Frontier
Active member
Ok some of theses weekend write-ups can be a bit longwinded like this one. I am not that articulate so here it is. A story of minor incidents.
Left Chichester harbour on Thursday for a few days relaxing cruising around the Solent. SWMBO and mini-me don’t like the Chichester Bar at the best of times. So after a bit of white water rafting getting out to sea things settled down to being just a bit choppy.
But the boat wouldn’t plane, What could be wrong? Had a look down at the stbd engine which seemed to be revving a bit less than the port. Saw water pouring from under a pulley? Anyway carried on as temperature stayed OK. Still kept being knocked off the plane though.
Decided to put in to Gosport for the rest of the day. Spent the afternoon checking fuel filters getting smelly from diesel etc. Found that the water was actually leaking from where one of the pipes fits to the sea water strainer.
Next day
Looking forward to a lay-in. No such luck the gas alarm went of at 6:00. No gas thankfully, just 15 minutes of false alarms, by which time I was fully awake.
Headed off after breakfast, but boat still hard to get on the plane, did manage 20kts though as the sea was calm. Decided to head to Sealift 2 in Cowes to see if they could fit in a scrub. Unfortunately they couldn’t. Decided to go to Yarmouth, been wanting to stop there for ages. Had not called them to this point because I was unsure of the boat. The weather looked good and we were managing to make good headway, so off we went. Tried calling up to book a berth but got no answer. On arrival found every boat in the harbour decked out in flags. Great! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif picked a day when a festival is on.
OK then “let’s go to Newton Creek and anchor up and have some lunch.” We shortly arrive at Newton Creak and tried anchoring. (Novices at this only done it once before) So for the next half hour we are the cabaret for the assembled anchored boats. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Eventually gave up when the winch packed in. (it does that after 4 or 5 goes)
So there we are back in Cowes Yacht Haven, given a berth right in a corner behind an expensive looking Swordsman with no fenders on its exposed side. Eventually got into the space. (No bow thruster)
SWMBO liked this alternative location. (Shops!) At some point the water pump to the sinks decided it would no longer just pump the water in a gentle flow but blast it out in bursts. Did manage to fix it before we went home on Sunday but for most of the weekend we got soaked every time we turned on a tap.
Friday afternoon we notice many yachts arriving, many of the crew with Team T-shirts on. Now this lot were very well behaved and had some very nice yachts, but they didn’t seem to want to go to bed until about 02:00am. Then at some ungodly hour in the morning all sorts of horns are blasted to get them out racing. But the gas alarm didn’t make a peep!
Left Cowes mid morning and headed back to Chichester. On leaving the river I found the port leg would not trim down, It went up Ok but not down. After a number of attempts to hear if it was going down I wondered how high it was now. (The gauge is not working awaiting the engineer’s availability to fix it) I usually measure its travel by moving it at the same rate as the Stbd leg. But that plan was no good now.
Headed for Osborne bay so I could have a look at. Got swmbo to take the helm while I unscrewed the cockpit sole over the port leg. Couldn’t work down there with the stb engine running so climbed up and shut of the engine.! It’s quite with both engines off”. I realised I had stopped the engine in gear. So thought I had better make sure it would start again before doing anything else. You guessed it, it wouldn’t. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Swmbo was very quite from here on. I couldn’t work out what it might be, didn’t want to run all the way to Gosport or back to Cowes on the port engine with the leg up at an unknown level.
Swmbo says “call Sea Start” Good idea. Very nice man at Sea Start promises to be with us in 20 mins. Tells me to slowly head into the bay on the port engine with the leg up and anchor. I start to think “why don’t I have any lights on the engine I stopped.” Surly I can’t have an electrical fault as well. “What can it be” I repeat to myself, it must be something I have missed. And while looking at the floor I notice one of the engine master switches in the off position. “Thank you Lord” says I. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I must have knocked it getting out of the engine bay and of course the engines only go off when you actually make them go off with the switch on the dash.
Started the engine, phoned Sea Start and cancelled the call, wiggled the wired on the port leg trim relay and that came back to life too. Soon we were doing 22kts heading back to Chichester. After that things were fine for a while. We anchored at East Head. The anchor worked fine first time. It was only back at base that the bad luck returned. The marina had allocated us a new berth about 3 weeks ago, (there was a boat in it when we left) so we berthed in the new slot on return as it was vacant. Reported the move to the office, asked for the electric to be transferred etc. Then while removing my warps from the old berth the “other” new tenant of my new berth arrived. Turned out we had both been given the berth about 3 weeks ago. Spent about 3 hours sorting out another new berth.
So not a very relaxing weekend. Never been broken down before, Ok it wasn’t serious after all but at the time there you are just drifting in the silence and thinking Mr Sea Start will probably turn up with a Seaside Rescue camera crew filming the new series. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Some photos.
Relaxing in Cowes
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Yours truly and swmbo.
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A neighbouring yacht has to retrieve their tender after it breaks free.
