Bloody expensive day!

And I do mean EXPENSIVE!

First off came the phone call that the sails are ready to be shipped. Inevitably that meant paying the balance of slightly over a grand. Ouch #1

Then I realised I hadn't renewed the insurance. A cheap one that at £151.00!

That in turn reminded me that it's well past the date when I should have sent the annual cheque to the marina, another one that shaded the wrong side of four figures - twice in one day!

So with what I'm spending at the chandlers this week that's about three grand gone just like that :O

Hells bells, we only paid £3k for the boat in the flippin' first place! Oh well

More shopping - Radar reflectors

It's back to the t'interweb again today. Shop 'till you drop ...

Next major item on the shopping list is a radar reflector. OK, we've got one but I hate it.

It's one of these horrible things to my right, I bought the wrong size (the big one) and I've lost all the plastic corner covers so it has "sail shredder" written all over it.

It's a pain in the backside to hoist anywhere useful and gets in the way once you've got it up there. Lowered to the deck it's an even bigger nuisance to dismantle and stow and I hate the bloody thing.

It was quite cheap though I suppose. Anyway, whilst I was tempted for a while by the inflatable reflector from Echomax it still suffers from the problem of having to be hoisted and lowered, stowed away and blown up and so on and what I really want is a permanent solution that's up there, well, permanently

In an ideal world we'd fit an active dual-band radar "reflector" which actually, as its name suggests actively transmits a signal that shows up on the big boys radar. However, they are not at all cheap, about four times the price of a passive reflector and ten times the price of the sail shredder, and they need constant power.

So we're stuck with a passive reflector of which there are many. About the best all round performer in the tests is the Echomax E230 but that's a bit big for us so we'll go for the smaller EM180. It's radar cross-section doesn't quite meet the RORC standard but since we're not going to be taking part in ocean racing I can live with that! At 8m2 it's still MUCH more visible than Brigantia

That's slightly over another hundred quid heading from my coffers to enrich the chandlers. Hey ho.

We'll also need some jointing compound to go between the brackets and the mast to prevent galvanic corrosion. Oh look, that's a mere snip at £14.57. And Monel rivets are peanuts too, not! £2.29 for a pack of 6 rivets? Jesus! 

Right, back to rigging next .,..

Rigging the chute amongst other things ...

And the shopping goes on ... I just can't stop myself!

Having sorted out the antifoul from the specialists suppliers and the new sails from Crusader, today it's time to hit the general chandleries and spread some hard earned around my favourite online shopping experiences

The main focus of attention is getting the rig sorting out finished off - the mainsail reefing is still a bit of a shambles, we've the new cruising chute to fly and the kicking strap needs replacing amongst other things.

So let's get busy with the mouse and start clicking on those "BUY ME" icons ...

Let's stop mucking about and REALLY spend some money ... !

Bespoke the sailmaker today on the telephonic instrument

Mostly, he's happy with the measurements we supplied but he's very very sure that we've under-specified the mainsail luff length. In fact, he's so sure we've got it wrong that he wants to make it a whole foot longer and he says if it's wrong then they'll put it right at their expense!

Can't really argue with that. Especially not when it turns out that one of his first jobs as a young sailmaker was making the original sails for the Islander 23 back in 1967 or 1968 or so. Highly likely he made the first sails for Brigantia back in 1969 then

With that detail settled, the main, 140% genoa and cruising chute plus the new mainsail cover measurements will be jotted down on the back of a fag packet and chalked out on the loft floor ... OK so they don't do it that way anymore, it's all confusers and digital cutting machines and things these days!

Whatever the production method, the new sails should be ready in about 10 days time which will hopefully be just in time for Rik to pick them up and bring them with him on the maintenance weekend and should certainly be in time to get them delivered if not

Of course, the downside is that I've only paid the deposit so far and there's a big bill to settle when the time comes. Oh well, it's only money, it's not as if it's important or anything

And so the spending starts ...

I guess it's inevitable but it is still a pity that the first portent of the new sailing season is the money starting to fly out of the boating bank account!

First item on the spend, spend and then spend some more is antifoul

After passable success with Flag the first year and less than stellar performance from the really cheap stuff last year (but to be fair it was really cheap!), this year we're going with Jotun Seaqueen. The people in the know around the Crouch and Blackwater all seem to favour it so we're giving it a go even though at £130.00  (including primer which we'll only need once but that only costs about £20) it's more than twice the price of Flag.

But then if we stay weed free for just one season it'll have been worth it given the fall off in performance we've suffered as the year has gone on and we've found ourselves dragging a growing load of weed and baby barnacles around. And there are people who only antifoul with Seaqueen every two or three years at that so in the long run it could end up being more economical. Hopefully, 5 litres of the stuff, the smallest size the do, will put two good coats on this year and a freshening coat next year and if so I'll be happy with the cost

Now for the big order to the chandlers <sigh> ...