That's settled then ...

... until the next time!

Following on from last weekends' boat viewings and yesterdays engine discussions, Jane and I spent a good couple of hours over breakfast (of the coffee and cigarette kind - we really must give up the coffee ... oops, I mean cigarettes) discussing exactly what we both want boat wise over the short, medium and long haul.

We've kind've had this discussion several times already but I still had the feeling my dear lady wife wasn't being totally frank about what she wants. There's a tendency for me to talk (and talk and talk) her into doing what I want to do and for once I'm desperately keen to avoid that situation.

The first big question lurking in my mind was whether Brigantia is just too small and cramped for Jane to enjoy being on board. One or two veiled comments had hinted that this might in fact be the case. Clearly it would be madness to start spending serious money bringing our current boat up to scratch if there is a pressing need for something larger.

I'd figured that we could, just about, scrape together enough money to buy a somewhat larger boat such as a Westerly Centaur ....

Westerly Centaur - A Layout

At 26 feet a Centaur would only be 3'6" longer than Brigantia and still less than 8m, the minimum charge for our moorings, so our annual costs would be much the same. Full standing headroom, a much more usable heads and a cabin you could actually socialise in would be major benefits that Jane would appreciate.

From my point of view, they're good, tough little sailing boats with an inboard diesel and few vices. In fact, you could say that a Centaur would be akin, for us, to Brigantia on steroids! All the same advantages plus a whole lot of extra good points.

So why, you might well ask, did we not buy a Centaur in the first place? The simple answer is we couldn't afford to buy one for cash, not be a very long chalk, and 12 months ago Jane would not have entertained the possibility of borrowing money to finance a boat purchase.

We still can't afford to buy one for cash but we could, although it would put a strain on our finances, borrow the difference between what Brigantia would fetch and what we'd have to pay for a reasonable example of a Centaur.

But, and it is a big but, a Centaur would only be a modest improvement. A bit better below decks than Brigantia, simply due to her extra size, but we'd still inevitably have to spend a fair bit of money bringing the boat up to the state we'd like it to be in and we still wouldn't have the boat we ultimately want.

After some debate we put this one to bed once and, I hope, for all. Jane is happy, or so she categorically assures me, to make the most of Brigantia for the next three seasons by which time we should be in a much stronger position financially (we'll have bought the car outright, fully recovered from the outlay on Brigantia and, perhaps, even managed to save up some pennies towards a new boat).

It does leave me pondering a puzzle - how much cash can we scrape together to spend over this coming winter. If, as is now definitely the case, the plan is to keep Brigantia for three years and then trade up it makes the most sense to spend money on the big jobs sooner rather than later so that we get maximum benefit from the improvements. At the very least, that means the new engine, standing and running rigging needs to be done this winter and I would really like to replace the sails as well. Not sure we're going to be able to afford that but more of that in another post.

Having settled that, we wandered on into a discussion about what we would really like ultimately. I've no doubt we'll be returning to this theme again and again over the next three years (you have been warned!) but whilst it could be viewed as idle speculation I find such discussions invaluable for evolving our thoughts and for piecing together what we both really want.

Now right away we hit a snag! What I dream of is something like this ...

She's a cracker isn't she?

30' LoD, designed by Ed Burnett and Nigel Irens and up for sale for a mere £130,000 (Sandeman Yacht Company)

However, the simple truth is that, even if we could afford her, below decks she offers little more in way of accommodation than the aforementioned Centaur. In fact, she actually has fewer berths and no double berth at all!

She certainly isn't going to provide the sort of living space for lounging, entertaining and so on that I'm coming to understand Jane is looking for.

Jane, on the other hand, definitely leans towards the modern look ...

It's not hard to see why the layout of a Moody 333 would appeal to my good lady. What's not to like? Well, if I'm being honest ...

... this is not what I'd call pretty. Not ugly, I'll grant you but it doesn't tickle my fancy.

However, I'm forced to concede that practical considerations must take precedence over mere aesthetics.

Much will depend upon both our future plans and our finances. The hope is that we can find a way to cut back our work commitments or even all but retire before we're 60 i.e. within the next decade. It's a tall order and it's not easy to see how we'll be able to manage it but I'm a great believer in putting myself in the way of opportunities and who knows what may happen?

If one of us can land a job near the coast that will keep the wolf from the door and if our youngest and his girlfriend reach the point, as we all expect them to sooner or later, of wanting to set up home together, we would seriously consider renting our house to the kids and moving on board the boat. So "next boat" has got to be something we could genuinely see ourselves living on board full time.