Is this you?
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Heading home, IOW and the forts in the background [image]
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Left Chichester harbour on Thursday for a few days relaxing cruising around the Solent. SWMBO and mini-me don’t like the Chichester Bar at the best of times. So after a bit of white water rafting getting out to sea things settled down to being just a bit choppy.
But the boat wouldn’t plane, What could be wrong? Had a look down at the stbd engine which seemed to be revving a bit less than the port. Saw water pouring from under a pulley? Anyway carried on as temperature stayed OK. Still kept being knocked off the plane though.
Decided to put in to Gosport for the rest of the day. Spent the afternoon checking fuel filters getting smelly from diesel etc. Found that the water was actually leaking from where one of the pipes fits to the sea water strainer.
Next day
Looking forward to a lay-in. No such luck the gas alarm went of at 6:00. No gas thankfully, just 15 minutes of false alarms, by which time I was fully awake.
Headed off after breakfast, but boat still hard to get on the plane, did manage 20kts though as the sea was calm. Decided to head to Sealift 2 in Cowes to see if they could fit in a scrub. Unfortunately they couldn’t. Decided to go to Yarmouth, been wanting to stop there for ages. Had not called them to this point because I was unsure of the boat. The weather looked good and we were managing to make good headway, so off we went. Tried calling up to book a berth but got no answer. On arrival found every boat in the harbour decked out in flags. Great! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif picked a day when a festival is on.
OK then “let’s go to Newton Creek and anchor up and have some lunch.” We shortly arrive at Newton Creak and tried anchoring. (Novices at this only done it once before) So for the next half hour we are the cabaret for the assembled anchored boats. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Eventually gave up when the winch packed in. (it does that after 4 or 5 goes)
So there we are back in Cowes Yacht Haven, given a berth right in a corner behind an expensive looking Swordsman with no fenders on its exposed side. Eventually got into the space. (No bow thruster)
SWMBO liked this alternative location. (Shops!) At some point the water pump to the sinks decided it would no longer just pump the water in a gentle flow but blast it out in bursts. Did manage to fix it before we went home on Sunday but for most of the weekend we got soaked every time we turned on a tap.
Friday afternoon we notice many yachts arriving, many of the crew with Team T-shirts on. Now this lot were very well behaved and had some very nice yachts, but they didn’t seem to want to go to bed until about 02:00am. Then at some ungodly hour in the morning all sorts of horns are blasted to get them out racing. But the gas alarm didn’t make a peep!
Left Cowes mid morning and headed back to Chichester. On leaving the river I found the port leg would not trim down, It went up Ok but not down. After a number of attempts to hear if it was going down I wondered how high it was now. (The gauge is not working awaiting the engineer’s availability to fix it) I usually measure its travel by moving it at the same rate as the Stbd leg. But that plan was no good now.
Headed for Osborne bay so I could have a look at. Got swmbo to take the helm while I unscrewed the cockpit sole over the port leg. Couldn’t work down there with the stb engine running so climbed up and shut of the engine.! It’s quite with both engines off”. I realised I had stopped the engine in gear. So thought I had better make sure it would start again before doing anything else. You guessed it, it wouldn’t. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Swmbo was very quite from here on. I couldn’t work out what it might be, didn’t want to run all the way to Gosport or back to Cowes on the port engine with the leg up at an unknown level.
Swmbo says “call Sea Start” Good idea. Very nice man at Sea Start promises to be with us in 20 mins. Tells me to slowly head into the bay on the port engine with the leg up and anchor. I start to think “why don’t I have any lights on the engine I stopped.” Surly I can’t have an electrical fault as well. “What can it be” I repeat to myself, it must be something I have missed. And while looking at the floor I notice one of the engine master switches in the off position. “Thank you Lord” says I. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I must have knocked it getting out of the engine bay and of course the engines only go off when you actually make them go off with the switch on the dash.
Started the engine, phoned Sea Start and cancelled the call, wiggled the wired on the port leg trim relay and that came back to life too. Soon we were doing 22kts heading back to Chichester. After that things were fine for a while. We anchored at East Head. The anchor worked fine first time. It was only back at base that the bad luck returned. The marina had allocated us a new berth about 3 weeks ago, (there was a boat in it when we left) so we berthed in the new slot on return as it was vacant. Reported the move to the office, asked for the electric to be transferred etc. Then while removing my warps from the old berth the “other” new tenant of my new berth arrived. Turned out we had both been given the berth about 3 weeks ago. Spent about 3 hours sorting out another new berth.
So not a very relaxing weekend. Never been broken down before, Ok it wasn’t serious after all but at the time there you are just drifting in the silence and thinking Mr Sea Start will probably turn up with a Seaside Rescue camera crew filming the new series. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Some photos.
Relaxing in Cowes
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Yours truly and swmbo.
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A neighbouring yacht has to retrieve their tender after it breaks free.
Is this you?
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Heading home, IOW and the forts in the background [image]
