Imperial One
Well-Known Member
As I sit here in the office looking out at another indifferent day, I though maybe you might be interested to see a day in the life of a Van der Valk dealer........
Her owner, Peter and I had took "Jersey Falcon", a Van der Valk 20m, from Ocean Village Marina in Southampton to her home berth in St Helier last Wednesday and thought you might like to see some photos of the trip.
We started off by fueling her up, stowing all loose articles and checking oil levels on Tuesday in preparation for an early start the next day. She had recently come to OVM from Holland where she had been for her winter service before being stored, as always, in their large heated winter storage facility.....Peter really looks after his boat!
Here is a photo of her being craned in at the yard just before cruising across to me in Southampton.
The day dawned a little gloomy but with light winds and a low coming in later in the afternoon all seemed god to go so we set of a little later than planned just after 08.30.
As we went past Fawley all was good and Red Jet zoomed by with a cheery wave from the skipper.
We cruised on towards Hurst and the Needles at a steady 21 knots enjoying a comfortable passage and even got a hello from the raggies!:encouragement:
All went well with the passage and we hardly saw any traffic apart from a few large ships in the mid channel. Some fisherman had put a string of pots down in 330 foot of water which was a bit of a surprise as was the rather large log floating half submerged in the same area. Luckily we saw both in good time but I do wonder what sort of damage a log that big could do to a planing GRP hull.
Then, as we got to the Alderney Race we had an engine overheat. Most convenient as the wind had got up to a F5, it was raining and a little lumpy in confused waters. I went to the engine room to discover that we had lost some coolant from no 1 engine. :ambivalence:
As it was shut down immediately the alarm went off, all was well and we continued on the remaining 3 anyway! This excitement later turned out to be a broken drive shaft in the water pump causing the impeller not to function and hence overheat and blow off the steam via the coolant filler cap....just a bit of a mess and a new pump then!
Apart from this irritation, our passage all went to plan and we were soon cruising past La Corbiere lighthouse and nearly home.
Jersey Coastguard were heard chatting to Condor Ferry which showed up on our system as traveling at 37.5 knot and looking very colourful as she went by.
The rain started to pelt down just as we arrived at St Helier and entered the Marina so putting out the fenders and warps was a somewhat damp exercise (for me anyway!).
No sooner had we moored up, the rain stopped, the sun came out and Jersey Falcon was home again safe and sound just in time for the Jersey Boat Show. Time for a sandwich and a coffee I think!
I have a few more photos if anybody is interested but I suspect these will be enough to give you a flavour of the day.
I hope you all enjoy the upcoming Bank Holiday and get out on the water if you can.
Her owner, Peter and I had took "Jersey Falcon", a Van der Valk 20m, from Ocean Village Marina in Southampton to her home berth in St Helier last Wednesday and thought you might like to see some photos of the trip.
We started off by fueling her up, stowing all loose articles and checking oil levels on Tuesday in preparation for an early start the next day. She had recently come to OVM from Holland where she had been for her winter service before being stored, as always, in their large heated winter storage facility.....Peter really looks after his boat!
Here is a photo of her being craned in at the yard just before cruising across to me in Southampton.
The day dawned a little gloomy but with light winds and a low coming in later in the afternoon all seemed god to go so we set of a little later than planned just after 08.30.
As we went past Fawley all was good and Red Jet zoomed by with a cheery wave from the skipper.
We cruised on towards Hurst and the Needles at a steady 21 knots enjoying a comfortable passage and even got a hello from the raggies!:encouragement:
All went well with the passage and we hardly saw any traffic apart from a few large ships in the mid channel. Some fisherman had put a string of pots down in 330 foot of water which was a bit of a surprise as was the rather large log floating half submerged in the same area. Luckily we saw both in good time but I do wonder what sort of damage a log that big could do to a planing GRP hull.
Then, as we got to the Alderney Race we had an engine overheat. Most convenient as the wind had got up to a F5, it was raining and a little lumpy in confused waters. I went to the engine room to discover that we had lost some coolant from no 1 engine. :ambivalence:
As it was shut down immediately the alarm went off, all was well and we continued on the remaining 3 anyway! This excitement later turned out to be a broken drive shaft in the water pump causing the impeller not to function and hence overheat and blow off the steam via the coolant filler cap....just a bit of a mess and a new pump then!
Apart from this irritation, our passage all went to plan and we were soon cruising past La Corbiere lighthouse and nearly home.
Jersey Coastguard were heard chatting to Condor Ferry which showed up on our system as traveling at 37.5 knot and looking very colourful as she went by.
The rain started to pelt down just as we arrived at St Helier and entered the Marina so putting out the fenders and warps was a somewhat damp exercise (for me anyway!).
No sooner had we moored up, the rain stopped, the sun came out and Jersey Falcon was home again safe and sound just in time for the Jersey Boat Show. Time for a sandwich and a coffee I think!
I have a few more photos if anybody is interested but I suspect these will be enough to give you a flavour of the day.
I hope you all enjoy the upcoming Bank Holiday and get out on the water if you can.
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