Post shake down first trip reflection

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dustynet

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Hi all,

Seasons best to you all!

I've been sitting here studying my SD theory for the past couple of weeks before I attend a practical, and have been day-dreaming about buying my first boat as well as my shake down trips which will be building up to my first "proper" trip.
This has got me thinking, most people on here who own their own boats or have owned boats will all have been through a similar experience I suppose. I thought while most of you have vessels moored up or on the hard, why not take a trip down memory lane and share your first shake down / build up trips.
I'm very interested in hearing about what your shake downs brought to light, especially from anyone who bought a used boat, did it reveal something good or bad about the boat, a realisation about yourselves, or a sense of sheer panic and thinking "What have I done!" :LOL:

What led up to your first real run out, why did you choose that location, and how long overall did you plan for that trip given that it was your first to plan and execute, to somewhere that was outside of what would normally be considered home waters or familiar territory?

Cheers
 
I bought my first boat, an MG Spring, from Plymouth. It had been ashore for a while but we had been down for a weekend to antifoul and prep for our passage back to Chichester.
With a new YM theory under my belt I thought I knew enough for the passage back which I planned to do over three days of the Easter weekend.
Fortunately I did realise that I needed assistance and enlisted help from my YM instructor and a dinghy sailing instructor.
When we arrived at the boat it was blowing. No idea how much but it seemed strong. I couldn't manoeuvre the boat into the finger berth at QAB and one of the crew had to take over.
That night the wind didn't stop blowing. It was my first night aboard and I thought that the waves crashing and fenders squeaking was normal.
Next day it was still windy so we found a greasy spoon for a full English and to discuss options.
It was clearly too windy to set off but we did manage a day sail in Plymouth sound which gave us the opportunity to identify and resolve a couple of minor issues
Having lost a day, and reluctant to test my inexperience with an overnight passage, it looked like my plans were in tatters. Fortunately my more experienced crew convinced me that the wind would moderate overnight and suggested leaving at lunchtime the following day making for Poole overnight.
News had spread and there was a large flotilla to see us off... Or maybe they were there to welcome the bright yellow Open 50 with Pete Goss at the helm, fresh from his Vendée heroics?
There were plenty more adventures on our trip, mostly highlighting my inexperience. I remember my YM instructor nervously looking over my shoulder as I planned our passage through Hurst in very limited visibility. Then the sun burst out as we sailed past Cowes and on to the Bar Beacon marking the entrance to Chichester.
That evening I felt like a king! My own boat. A childhood dream finally realised. I slept aboard and next day caught an early morning train to work.

With grateful thanks to my crew - now as much as then. Sailing wouldn't be the same without you to steady my nerves.

I hope your first passage brings back the same rush of emotions 25 years on.
 
EVERY SIN IN THE BOOK, I call this .
Bought my first ‘real’ boat on the River Orwell
She was a leaker, 40 ft of soggy pine but my soggy pine ?
I didn’t calibrate the depth sounder but we assumed 7 feet draft . Plus a bit .
Fell in leaving the dock but grabbed the fairlead on the counter so only my legs got wet .. ominous
The autopilot never worked
The battery was carp
It was a hand startable diesel
I had never hand started a diesel
Off we went , a mate generously giving up his time.
Destination … Cornwall ..
Chug chug slowly out
Out into the North Sea of an April evening
Wide berth plotted around the Thames Estuary
So wide in Fact that in the morning after sailing through low visibility .. the North Foreland did not appear ..
Now no wind . Learn to start diesel after battery flat from navigation lights .
Chug chug flat calm nice sunny day . Exhaust fell off bulkhead . Reattach bulkhead . And Exhaust .
Restart engine ?
A light vessel appeared so we motored over and read it’s name .
Sandettie.
Which was surprising because by then we were looking for Dover .
So laid a new course ??.
Depth sounder said shallow . Very shallow . But no land . Hmm probably edge of Goodwin sands . Best anchor and wait ..??
Fishing boat full of anglers appeared and anchored too . Launched dinghy , rowed over with chart ( YES, we had one of them ??) ..
Capt Haddock played it large for the benefit of his paying crew..” you got a compass?” Yes ?
“ can you read it ?” Yup ?
Dovers over there ..
‘“ thank you “ ?
And it was too .
And we did make it to Falmouth after a night in Dover, then a NE wind came up and it was a very fast trip.

