solent clown
RIP
Hello all, newbies to the forums here. We chose the Solent Clown moniker as our first post was to tell of our recent mishap. We get out and about around the solent on a couple of different small yachts, on a budget, self taught mostly - born again sailors back on the water after decades of dreaming.
Last week we dropped our 18ft trailer sailer into the water at Crosshouse slipway under the Itchen bridge, and went for a rather sedate sail. The wind state was less than ideal, but we had our trusty outboard with us just in case.
When we realised we were beginning to push our luck about getting back on time to get the boat out of the water, we fired up the TRUSTY outboard. Of course, it died after a couple of minutes with a catastrophic failure. Now it was a slow race back under sail against the ebbing tide. We made it back to the slipway before low tide - but we had to lower the trailer a long way to get it near to the boat. With my wife doing her 4ft 10" best to hold the boat steady against the rip of the tide I pushed the trailer a tad further, and at the same time as it dropped a wheel into a deep rut and tipped the trailer she let the boat drift. There was an awful crunching noise, then the equally awful realisation we had done something untoward. By now we were exhausted, cold, and severely p**sed off, so I made the decision to take a gamble and haul the trailer up the slipway to try to save the boat. Unfortunately with the uneven ground and not having secured the boat properly the inevitable happened, and the boat came off as the trailer fought to right itself properly. Yes I was stupid, I took that chance, and it didn't pay off. we did our best to get the boat hauled up but nothing doing, so we moved it so as not to block the slip, then made it fast against the old steel slip beams beside the concrete slipway.
Then we went home to drown our sorrows.
Screen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.46 PM by mark punksteel, on Flickr
Screen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.47 PM by mark punksteel, on Flickr
Screen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.46 PM 001 by mark punksteel, on Flickr
Next day we liaised with the harbourmaster's office, who told us this was apparently a common occurence at that slipway - that served to restore a tiny bit of shine to the old dented ego, but we were still presented with a serious problem of getting the thing afloat again.
I had the hole patched by tuesday morning with a sheet of ply on the outside, another on the inside, and several tubes of sealant. the whole thing was bolted through sandwiching the damaged portion.
just as I finished bolting it up we reached low water. this was JUST low enough to expose the sterngunwale . It was time to start the pumps....
This was the point the minor domestic occured as I explained through gritted teeth while holding the boat againt its urge to list, that she was clearly blind, or just wilfully stupid while she screamed back at me words that you should never hear from the mouth of a former teacher. It transpired that the night before the boat had been robbed of many items by the itinerant dwellers of the river, (they were observed we later found out) items including the bilge pumps, the electric ones, and the fully plumbed in manual pump. So we failed, bailing with buckets just wasnt quick enough and the tide engulfed her once more.
At the beginning of this debacle, the harbour master had asked us to keep them informed of what we were doing, which we dutifully did. They also raised an incident number with the coastguard should we get into trouble. seemed unlikely in the circumstances, but it was a gratifying experience to know were were being watched over - literally as it happened as the VTS has a camera pointing at the slipway.
When we later visited them they told us they had been cheering us on that morning, and thought we were going to win out. I spoke to him about our concerns with the spring tides making what would have been an easy recovery becoming an underwater salvage operation. "Airbags" was the advice.
While we were there we were given a quick tour of the nerve centre, very much as you might imagine, like an aircraft control tower, screen everywhere, men with headsets talking phonetically in that clear calm way that is so reassuring if you are on the other end. Jolly nice chaps all of them, and we learned more about how busy the solent is in 5 mins from their screen than bobbing about on the water can ever tell you.
It is so busy with private vessels they have a special filter to screen them out when they need clarity to handle the big stuff, all at the flick of a mouse. I could only liken the amount of small craft appearing on screen when he pushed that button as looking like a cloud of midges on a field of cows.
Wednesday was too blowy to attempt anything safely but we did hear more gossip about who had taken out outbaord, batteries, compass, pumps, and anything else that wasnt nailed down.
Thusday my son and I came down an hour before low tide, armed with a 12 ft dinghy, 60 20litre barrels, and a petrol powered water pump, various bits of wood saws, and screwdrivers.
We waited for low tide, and found to our dismay the boat was still entirel underwater apart from one tiny corner of the cabin....
