure wash, leave it to dry off and it's ready for sanding

A thorough going over with 40 grit on the big sander leaves a decently flat surface ready for finishing

The waiting between bouts of stripping and sanding was not idle time

It proved surprisingly easy to remove the rudder quadrant. At which point I discovered that the rudder now moved easily with no stiffness at all. This suggests that the very stiff and heavy helm is not down to worn rudder bushes as we'd assumed (I'll inspect the bushes and may replace them anyway as they're not overly expensive)

So it must be either the rudder cables or the autohelm motor drive that's causing the problem. More investigation, and probably more money, required

Back to the plot..

The next step after removing the quadrant was to undo and remove the single bolt that secures the collar to the top of the rudder post. This proved straightforward too once I knocked a wedge in to take the weight of the rudder off the collar

All I had to do then was knock the wedge out and the rudder dropped the half an inch or so onto the blocks I'd placed ready



When more hands are available we'll remove the rudder completely and inspect the bushes and seal

Another ten hour plus day and by the end of it I really needed a shower. So off I traipsed to the facilities. A lot cleaner and much refreshed, I treated myself to a curry and a couple of pints in the pub

Whilst quaffing I checked my emails and a helpful email from the tech guy at the prop manufacturers advised that they sell or rent out a suitable puller for the Featherstream prop. If the plan for Saturday doesn't work that's the next option

Tomorrow I may take a break from stripping. Glen is down for the weekend and I think we'll tackle some of the engineering works while he's here.

A frustrating day

My first mission this morning was to rig up a cargo hoist. Carrying things up and down a ladder is somewhat awkward and with my dodgy knee a potentially risky business

So I lashed the mizzen boom to port, dug a suitable crate out of the container, and made a couple of loops of nylon line to which I shackled the port mizzen sheet block

So now I can hoist and lower cargo to and from the deck in complete comfort and safety!

The first cargo was somewhat less than salubrious - the Portapotti tank needed emptying. The Elsan disposal point is round at the marina but I had to run round there to pick up the gear puller I'd ordered from Screwfix yesterday anyway

Whilst I was out, I nipped up to Wickes at Maldon for more paint stripper and a better scraper

On my return, I set about trying to remove the prop again. To my utter annoyance, the puller I'd ordered was no bigger than the one I'd got. A snotty email has been sent to Screwfix customer services about that.

Still, as it only cost £12 I've got more important things to do than worry about misleading product descriptions. After some head scratching and experimentation I fettled up a means of actually getting a pull on the base of the prop boss using parts from both pullers and a g-clamp

At last, I thought. And the g-clamp bent like a banana whilst the prop stayed stubbornly put

There's only one more thing I can think of to try. Maybe if I disconnect the prop shaft at the coupling, unbolt the stern tube and cutlass bearing housing then perhaps I can get enough down angle on the shaft to withdraw it complete. I suspect I'm on a hiding to nothing and the prop won't clear the rudder skeg but it's my last hope

The prop doesn't actually need to come off. It's the cutlass bearing housing I need to get off. So it doesn't really matter if the prop stays on the shaft if I can withdraw the shaft

Oh and on the subject of the prop pitch, the manufacturers got back to me to say that our speed test figures are roughly what they'd expect. I'm far from convinced. They say they'll supply a new pitch cassette set 1" coarser for £105+VAT. Their literature says, and I quote "Replacement pitch cassette for easy pitch adjustment - supplied free of charge.". Questions will be asked (again)

Defeated by the prop, for now at least, I cracked on with removing the layers of anti-foul from the port bow. Yesterday, I'd used Wickes own brand paint stripper and whilst it had some effect it wasn't brilliant. So I'd spent three times to money on Nitromors which at least smells like it's evil stuff. It proved more effective too but I hit a problem

There's several layers of old antifoul - there's two layers of worn out self eroding over a layer of hard racing and then there's a thick layer of truly horrible stuff. Beneath that is another layer of old antifoul and then you're finally down to a thin layer of epoxy over the original gelcoat

It's that thick layer of horrible stuff that's giving the trouble. In places, it's come off in slabs leaving craters that wouldn't disgrace the moon. In other places it's as hard as steel. The Nitromors will soften it up to a certain extent but then it's a pig to scrape off forming big lumps of very sticky gunk that clog the scraper blade within seconds. Unsoftened, it won't scrape worth a damn. It won't sand either, it just clogs the sanding disc

I can get it off, eventually, but it's going to take a lot of stripper, which isn't cheap, and the gods alone know how much time and effort. I've spent what amounts to a whole day on the port bow and I've stripped most, but by no means all, of it back for about four feet from the stem. Only another 29 feet to go and then there's the other side. I reckon I'm looking at two weeks work, at least and that's just to strip it. Then it will have to be cleaned up, any imperfections and the inevitable scraper damage made good before being antifouled

I've not totally up my mind made but I'm leaning heavily towards calling it quits for the time being. Certainly, if I carry on there is no chance at all we'll be back in the water before the end of the month and that would put paid to any chance of getting away for a sail this year. And in any case, there's a long list of more pressing jobs to attend to.