What could we possibly have done better ????
Never underestimate BEGINNERS LUCK ?
 
Should SD actually be DS as in Day Skipper?

The shake down usually brings to light there are not enough tea bags on board. EVERYTHING should be tested before relaunch just the skippers rather rusty boat handling skills to brush up on. When I was on the Exe I spent the winter on the hard at Topsham. The tidal window was very, very small, a few hours on springs where the yards had to get several boats in the water and the channel had always moved from last autumn when you brought the boat up river.

The first year I had my current boat the shakedown was the Starcross to Alderney. I was sailing with another boat owner on the Exe and after dropping him on his own boat to collect his kit he assured me that the mooring next to his was deep enough for my fin keeled vessel. At O240 hours I awoke to the clattering of pots and pans while wedged between the bunk and the hull! Clearly the mooring was not as my crew had stated. He slept soundly all night, but we did have a laugh about it in the morning.
 
Due to pandemic issues I had to clear in and out of Guernsey as quickly as possible in 2019, so left in rather more weather than my day skipper and muddling about in the med really qualified me for, with a far more experienced crew member aboard. The 3+ meter waves off casquets were quite novel, and my crew retired to the cabin floor to rest for 10 hours as we cleared into the channel proper. Averaged over 6kt on just the jib and made studland in about 12 hours (which was hard to furl due to an overlong foil that I later replaced). I even started enjoying myself a little once through the TSS and it certainly built trust in the boat. Had it not been for the pandemic restrictions, Alderney being a bit wickerman etc I would have spent a couple of days getting used to the boat, checking systems and not left in a 6-7 .
 
The boat was in Ipswich when i bought her. The delivery trip was to Edinburgh which i did with 3 friends who were all very easy going. We had very thick fog at one point, and found that the radar did actually work. Somewhere around Bamburgh the wind got up and the snapshackle holding the mainsheet to the boom tang let go. We were then left flapping about trying to figure out how to bring the boom back in. In the end someone leant right out and managed to tie a line around it. Hindsight ia 20:20 of course, and we should have just pointed to windward.

Shakedown trip 1: Edinburgh to Orkney - the weather was too bad and the head stopped working - we aborted into Aberdeen harbour, spent a couple of days there while I de-calcified the head pipes.

Shakedown trip 2: Edinburgh to Orkney - the weather was kinder and we got there, but on the way back we spent a long time trying to avoid some shipping that we probably didn't need to - got caught in 45kts in the Moray firth, head stopped working again so we diverted in the middle of the night to Fraserburgh. Spent a miserable day fixing a blocked (full) holding tank before returning to Edinburgh.

Shakedown trip 3: Edinburgh to Gothenburg - had a lovely sail there and back as well as 2 weeks holiday with great friends sailing around the archipelago. Stopped off in Denmark to wait out a storm (good decision!)

I write from the stern cabin while anchored in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
 
Boat was in Croatia, bought from a charter company. First trip when I took ownership was about 100Nm from Split up to Mali Losinj with the boat exported at the customs dock in Split and then entering Croatia again under temporary admission in Mali Losinj the next day.

Was an interesting experience in November ... cold, dark, big waves and no wind. Boat performed fine apart from a worrying oil leak from the engine which had me panicking at 2am - trying to assertain the remaining oil level while we were rolling around with no wind to sail .... while doing this we got lit up by a fishing boats floodlights but otherwise incident free. We had the added problem that we were supposed to remain outside Croatian waters until we re-entered under a "Q" flag and cleared customs again.

Turns out oil in the bilge is a bit like blood from an injury - looks like there is far more of it than there actually is. Re-started the engine and continued on our way with a glorious sunrise the following day.

En-route the boat was re-named with a booze fuelled re-naming ceremony ... there were 3 of us on board, my wife, a sailing friend, and me.

That was 10 years ago and said boat has just been sold and the hunt is on for a replacement - we just want a bigger, more modern AWB.

I think that once you have made the decision to go and are committed to the delivery trip, you just get on with it - we did have plenty of "Plan B" options though if it had turned nasty - the cruising area is littered with islands and ports.
 