In all honesty, the gaff cutter I dream of just isn't going to fit the bill. It's not just a question of money - there just isn't ever going to be enough internal volume in a traditional hull form of around 33' length on deck to fit the sort of accommodation in that we'd want and need if we were living on board full time. We'd have to be looking upwards of 40' and that comes with a whole raft of issues.

Not only does the initial outlay rise dramatically, even for older and tired boats, but the running and maintenance costs go up significantly with every metre of extra boat length. And then there's the problem of two people, neither in the first flush of youth nor particularly fit for that matter, handling a boat of that size.

Now there will be howls of outrage in some quarters I'm sure at this. I'm not for one moment saying that you, or we, couldn't live on board a 30' gaffer. Of course we could, I'm merely suggesting that we wouldn't want to. I'm pretty well certain that Jane certainly wouldn't and to be honest I'm not sure I would either.

I reckon we could budget on £30k. Ideally, £25k, perhaps as much as £35k and that price range should put us in the market for any one of a number of older, but still perfectly viable, designs.

I rather fancy the Westerly Corsair ketch ...

... which looks, to my eye, rather more attractive than the Moodys of a similar size although a Corsair may be beyond our budget. However, the slightly smaller and older Westerly 33 Discus ...

... is, whilst slightly smaller, basically the same in all key respects. Clarke and Carter have two on offer as I write, both lying in Burnham Yacht Harbour, and priced right at the extremes of our probable price range. The one pictured above is for sale at top dollar having had a lot of money spent on it, the other example is a bargain basement price and needs updating and improving. You pays your money etc.!

You might be wondering why I'm leaning towards ketch rig. Well, it has all sorts of practical advantages but, when you get right down to it, it's really a case of if I can't have three sails with two at the front, I'll have three sails by having one at the back!

Engine musings

I completely forgot to mention, in my last post, our visit last Saturday to Seamark Nunn near Felixstowe to look at the possibility of replacing our elderly, thirsty, unpleasant and above all unreliable 2-stroke outboard.

There's no way that any of the current two cylinder 8hp 4-strokes will fit in the well and, in any case, they cost in excess of £2k which is more than is worth spending. So I'd already investigated the options on single cylinder engines and reckoned that the best bet would be a Suzuki 6hp unit.

Honda only go up to 5hp in the singles and have a bit of a poor reputation these days, surprising because in years gone by I'd have sworn by Honda engines. All the other possibilities come with very low output charging, usually as an option, whereas the optional charging on the Suzuki is the best of the bunch at 6A.

Martin, Seamark's very helpful outboard chap, promised to try and get me a line drawing of the engine so I can check it will actually fit! The quote including the charging option is about £1250 which is on budget.

Now the logic of replacing the engine may not be immediately obvious however I think it makes sense provided we do it right away. The 2-stroke has averaged, over this year, a consumption of about 3 litres an hour and burns fuel particularly quickly when motoring into a chop or against a foul tide and at a frightening rate when doing both at the same time! Based on a reasonable anticipation of probably 50% more time available to spend on board next year and taking into account the amount of time on board but not going anywhere due to weather this year, it's a fair bet that we'll be motoring twice as much next year if not more.

Halving our fuel consumption, not an unreasonable assumption, will save us getting on for half the cost of the engine over 3 to 4 years which, coincidentally, is how long (being realistic) I reckon we'll be keeping Brigantia. At the end of that time, the engine will still have 2 or 3 years of warranty left and will be worth well over half of what it cost new. In theory, the engine will actually cost us nothing at all!

Financial considerations aside, the much improved fuel consumption will greatly increase our range under power without having to carry more fuel - (if Rik and I had, for example, tried to motor back from the Walton Backwaters to the Crouch, a situation we could easily find ourselves in if there's no wind and we have to get the boat back to base, we'd have run out of fuel somewhere around the Spitway even though we had 30 litres on board when we set out.

Another key consideration is that a new engine equals a reliable engine. OK, Brigantia is a sailing boat but you can't sail into or out of marinas and most of the time I wouldn't want to attempt to sail onto or off the pontoon at Fambridge for that matter! We simply have to have an engine we can trust.

Finally, there's no escaping the fact that the 2-stroke is an antisocial animal. It's extremely noisy and somewhat smelly.

Nope, if we're going to keep Brigantia for a while (and that's pretty much a given unless we win the lottery) we're going to indulge ourselves in a shiny new outboard ... provided it'll go down the hole of course!

