The reader who has perused my article "Seawater in my veins" will recall that my family has a long tradition of seafaring and shipbuilding stretching back many generations and that my generation is the first in at least 300 years to have no connection with the sea.
It seems, though, that once that salt water is in the blood it doesn't go away because youngest son has just applied to become an Engineering Cadet in the Merchant Navy! Initially, he was considering joining the RN but when he followed up on my suggestion that a career in the Merchant service might be more appropriate he had no druthers about switching codes, as it were.
Turns out it was a good move - there is a long waiting list for applications to join the RN apparently, about three years we've heard on the grape vine, and he hasn't the qualifications to join as an Officer so would have to go in as a rating. I wasn't convinced that life in a ratings mess would suit him anyway.
In contrast, he already has the necessary grades to join the OND/HND cadet program as either a trainee engineering or deck officer in the Merchant Navy and if his application is unsuccessful this year then by next year, assuming he successfully completes his current studies, he'll have the necessary UCAS points to go for the Foundation Degree option.
Either route offers what looks like a good long term career path. Even after applying a large dose of salt to the blurb from the cadet management companies it seems there is a growing demand for trained sea officers both in home waters and abroad.
I can't wait to see the look on his grandfathers face when he finds out his grandson is planning to follow in his footsteps (he quit the sea as a 2nd Engineer when I was born)
Sunday 10 July 2011
Tuesday 5 July 2011
July Long Weekend - Conclusions
It's frustrating, we just don't seem to be able to get a decent sail under our belts at the moment. Something, be it weather, gear failure, time constraints or whatever, always seems to get in the way.
With hindsight, I'm not sure dropping the hook to wait out the tide on Saturday morning was the best plan. We should have either left Fambridge at first light to catch the tide further down the Whitaker or slogged it out with the foul tide making the best progress we could - by the time we got going again we'd lost momentum and the better part of the day.
That aside, I made a mistake going up the North side of the Whitaker. I should have either kept as close to the Foulness sands as possible or perhaps better still nipped across the Rays'n where we'd have been in the lee of the Buxey with the whole width of the Blackwater to leeward. A lesson noted for the future.
Another lesson worth noting is that if at all possible we'd be best served by avoiding wind over tide in the Whitaker. The conditions were nowhere near as lumpy as the last time out in the channel but it wasn't comfortable for either of us - it was grin and bear it conditions rather than yippee stuff - and Brigantia, being fairly lightweight, doesn't go her best in a steep chop.
My other big mistake was not ensuring we had maxed out the fuel reserves before departure. Maybe its a bit paranoid but I'm not happy unless we've got sufficient petrol on board to make it back from wherever we're going within the time available to us.
On the positive side, Jane seemed more at home on the boat this trip and even rose to the challenge of steering under power with a smile on her face. There were some very positive comments forthcoming about possible future plans, both short and long term and even some sensible suggestions about the engine problems (the sort of thing Jane would usually be totally disinterested in).
What little sailing we managed to get in on the Saturday demonstrated once again that she's no slouch. Although we were undoubtedly the slowest boat out there we were not comparing like with like and whilst we were being overtaken by bigger, newer boats they weren't going past us as if we were standing still. I'm convinced there's even more performance to be extracted if only I can get some suitable conditions to experiment with rig tuning and sail trim.
My attention must now, perforce, turn to the IWA Waterways Festival. I've got to sort out the camping arrangements for my team, get all the kit organised and on site and so on and it's only 3 weeks until we're on site - eek! So it's going to be about five weeks before I can turn my attention back to Brigantia and sailing. Far too long but needs must.
With hindsight, I'm not sure dropping the hook to wait out the tide on Saturday morning was the best plan. We should have either left Fambridge at first light to catch the tide further down the Whitaker or slogged it out with the foul tide making the best progress we could - by the time we got going again we'd lost momentum and the better part of the day.
That aside, I made a mistake going up the North side of the Whitaker. I should have either kept as close to the Foulness sands as possible or perhaps better still nipped across the Rays'n where we'd have been in the lee of the Buxey with the whole width of the Blackwater to leeward. A lesson noted for the future.
Another lesson worth noting is that if at all possible we'd be best served by avoiding wind over tide in the Whitaker. The conditions were nowhere near as lumpy as the last time out in the channel but it wasn't comfortable for either of us - it was grin and bear it conditions rather than yippee stuff - and Brigantia, being fairly lightweight, doesn't go her best in a steep chop.
My other big mistake was not ensuring we had maxed out the fuel reserves before departure. Maybe its a bit paranoid but I'm not happy unless we've got sufficient petrol on board to make it back from wherever we're going within the time available to us.
On the positive side, Jane seemed more at home on the boat this trip and even rose to the challenge of steering under power with a smile on her face. There were some very positive comments forthcoming about possible future plans, both short and long term and even some sensible suggestions about the engine problems (the sort of thing Jane would usually be totally disinterested in).
