When this........

Solitaire

Solitaire

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forum first started we had all sorts of postings of boating daring do; exploding toilets, getting caught out in bad weather, the odd grounding.

Now what do we get? Oil analysis,Doral gone bankrupt,Trucking costs,Hello and help please,Heavy vibration,Help Princess........... all in chronological order.

Does nobody actually go boating anymore on this forum?

Oh sorry HLB, I know you do! :D
 
Solitaire said:
forum first started we had all sorts of postings of boating daring do; exploding toilets, getting caught out in bad weather, the odd grounding.

Now what do we get? Oil analysis,Doral gone bankrupt,Trucking costs,Hello and help please,Heavy vibration,Help Princess........... all in chronological order.

Does nobody actually go boating anymore on this forum?

Oh sorry HLB, I know you do! :D
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Hamble to St Peter Port, StP to St Helier, St Helier to Cherbourg, Cherbourg to Hamble, Hamble to Portsmouth, Portsmouth to Brighton, Brighton to Hamble. That was the last two weekends, with working weeks in-between. What more do you want?

:-)
 
Nice one Solitaire...

Remember those days of journeys, vacations, buying and moving boats. I try to participate, where I can, but boating will be limited this year as we are moving house, daughter to Uni, Project coming to a head etc.... But September will see a move to a new marina, which will be appropriately documented of course...
 
a spare pair of hands in Plymouth yesterday would have been quite useful !

We have been putting off the dreaded hull cleaning for several weeks, but desultory prods around the waterline with a brush and handscraper from the dinghy failed to produce the anticipated results, so the boat found herself trussed up and tilted alongside the quay with three enormous trawler-style buoys between hull and stonework.

The pressure washer blasted the lance out of the handpiece, and I rushed off to nearly Tavistock to pick up a spare, while the the senior partner finished cleaning the vegetation off the hull, and prizing mussels out of umpteen orifices. Water power restored, we completed the hull cleaning, evicted a small biologist's delight of crawling/swimming things from the paddle wheel sensor, and sat back in the late afternoon sunshine with char and choccy bix, and waited for the tide to float her off. At which point, the wind picked up to gusts of 55 mph (Met Office recorded), and we had a little fun getting away from the landing stage as the wind was almost directly onshore.

With the flood tidal flow ticking over at about 3 kts, and the strong wind at right angles to the flow, the scene was set for a WNS problem to re-fix the boat to her fore-and-aft buoys. After working the ideal solution out on the chart table with blobs of paper representing the buoys, and much waving of hands to show wind and water flow, we decided to attach the bow to the downstream buoy to make her fast, and then to turn the boat's head upstream with a convoluted pattern of colourful mountaineering ropes woven from stem to stern.

I think it was Klausewitz who said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, so it should have been no real surprise to the seasoned and grizzly crew that the struggle between wind and water to gain control of the boat resulted an interesting yawing performance as first one, then the other gained ascendancy of the hull and rigging.

With time passing, it became clear that the original intention of hauling the boat's head round upstream by use of the line between the two buoys was not going to work, and Plan B (variant 7) was needed. The dinghy (a chance blessing that we had been unable to bring the GRP one down as planned, and were thus left with the 9ft inflatable -a much more stable platform) was pressed into service, and I worked my way in it across wind with a long line to the upstream buoy, passed it through the eye of the mooring lines, and returned. The cat's cradle of Kernmantel was expertly sorted out in the pouring rain, and when the tidal flow eased a while later, the boat obliged by resuming her normal configuration pointing upstream between the two buoys.

It was not exactly a normal day at the office. Yes, we did manage to get photos of the dried-out hull to identify the exact location of deck drains, cockpits drains, engine and heads inlets and outlets, hand sinks discharges, sensors, etc; we fixed a broken earthing strap, checked the anode and the cutless bearing, rope cutter, half polished the prop. No, we did not have a completely calm moment when the sand underneath became a little soft in the rising waves, and the boat sank about a foot deeper and more towards the quay, tearing out one of the quarter fairleads.

We did find out empirically about stretchy springs, the value of spectacle screwdrivers to dislodge crustacea from inlet strainers, making sure that the generator can drive the pressure washer properly, how tiring it is to live even for a couple of hours at a permanent angle, how important it is to have enough rings ashore, lines which are not so long that they knit themselves into frustrating knots never before known to man. Especially, that when re-filling the water tanks, that the little voice which says "Oh, the hose has been in the filler quite a long time and it's not yet overflowing" really should have rung an inquisitive alarm bell before we got out to the mooring and checked the bilges. Yes, all our nice new fresh water had gone into the tanks, and out through the open drain tap at the lowest point of the circuit (that one's down to me:o).


Did we get any sailing ? No. But even after something like 90 years joint boating experience at fairly high level, we still learned a lot and had some good smiles. In the less gusty winds of today, a quick review meeting was full of positive memories, aching elderly backs, and an inextinguishable optimism that the next time one of us goes out, the boat will be better for our work yesterday and that we are slightly cannier sailors, too.

:D from me, and I hope :D from him, too.
 
With the spell of good weather we have just had everybody must be queing at the fuel pontoons waiting for fresh supplies of diesel , posts will be flooding in soon;)
 
bamboleo said:
With the spell of good weather we have just had everybody must be queing at the fuel pontoons waiting for fresh supplies of diesel , posts will be flooding in soon;)
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Hmm, we will see! I can predict - umm , how much line should I put down to use my anchor? How far is it from Hamble to Cowes? Will I fall off the end of the earth if I go past Hurst? What happens with my GPS when it goes from 000W to 000E? Why does my log read differently from my GPS?

It's a Saturday night! :D
 
Divemaster1 said:
Likewise..

House sold, offer accepted on new place.. so off to the boat tomorow...
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So time to chill. I'd love to be able to say I'm off to the boat, but that T00ser that hit me with his car is still causing me problems. All he got was £150 fine and 5 points - me? Don't ask!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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