We'll see what tomorrow will bring

Under pressure ... wash

I was up pretty early for me and set about sorting out some tools and tidying up the container and the van

As promised, Wiggy and Adam were round early doors to pressure wash the hull and move Pagan to her temporary home in the yard ...

It was blowing a bit of a hooly and I hadn't slept that well so I decided to have a nap which turned into several hours sleep!

Once refreshed with coffee, I headed up to the DIY store for some paint stripper and a big scraper

I'd mulled it over and decided that the thick layers of old anti-foul has to come off sooner rather than later and it might as well be done now rather than put off

Lathering the starboard side with the stripping gloop didn't take long and then, after a coffee break, I started back at the beginning with the pressure washer and scraper to see what came off

The results aren't great. The paint stripper is not very effective and I think I'll have to buy the expensive stuff

However, it did soften up the top couple of layers at least and the pressure washer shifted a fair bit more in patches - one of the reasons for getting rid of it before applying a fresh coat of expensive antifoul is that I don't want it failing due to the old stuff falling off

What I could have done without it finding that a few patches of the topsides paintwork are peeling off. Plus there's several runs and cracks in the paint. I'll have to decide whether it can be touched up, at least for now, or whether we're going to have to repaint the whole of the upperworks while we're out

If we have to repaint it's likely to scupper our plans to go sailing in August. It's going to be a push to get everything done in 3 or 4 weeks as it is.

The bigger puller arrives in the morning so it'll be back to trying to get the prop off tomorrow

I need a bigger hammer

I'd booked to be lifted out today but with high water not due until 13:40 it wouldn't be happening early

So the morning was spent giving the interior of the boat a good clean. Just routine domestic stuff but it needs doing regularly.

And then, in due time, the lads were ready to lift us out. Due to the configuration of the slipway and the way Pagan was lying alongside the pontoon, she needed turning around to get the dory on her port side so with Wiggy aboard to cast off, I started up the engines and had a go at reversing down the inside of the pontoon against a fairly stiff flood tide

It's not a manoeuvre I'd normally attempt! But with the dory on hand if things went awry it was a challenge I couldn't resist. By and large, it proved surprisingly easy hampered only by the stiff steering, the sticky throttle cable and my losing track of how much rudder angle I'd got on a couple of times.

With the throttle cable sticking at the end of its travel, as I discovered when we motored of the berth, the engine is ticking over rather fast which had us flying along backwards at quite a rate of knots! That, coupled with the tide, meant that too much rudder angle would have the rudder slam hard over and it was then impossible to straighten it up until the speed had dropped and the stern had turned out of the full force of the tide.

So my progress was somewhat erratic but it got the job done. With the tickover problem sorted out (it's on my list!) and practice I'm sure I could do a better job of it and unlike our previous boats Pagan seems to be quite controllable going astern

Although I could have motored round, the dory was on hand anyway so made fast and towed us round to the travel hoist. After a bit of faffing to get the slings rigged right out we came.

Being lifted out always makes me nervous! And Pagan is far larger than our previous boats as becomes evident when she's out of the water

But the yard hands know what they're doing and all was executed safely

I'd agreed with Wiggy that we'd sit in the slings overnight and be pressure washed and chocked up in the morning as the lads had a long list of boats to launch round at the marina and limited time to do it

So it was out with a set of ladders so I could get aboard, on with the shore power so I could boil a kettle for coffee and then it was time to get cracking on the first critical job - removing the prop

The prop has to come off so that I can remove the cutlass bearing housing (the tube bolted onto the boat ahead of the prop)


The housing needs to come off because the cutlass bearing needs replacing. It's a press fit into the housing and I'll need to either find a local engineering firm who can press out the old bearing and press in the new one or take the housing to one of two firms, one in Isleworth and the other in Fareham! Long journeys either way, assuming I can arrange for it to be done while I wait, as I'm rather reluctant to entrust the housing to a courier. If it went AWOL it would be an expense I could well do without to replace it (and a like for like replacement could be hard to obtain so I could end up having to do yet more work to fit different gear)

The anode was half off already and needs replacing. The securing nut came off worryingly easily! I'll need new locking washers and a generous dollop of Loctite when it goes back on (I suspect the Loctite was omitted when it was fitted, there's no sign of any)

Even with some assistance, hammering didn't shift the prop at all

I'd got a three legged gear puller in amongst the tools I retrieved from the tool shed when we sold the house so it was out with that to see if it would do the job


It wouldn't! The housing for the feathering gears in the prop makes for a rather large boss and the puller I've got simple won't fit around it and get a grip on the base. As soon as you start winding it up, it pulls the legs apart and they slip

After several hours of trying to get the prop off, I gave up and went for a pie and a pint.