What little sailing we managed to get in on the Saturday demonstrated once again that she's no slouch. Although we were undoubtedly the slowest boat out there we were not comparing like with like and whilst we were being overtaken by bigger, newer boats they weren't going past us as if we were standing still. I'm convinced there's even more performance to be extracted if only I can get some suitable conditions to experiment with rig tuning and sail trim.
My attention must now, perforce, turn to the IWA Waterways Festival. I've got to sort out the camping arrangements for my team, get all the kit organised and on site and so on and it's only 3 weeks until we're on site - eek! So it's going to be about five weeks before I can turn my attention back to Brigantia and sailing. Far too long but needs must.
Photo catchup
Now I've retrieved the camera off the boat, I've added some photos of the maintenance weekend to the photo album. They're at 2011 June Maintenance Weekend
Monday 4 July 2011
July Long Weekend - Monday
Another lie in! It was gone seven before I awoke to another bright day. After breakfast it was time to get serious with the engine. The problem must,I reckoned, be fuel related so it was time to strip down the carb and have a look.
Off with the covers again, I started stripping down the attachments to remove the carb. Once off, it was a case of carefully removing the float bowl and then the jet and needle valve turn, cleaning them and putting them back exactly as before.
I found a very small fine thread like obstruction in the jet and similar bits in the bottom of the float bowl along with tiny flakes of what looked like blue paint. The same dirt was present in the fuel filter
With everything thoroughly cleaned and reassembled, I fired her up and ran her at various throttle settings for half an hour or so. She seemed to be idling much better than she ever has before and she didn't cut out once.
We won't know whether this is the end of the problem for certain until we've been out on a long run at medium to high throttle settings but I'm hopeful!
By now it was late morning and coming back from the loo Jane noticed somebody had stolen our space on the tender dock. You'd think the oar bag tied to the rail would be sufficient hint but no. The dock is chock full of tenders with more people wanting to store a dinghy there than there is space so I suppose it's not surprising. Nothing for it, we'll just have to leave the thing afloat tied to the pontoon and bale it out every time we want to use it.
I found a very small fine thread like obstruction in the jet and similar bits in the bottom of the float bowl along with tiny flakes of what looked like blue paint. The same dirt was present in the fuel filter
With everything thoroughly cleaned and reassembled, I fired her up and ran her at various throttle settings for half an hour or so. She seemed to be idling much better than she ever has before and she didn't cut out once.
We won't know whether this is the end of the problem for certain until we've been out on a long run at medium to high throttle settings but I'm hopeful!
By now it was late morning and coming back from the loo Jane noticed somebody had stolen our space on the tender dock. You'd think the oar bag tied to the rail would be sufficient hint but no. The dock is chock full of tenders with more people wanting to store a dinghy there than there is space so I suppose it's not surprising. Nothing for it, we'll just have to leave the thing afloat tied to the pontoon and bale it out every time we want to use it.
That settled the program for the afternoon anyway. I've been meaning to add some cleats for mooring lines and to hang fenders off to the tender so we popped back to the chandlers to spend some more money and I spent the afternoon screwing hardware to the gunnels and failing to put an eye splice in a length of 6mm 3 strand. I need to practice splicing so for now a bowline will suffice.
As the afternoon headed into the early evening, we started off loading kit into the car. On the first run with the trolley I fell into conversation with Toby, who runs the swinging moorings. I casually mentioned the tender storage issue in passing, not expecting or anticipating any specific response, and Toby jumped up saying he was going to be having a clear out on the dock on the morrow as some tenders on there haven't been used in years. Pointing to the nearest spot to the ramp onto the dock from the shore pier he said "What about there, I'll shift that and you can have that spot". Perfect for us as we usually row up and down the inside of the pontoon anyway so it's the nearest space to where we launch and recover the dinghy - result!
It seemed a bit churlish to me before but now I'm definitely going to put a name board on our space on the dock. With that sorted, we finished off-loading and motored back down to our buoy where Jane made a first time pick up. Nice one, she's really starting to get the hang of things now. We rowed back to the pontoon and stowed the tender in her new home before leaving at just about bang on half past eight. The drive home took a shade over two hours, justifying the late departure to miss the traffic and so ended this trip to the boat.
Sunday 3 July 2011
July Long Weekend - Sunday
It's a late start, by my standards and it's 08:00 before I get the kettle on, roll breakfast and stagger on deck to bring in the anchor light and shorten the anchor rode to a more sensible 15m now that the tide is well on its way out.
The forecast is promising and I'm not waiting for a fair tide this morning. However, the fuel situation is a nagging worry in the back of my mind. We'd like to head up to the Walton Backwaters, somewhere I've always wanted to go, but we've got to be back at Fambridge tomorrow night or very early on Tuesday without fail and I'm not convinced we have enough petrol to motor all the way back if the wind fails or is dead in our teeth.