I bought my boat in Hoorn in the Netherlands. As a new sailor, I decided to hire a delivery skipper to sail her back to the UK and I crewed for him. The boat was surveyed and the engine professionally serviced & checked before leaving. We crossed the North Sea, hitting dense fog (as in the bow was only just visible from the cockpit 25 feet away) about an hour out from Ijmuiden. Motored by compass heading as the boat's GPS turned out to work only very intermittently. The fog cleared as we reached the deep water channel along the Suffolk coast, got across it and then the fog descended again. Motored across the Thames estuary, finding Ramsgate by means of a handheld GPS that the delivery skipper had wisely brought with him. Rested a day then sailed to our final destination, Newhaven. Definitely beginners luck that we had good visibility to cross the shipping channel and, being an Easter weekend, there seemed not to be much traffic in and out of the Thames (altho we wouldn't have seen it anyhow).
 
My first own yacht was about the fifth I had ever helmed and crewed; these were in order: a Leisure 17, a Javelin 31, Rival 34 and Westerly Pageant; these gave me some confidence and knowledge of what boat to look for in the day - sailing and coastal cruising I intended to do and , at that time ,the regular Club Handicap races.
I still sailed a Merlin Rocket and Wayfarer with another guy. We got on well and became joint owners of Westerly Tiger 25ft, Fin Keeled and well travelled.
She had been a Sailing School yacht but had sailed to Scandinavia , Holland and France by the owner so was up-to-date with all practical gear and sails but not much in the way of electronics except a VHF radio. The hull was thoroughly surveyed and all faults found reported to the owners and duly sorted. A Volvo MD1B of 10Hp was its engine.
My pal and I decided to go into partnership in this and when repairs had been completed took her from Portsmouth to the Hamble.
It was a blustery day and Spring tides to go with it and my first time getting out of Portsmouth harbour. Fortunately we had put in first reef in the mainsail and the foresail was a furling jib of about 130*. As the tide had only just flooded in Portchester we thought we'd get back to Hamble before the ebb tide started there. As the wind increased we further reduced the genoa by furling and had less heel, but the flood tide and large Solent swells made the trip pretty nerve-wracking ; this too is where we learned about windage on the hull whilst docking alongside with a very strong ebb pushing us off the pontoon, where we had to stop to borrow a small rowing dinghy from our buoy moorings- where another lesson was learned about having a pick-up line between buoys. By the end we were both shattered but very pleased with the performance overall and the immediate re-starting of the engine when needed. My partner died after about 3 years from cancer, and I had purchased his share from him well prior to this. We sailed at least twice a week , either a trip to Cowes, or a sailabout , to train him up
and both of us learn the boat's characteristics in light airs- she had no spinnaker when bought.
I kept my boat for 33 years and she was in good condition when sold in 2017. Several novices have been aboard her over that time and all loved her ways and felt safe aboard- had they not, they would probably given up but one or two now have much larger yachts to sail !

ianat182
 
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From the world of dinghy cruising, our first shakedown was a day sail from the launch slip at one local port to a town 7 nm away for lunch, and then back. The Wayfarer type was new to me, and I hadn’t done much sailing for about 20 years. My 13-year-old daughter, with one session of sailing school at a local club to her credit, was keen to try out her skills on a voyage other than sailing around the buoys in the harbour.

We hoisted sail in the shelter of the marina, and paddled around the breakwater to find F4 and short-spaced 4-foot waves blowing down the Sound toward us. That was when we learned how stable a boat she was, and that I had rigged the reefing line incorrectly. In any case, we were able to beat into deeper water where the waves were not so steep and then to get the reefing line sorted.

We had an energetic beat over several hours to the harbour mouth of our destination, which we found surrounded by high ground placed just right to block all the wind. That’s when the crew announced that she needed the loo, so out came the paddles in a desperate effort to make port. I had a bucket, but commendable modesty (?) precluded its use by my adolescent daughter.

Lunch was a hurried affair, and then a slow journey out to more open water, where the morning’s F4 was rapidly dropping. By dusk, we were still 2 miles from the launch slip and reduced to paddling again. I shone my torch on the sail to alert the mobo crowd to our presence, resolving that an outboard motor and some form of navigation lights had to be in our future. The wind picked up after dark, and we covered the last half mile under sail, before recovering the boat onto her road trailer and taking down the mast in the dark.