Good food, good beer, not a lot of boating!

We set off for Suffolk early on Saturday morning

The boat jumble was a crock - I could swear the advert said Saturday but it turned out it was on Sunday! Oh well, we'd probably just have spent money on junk we didn't really need and it wasn't the main purpose of the exercise anyway.

Around the corner we went to Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington for a surprisingly enjoyable few hours looking at bigger boats that we either can't afford right now or probably can't afford ever! This was prompted by a debate as to whether we should spend quite a lot of money on Brigantia bringing her up to the standard of repair and maintenance we'd like or whether we should sell her this winter and buy something bigger and/or better.

Not surprisingly, anything we could afford was extremely tatty and anything we might have wanted was far too expensive! The conclusions we came to are that we've got somewhat differing ideas of what our next boat might be - I want something very traditional and not too big, Jane wants something big and comfy :eek: - and we can't afford anything sufficiently better than Brigantia for several years so we'll stick with what we've got and do her up.

Then it was off down to Fambridge for the night. Arriving at the moorings, we were somewhat surprised to find the pontoon very nearly full, as busy as we've seen it all year. There was, however, a Brigantia sized hole on the inside of the pontoon so we jumped onto the ferry down to our mooring, fired up the engine and set up the lines to come in port side to.

As luck would have it, just as we cast off a boat came upstream and headed for the very gap we planned to moor in. Oh well, we toddled up the outside of the pontoon to see if there was space there only to be hailed from Full Circle, a fellow YBW forumite, who suggested we come alongside. Nice one, but I suddenly realised I'd rigged the bow line down the port side and with a very strong ebb tide running I needed it to starboard. Not wanting to ask Jane to do anything strenuous given her current health problems (she's off work with back pains which are under investigation) I turned downstream to make steering easy for her and sorted out the lines before turning back upstream.

With hindsight, and as Jim on Full Circle later commented, I'd have been better off stemming the tide as we ended up several hundred years downstream of the pontoon and had to forge our way back up against one of the biggest tides of the year! Oh well, it all worked out in the end although once again the engine died at idle but fortunately not before we'd got lines across.

We then joined Jim and Lynn aboard Full Circle for drinks and an excellent curry Lynn knocked up in the galley followed by more drinks before repairing to the pub for beers ... or in my case one and a half beers before I hit the wall and had to give up!

Back on board, we were pleased we'd brought the fan heater down. Although we'd have survived without any heating, it made life aboard a lot more pleasant. Not the best nights sleep we've had aboard as it was very windy and thus choppy on the river. We were both up and down during the night and a bit jaded next morning.

A lazy start to Sunday with breakfast from tins, a bit of a sort out and then I dropped Brigantia back on her buoy and caught the ferry back to the pontoon for the last time this season - we're on our own from now on so there'll be a lot more tender rowing to be done!

After saying our goodbyes to the Full Circles, it was off to Burnham Yacht Harbour to visit the crew aboard Laurin, more "virtual" friends from the world of YBW who are now definitely real friends. I'd offered to have a look at the electrics on the boat for them and they'd offered us lunch in return.

Arriving at BYS, we found Laurin and met up with Karen, Pat, AJ and Esme. Jane went all broody :rolleyes: whilst I got on with the business at hand. Most impressive electrical switch panel I've ever seen on a boat but I spotted a problem straight away with the main positive feed wire to the panel being loose in its screw terminal. A quick twiddle of the screwdriver sorted that out for the time being but it's something I think needs improving. No great problems generally, just some tidying up and sorting out needed.

That done, for now, it was off to the Swallowtail Bar for lunch. There was me expecting a sarnie and a pint and what we got was a full two course (we passed on starters!) Sunday dinner carvery! Even Jane got stuck in. More good food and good company. Esme, as babies often do, had fun pulling my beard - dunno why babies find beards so fascinating!

By now it was mid-afternoon and much as she was enjoying herself I could see that Jane was tiring so we bade our hosts farewell and set off back on the road to home.

Even though we only moved a couple of hundred yards and did little more than sleep aboard, it was a most enjoyable weekend. I was particularly pleased that Jane enjoyed the break as she's been going stir crazy stuck at home with nothing to do! It was also encouraging that she enjoyed the company on both days as she doesn't always find it easy to mix with new friends.

I'm investigating getting the necessary insurance, particularly professional indemnity cover, so I can take on odd bits of work on boat electrics. Not that I'm planning on making a go of it full time but it seems a shame to pass up the chance to make a bit on the side to put towards the costs of running Brigantia