So we decide to pop up to Essex Marina where the sign says petrol is available and top up the tank and spare can before heading out. No point messing about with the sails, so it's on with the engine, up anchor and underway at 08:40.
Approaching the marina we met the Marie Louisa outbound downriver. I can't find any information on her but since she's still carrying all the relevant wording on her sides and cabin I assume she's still the Sheerness range safety vessel even though she seemed to have a charter party on board!
Baltic Wharf was devoid of shipping when we came downriver yesterday, I'd seen one ship head upriver whilst we were sorting out after anchoring in the Bankfleet last night but when the other had snuck in I've no idea!
Given the trouble yesterday morning with the engine, I throttled back in mid-river to see what she was going to to today. Sure enough, she started to hunt and die.
After several restarts and further attempts to get her to run at low revs as we drifted gently up the middle of the river, we had a crew conference and decided to head back up to home base to try and sort things out. The embarrassment potential of an engine that can't be relied upon for maneouvering is too high.#
On the next restart, it was full speed ahead upriver.
Jane took the helm for a while under power and with the spray hood down so she can actually see ahead she did fine. At one point, on nearly full throttle, we were making 7.1kts over the ground albeit with a fair bit of tidal assistance!
Approaching the moorings, I once again throttled down early and sure enough the engine died. There was a gentle South Westerly breeze so I quickly unfurled about half the genoa and ghosted up towards the pontoon aiming to sneak onto the inside under sail. I reckon it would have been do-able but the wind died at just the wrong moment leaving us out of control and heading for the boat tied to the end of the pontoon.
Luckily, the tide was not running strongly and I had just enough steerage way to aim the bow at the end of the pontoon. As we bounced off it, doing no damage fortunately, Jane stepped off and got the bow line round a cleat.
I quickly got some fenders out on our Port side as the tide carried us around the end of the pontoon to lie against Ian the ferryman's boat. Phew, calamity averted by some quick thinking, fast work by Jane and a big slice of luck.
The boat ahead was just about to depart so when they headed off we walked Brigantia forward and secured alongside at 11:35, pleased to get back without anything serious to worry about.
After a bit of a breather, it was off with the engine cover and check the plugs. No problems there, that's got to be the best looking set of plugs I've ever pulled from a 2-stroke engine. She's definitely not fouling. We popped down to Burnham by car to check out Marinestore at BYH. Bought Jane a hat for her birthday and bought Brigantia a flag staff and 3/4 yard sewn ensign. I got nuffin! Next port of call was Asda in South Woodham to fill up the fuel cans - just squeezed 20 litres into the tank and jerry can meaning we had about 12 or 13 litres left after this mornings run upriver.
Back on board, I decided that it would be anti-social working on the engine when so many people were enjoying the Sunday afternoon sunshine so I pottered around doing odd jobs here and there whilst Jane tidied up below decks (a job that seemed, for reasons I don't understand, to involve a lot of sitting down with a magazine in hand). Later, we headed for the showers before a meal and a drink in the Ferry Boat to celebrate Janes birthday. For the next six weeks I'm officially her toy-boy until I catch up again!
Neither of us was in the mood for a late night so it was still just about light when we walked back to the boat and hit the sleeping bags for an early night.
The forecast is promising and I'm not waiting for a fair tide this morning. However, the fuel situation is a nagging worry in the back of my mind. We'd like to head up to the Walton Backwaters, somewhere I've always wanted to go, but we've got to be back at Fambridge tomorrow night or very early on Tuesday without fail and I'm not convinced we have enough petrol to motor all the way back if the wind fails or is dead in our teeth.
So we decide to pop up to Essex Marina where the sign says petrol is available and top up the tank and spare can before heading out. No point messing about with the sails, so it's on with the engine, up anchor and underway at 08:40.
Baltic Wharf was devoid of shipping when we came downriver yesterday, I'd seen one ship head upriver whilst we were sorting out after anchoring in the Bankfleet last night but when the other had snuck in I've no idea!
Given the trouble yesterday morning with the engine, I throttled back in mid-river to see what she was going to to today. Sure enough, she started to hunt and die.
After several restarts and further attempts to get her to run at low revs as we drifted gently up the middle of the river, we had a crew conference and decided to head back up to home base to try and sort things out. The embarrassment potential of an engine that can't be relied upon for maneouvering is too high.#
On the next restart, it was full speed ahead upriver.
Approaching the moorings, I once again throttled down early and sure enough the engine died. There was a gentle South Westerly breeze so I quickly unfurled about half the genoa and ghosted up towards the pontoon aiming to sneak onto the inside under sail. I reckon it would have been do-able but the wind died at just the wrong moment leaving us out of control and heading for the boat tied to the end of the pontoon.