We had learned plenty about our boat and about ourselves, and ended up doing some open water cruises of 40 to 50 miles over the next few years, camping on the cockpit sole under a boom tent at night. Now the crew is away at uni and I have two bad knees, so sailing is a bit less adventurous for now. We still recall that first shakedown sail with pleasure, and laugh at how little we knew then.
 
Blueboatman said:
EVERY SIN IN THE BOOK, I call this .
Bought my first ‘real’ boat on the River Orwell
She was a leaker, 40 ft of soggy pine but my soggy pine ?
I didn’t calibrate the depth sounder but we assumed 7 feet draft . Plus a bit .
Fell in leaving the dock but grabbed the fairlead on the counter so only my legs got wet .. ominous
The autopilot never worked
The battery was carp
It was a hand startable diesel
I had never hand started a diesel
Off we went , a mate generously giving up his time.
Destination … Cornwall ..
Chug chug slowly out
Out into the North Sea of an April evening
Wide berth plotted around the Thames Estuary
So wide in Fact that in the morning after sailing through low visibility .. the North Foreland did not appear ..
Now no wind . Learn to start diesel after battery flat from navigation lights .
Chug chug flat calm nice sunny day . Exhaust fell off bulkhead . Reattach bulkhead . And Exhaust .
Restart engine ?
A light vessel appeared so we motored over and read it’s name .
Sandettie.
Which was surprising because by then we were looking for Dover .
So laid a new course ??.
Depth sounder said shallow . Very shallow . But no land . Hmm probably edge of Goodwin sands . Best anchor and wait ..??
Fishing boat full of anglers appeared and anchored too . Launched dinghy , rowed over with chart ( YES, we had one of them ??) ..
Capt Haddock played it large for the benefit of his paying crew..” you got a compass?” Yes ?
“ can you read it ?” Yup ?
Dovers over there ..
‘“ thank you “ ?
And it was too .
And we did make it to Falmouth after a night in Dover, then a NE wind came up and it was a very fast trip.

What could we possibly have done better ????
Never underestimate BEGINNERS LUCK ?
Click to expand...

I guess you never ended up with a plot of the actual run you made? I guess that could have made for interesting reading.
Did you ever work out the bank you came across?
:D
 
ryanroberts said:
Due to pandemic issues I had to clear in and out of Guernsey as quickly as possible in 2019, so left in rather more weather than my day skipper and muddling about in the med really qualified me for, with a far more experienced crew member aboard. The 3+ meter waves off casquets were quite novel, and my crew retired to the cabin floor to rest for 10 hours as we cleared into the channel proper. Averaged over 6kt on just the jib and made studland in about 12 hours (which was hard to furl due to an overlong foil that I later replaced). I even started enjoying myself a little once through the TSS and it certainly built trust in the boat. Had it not been for the pandemic restrictions, Alderney being a bit wickerman etc I would have spent a couple of days getting used to the boat, checking systems and not left in a 6-7 .
Click to expand...
Wickerman - LOL.

Im currently window shopping until I return from my DS, then very actively seeking boat with an eye on working my way up to the north west coast of scotland and the hebs, although nothing is set in stone, your wickerman comment reminded me of this loose plan and did make be chuckle :)
 
Baggywrinkle said:
Boat was in Croatia, bought from a charter company. First trip when I took ownership was about 100Nm from Split up to Mali Losinj with the boat exported at the customs dock in Split and then entering Croatia again under temporary admission in Mali Losinj the next day.

Was an interesting experience in November ... cold, dark, big waves and no wind. Boat performed fine apart from a worrying oil leak from the engine which had me panicking at 2am - trying to assertain the remaining oil level while we were rolling around with no wind to sail .... while doing this we got lit up by a fishing boats floodlights but otherwise incident free. We had the added problem that we were supposed to remain outside Croatian waters until we re-entered under a "Q" flag and cleared customs again.

Turns out oil in the bilge is a bit like blood from an injury - looks like there is far more of it than there actually is. Re-started the engine and continued on our way with a glorious sunrise the following day.

En-route the boat was re-named with a booze fuelled re-naming ceremony ... there were 3 of us on board, my wife, a sailing friend, and me.

That was 10 years ago and said boat has just been sold and the hunt is on for a replacement - we just want a bigger, more modern AWB.