The next step is to try a bigger puller. £11.99 from Screwfix for a 6" puller (the one I've got is a 4" model) has got to be worth a punt. That will be delivered before 10:00am on Wednesday morning along with some overalls and a torque wrench (which I need for fitting the new glow plugs on the engine)

So first thing in the morning it'll be pressure wash and chock up time and then I'll start looking at the other jobs I need to do while she's out. The jury is out on whether I'm going to remove all the old antifoul on this occasion or not. The topsides definitely need some TLC though so I may make a start on that

The rudder needs dropping too but that's a job I really need assistance with so we'll tackle that at the weekend when Glen is down I think

It ain't got nothing if it ain't got hole

(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

The naked Pagan

The refit is underway at last!

The clear plastic windows in the spray hood and cockpit tent were all shot. Something had attacked the surface of the plastic and turned it virtually opaque and we'd costed in having them replaced when we bought the boat

We'd anticipated it being the winter before it got done but Chris from Blue Marine rang us on Wednesday to say he could fit it in this week.

So yesterday afternoon he stopped by on his way from Burnham to his loft in Battlesbridge to pick up the spray hood and tent

That left Pagan looking rather sleek without her clothes on...



It wasn't even lunchtime today when Chris rang to say they were ready for collection. So I hopped in the van and nipped round to pick them up

I got the spray hood back on as soon as I got back and then put the tent back up later just in time as I'd no sooner finished than a thunderstorm rolled in

We now have the novel experience of being able to see out!



We're coming out of the water on Monday to sort out the sterngear and rudder bearings.

With that done there's the prospect of going sailing in August!

After the Lord Mayor's show...

"Ironsides"

The weather gods finally smiled upon North Fambridge this weekend past. Warm sunshine and a gentle breeze were just the ticket for the second Fambridge River Festival on Sunday

Not so many traditional and working craft this year (due in no small part to the high winds for most of last week) but what we had was quality! The Thames sailing barge "Ironsides", fishing smack "Pioneer" and Dutch zeiltjalk "Drie Gebroeders" were the main attractions on the water along with a couple of "Old Gaffers"

The dinghy sailing seemed very popular too

"Pleinair" and "Pagan" made an effort to put on a show by dressing overall ....

 







Over the sea wall there was lots going on too.

A range of local business had stands in the car park and the RNLI sea safety roadshow was on hand. 

Jane took our lifejackets to be checked and very useful it was too as they found a problem with mine. They all needs servicing too (which I knew) but mine has an issue which needs sorting. I've half a mind to replace it though as it's a horribly bulky thing to stow and I think Jane's is a better design.

Up on the pier, the beer flowed and the BBQ seemed particularly popular.

On stage we had a very good 60s covers bands "The Fleeting Shadows" and me! 

The day went really well from my perspective (although I took no photos being too busy thinking about other things) and the event is developing nicely 

We ate and had a few beers at the Ferry Boat that evening and the nightcap aboard "Pagan" afterwards turned into a bit of a session!

The day after an event is always a bit flat for me so I'd planned all along to take a day off and potter about aboard "Pagan"


The shopping lists for the major refit work is about sorted and I'll be ordering the parts in the next day or two (which will no doubt make my eyes water and overheat the credit card!)

And there was one job that couldn't be avoided ...






The problem with dressing overall is the big heap of flags and burgees that results when it's take down again!

Still, it kept me amused for an hour or two sorting them out, folding them up and putting them away in the flag roll ...

And so ends the weekend

It's back to work for customers today and a busy week it looks like being too. Brightlingsea shortly, Limehouse tomorrow, then probably Brightlingsea again Thursday and Leigh on Sea on Friday

Jane is back aboard a week on Friday with a whole 12 days off work and we plan, as mentioned above, to get stuck into the major (and expensive) systems refits. Heating, fridge, hot water and toilet holding tank are the primary targets. That should keep us busy!

Plus we'll be coming out of the water for a couple of weeks in July to sort out the jobs that need doing below the waterline

Perhaps we'll get to go sailing in August, perhaps not!