Luckily, the tide was not running strongly and I had just enough steerage way to aim the bow at the end of the pontoon. As we bounced off it, doing no damage fortunately, Jane stepped off and got the bow line round a cleat.
I quickly got some fenders out on our Port side as the tide carried us around the end of the pontoon to lie against Ian the ferryman's boat. Phew, calamity averted by some quick thinking, fast work by Jane and a big slice of luck.
The boat ahead was just about to depart so when they headed off we walked Brigantia forward and secured alongside at 11:35, pleased to get back without anything serious to worry about.
Back on board, I decided that it would be anti-social working on the engine when so many people were enjoying the Sunday afternoon sunshine so I pottered around doing odd jobs here and there whilst Jane tidied up below decks (a job that seemed, for reasons I don't understand, to involve a lot of sitting down with a magazine in hand). Later, we headed for the showers before a meal and a drink in the Ferry Boat to celebrate Janes birthday. For the next six weeks I'm officially her toy-boy until I catch up again!
Neither of us was in the mood for a late night so it was still just about light when we walked back to the boat and hit the sleeping bags for an early night.
Saturday 2 July 2011
July Long Weekend - Saturday
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| Dawn at Fambridge Yacht Station |
There's barely a breath of wind though and the tides are not ideal. We get away sharpish just before six to catch the last of the ebb downriver and anchor in the Brankfleet at quarter to eight to wait out the flood tide.
The outboard reverts to its tricks again coming in to anchor, cutting out as soon as its throttled back. The thought occurs to both of us that it seems to happen when the main tank is less than full so we top it up from the reserve jerry can.
I'm annoyed with myself as I've overlooked the fact that we didn't top off the tanks after our last trip so we now have a not quite brimming main tank and no reserve. Oh well, it's still enough for 9 or 10 hours motoring.
By gone Eleven I reckon the flood should have eased enough to make progress so it's on with the engine, up anchor and away back into the Crouch heading out to sea. An hour later, the engine is off and we're sailing making 2 knots over the ground in a half decent South Easterly breeze.
Although we're making progress, especially once the tide turns, it's slow going and as the breeze picks up and the ebb gets into it's stride the old wind over tide thing kicks in and the chop builds. We can't quite fetch our course close hauled on the Starboard tack and have to tack back across the channel once in a while losing precious ground every time. Jane is tired, I'm tired, it's not much fun and by 15:00 I've had enough and put about to run back into the Crouch.
After hoisting the ball and stowing the sails, we enjoy a delicious Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney pudding with tinned new potatoes and peas. Top nosh! Later once the tide has turned, I let out another 15m of anchor rode - it's a high tide in the early hours and I don't want to drag the anchor and crash into the half a dozen yachts close upstream of us - and light the hurricane lamp and hoist it.
I wake briefly when the alarm goes off just before high water at 02:10, look out of the window and decide everything looks fine and go back to sleep. Might not be a proper anchor watch but what the hell, it's been a tiring time at work recently and I'm catching up on some much needed zzz's.
Friday 1 July 2011
July Long Weekend - Friday
Neither of us have to be back at work until Tuesday night so Jane and I are off for a long weekend on board. Slept a bit later than I intended so we didn't get away from home until nearly 4:00pm which would put us on the Huntingdon - Cambridge A14 bottleneck at peak time for a 15 mile traffic jam. Hmmm! Decided to take the old pre-A14 route to the East and pick up the B645 at Rushden, the old A45 as was. It worked since despite two stops for coffee the journey took a tads over two and a half hours which is way better than previous Friday afternoon trips.
Dug the tender out of the tender dock, hells bells it's a nuisance maneuvering it between the other tenders stood on it's end to where there's enough space to lay it down, and I rowed down to bring Brigantia up to the pontoon while Jane waited to catch a line. Sort out the kit, a bite to eat and Jane retired whilst I went for a couple of pints at the Ferry Boat which went down well as did the chat with some of the other boat owners - I'm starting to get to know people which is great. One day I might even manage to remember some names!
Forecast is decent for the morrow although the tides could be better. Plan is to head downriver first thing and see what the day brings us - we'd like to get out and put some miles under the keels but we're not making any firm decisions in advance.
Dug the tender out of the tender dock, hells bells it's a nuisance maneuvering it between the other tenders stood on it's end to where there's enough space to lay it down, and I rowed down to bring Brigantia up to the pontoon while Jane waited to catch a line. Sort out the kit, a bite to eat and Jane retired whilst I went for a couple of pints at the Ferry Boat which went down well as did the chat with some of the other boat owners - I'm starting to get to know people which is great. One day I might even manage to remember some names!
Forecast is decent for the morrow although the tides could be better. Plan is to head downriver first thing and see what the day brings us - we'd like to get out and put some miles under the keels but we're not making any firm decisions in advance.