I think that once you have made the decision to go and are committed to the delivery trip, you just get on with it - we did have plenty of "Plan B" options though if it had turned nasty - the cruising area is littered with islands and ports.
Click to expand...

AWB?
 
Aeolus said:
I bought my boat in Hoorn in the Netherlands. As a new sailor, I decided to hire a delivery skipper to sail her back to the UK and I crewed for him. The boat was surveyed and the engine professionally serviced & checked before leaving. We crossed the North Sea, hitting dense fog (as in the bow was only just visible from the cockpit 25 feet away) about an hour out from Ijmuiden. Motored by compass heading as the boat's GPS turned out to work only very intermittently. The fog cleared as we reached the deep water channel along the Suffolk coast, got across it and then the fog descended again. Motored across the Thames estuary, finding Ramsgate by means of a handheld GPS that the delivery skipper had wisely brought with him. Rested a day then sailed to our final destination, Newhaven. Definitely beginners luck that we had good visibility to cross the shipping channel and, being an Easter weekend, there seemed not to be much traffic in and out of the Thames (altho we wouldn't have seen it anyhow).
Click to expand...
Hi,
Sorry to hear about the fog laiden maiden journey!
Out of curiosity, did the survey find the issue with the GPS etc, and Im assuming if so, there was an adjustment made for that? Im not digging for prices, just curious about the process around surveying and subsequent negotiations?
Another question if I may, relating to hiring a skipper, was this a long time ago, and if not, where could I expect to do the same, and if possible, what would be expected costs? Yes im expecting a how long is a piece of string answer, but just as a ball-park on a per-day basis kind of thing to give me something for beer-mat guestimates please :)
 
Sublime to the ridiculous:
Motored out of Porthmadog then a gorgeous ,10-12M sail over to the Tudwal Islands where we anchored for a leisurely lunch. When we came to leave our new to us boat's engine started, but no power? Got the anchor up and sailed slowly back to Porthmadog entrance, the afternoon now grey and drizzly - matching our mood at this disaster - where we dropped anchor, waiting for the only person we knew in Porthmadog (Jim) to sail back in too - he'd once owned our boat and might have some ideas, or at worst tow us up the channel. During the hour or two we sat there listening to the radio the sun reappeared, England had an unexpected turnaround and beat the West Indies in the Test Match (Andy Caddick took 5 or 6 wickets for a handful of runs) and a school of dolphins appeared to play around the boat for half an hour.
Jim still hadn't appeared but the light breeze turned southerly meaning we were now on a lee-shore, but that we could use it to sail up the twisty/shallow channel to Porthmadog; it was only later that we learnt from several local experts, that doing so was 'impossible', so without having to worry about that, we got up without mishap to within 150m of our mooring before the disappearing breeze/turning tide brought us to a complete halt. Not giving up now I hurled the dinghy off the foredeck, tied it to the bow a rowed the rest of the way towing our 27' boat behind me - a few people we passed on their moorings offered to get their own dinghies (with outboards) off to help, but it'd become a point of principal so I declined and we got it their under oars.
An hour or so later, we were sat in the cockpit with the local marine engineer discussing the advatages/disadvatages/costs of rebuilding or renewing our 'knackered' engine, when our friend Jim finally motored by; hearing of our disaster he suggested that we 'wiggled the engine stop button' and ten seconds later, with the stop button fully closed, the engine was de-knackered and all was again good.
Postscript: The following day we invested <10% of the quoted engine replacement cost in buying our own outboard, which 20 years later was still running well when we passed it and our second boat on to new owners in New Zealand whilst the 'knackered' engine was still going strong eleven years later when we sold that first boat in Greece.
 
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dustynet said:
I guess you never ended up with a plot of the actual run you made? I guess that could have made for interesting reading.
Did you ever work out the bank you came across?
:D
[/QUOTE
We would have been fine IF the visibility was better. Famous useless words
Having restarted the plot at the Sandettie LV my plan was to come across and pick up the edge of the Goodwin Sands. However with carp vis albeit sunny haze, I could see us easily motoring up some finger of water between two humps and getting in trouble there so we stopped, anchored, waited … and luckily asked ?
Gosh, over 35 years ago but all good learning
Click to expand...
 
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