It was going to be a long day. I am a man who likes to be on the water, more than almost anything else in the world, but NOT in it
Last week we dropped our 18ft trailer sailer into the water at Crosshouse slipway under the Itchen bridge, and went for a rather sedate sail. The wind state was less than ideal, but we had our trusty outboard with us just in case.
When we realised we were beginning to push our luck about getting back on time to get the boat out of the water, we fired up the TRUSTY outboard. Of course, it died after a couple of minutes with a catastrophic failure. Now it was a slow race back under sail against the ebbing tide. We made it back to the slipway before low tide - but we had to lower the trailer a long way to get it near to the boat. With my wife doing her 4ft 10" best to hold the boat steady against the rip of the tide I pushed the trailer a tad further, and at the same time as it dropped a wheel into a deep rut and tipped the trailer she let the boat drift. There was an awful crunching noise, then the equally awful realisation we had done something untoward. By now we were exhausted, cold, and severely p**sed off, so I made the decision to take a gamble and haul the trailer up the slipway to try to save the boat. Unfortunately with the uneven ground and not having secured the boat properly the inevitable happened, and the boat came off as the trailer fought to right itself properly. Yes I was stupid, I took that chance, and it didn't pay off. we did our best to get the boat hauled up but nothing doing, so we moved it so as not to block the slip, then made it fast against the old steel slip beams beside the concrete slipway.
Then we went home to drown our sorrows.
Screen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.46 PM by mark punksteel, on FlickrScreen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.47 PM by mark punksteel, on FlickrScreen Shot 10-10-17 at 08.46 PM 001 by mark punksteel, on FlickrNext day we liaised with the harbourmaster's office, who told us this was apparently a common occurence at that slipway - that served to restore a tiny bit of shine to the old dented ego, but we were still presented with a serious problem of getting the thing afloat again.
I had the hole patched by tuesday morning with a sheet of ply on the outside, another on the inside, and several tubes of sealant. the whole thing was bolted through sandwiching the damaged portion.
just as I finished bolting it up we reached low water. this was JUST low enough to expose the sterngunwale . It was time to start the pumps....
This was the point the minor domestic occured as I explained through gritted teeth while holding the boat againt its urge to list, that she was clearly blind, or just wilfully stupid while she screamed back at me words that you should never hear from the mouth of a former teacher. It transpired that the night before the boat had been robbed of many items by the itinerant dwellers of the river, (they were observed we later found out) items including the bilge pumps, the electric ones, and the fully plumbed in manual pump. So we failed, bailing with buckets just wasnt quick enough and the tide engulfed her once more.
At the beginning of this debacle, the harbour master had asked us to keep them informed of what we were doing, which we dutifully did. They also raised an incident number with the coastguard should we get into trouble. seemed unlikely in the circumstances, but it was a gratifying experience to know were were being watched over - literally as it happened as the VTS has a camera pointing at the slipway.
When we later visited them they told us they had been cheering us on that morning, and thought we were going to win out. I spoke to him about our concerns with the spring tides making what would have been an easy recovery becoming an underwater salvage operation. "Airbags" was the advice.
While we were there we were given a quick tour of the nerve centre, very much as you might imagine, like an aircraft control tower, screen everywhere, men with headsets talking phonetically in that clear calm way that is so reassuring if you are on the other end. Jolly nice chaps all of them, and we learned more about how busy the solent is in 5 mins from their screen than bobbing about on the water can ever tell you.
It is so busy with private vessels they have a special filter to screen them out when they need clarity to handle the big stuff, all at the flick of a mouse. I could only liken the amount of small craft appearing on screen when he pushed that button as looking like a cloud of midges on a field of cows.
Wednesday was too blowy to attempt anything safely but we did hear more gossip about who had taken out outbaord, batteries, compass, pumps, and anything else that wasnt nailed down.
Thusday my son and I came down an hour before low tide, armed with a 12 ft dinghy, 60 20litre barrels, and a petrol powered water pump, various bits of wood saws, and screwdrivers.
We waited for low tide, and found to our dismay the boat was still entirel underwater apart from one tiny corner of the cabin....
It was going to be a long day. I am a man who likes to be on the water, more than almost anything else in the world, but NOT in it
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