Tuesday 15 September 2009

Mini Transat 2009

In fairness I probably would have made this mistake too:


1.3 of the Mini Transat Fleet followed the leader of the race to the wrong mark, rounded it and headed downwind before realising their navigational error and having to beat back to the correct mark, losing valuable hours in this ultra competitive race.

It is very easy to follow others and assume that because someone else is doing it, then it must be the right thing to do.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

She finally has a name!

"Jendor"

Named in honour of Jenny, Rebecca's mother, who passed away early this year and my Grandmother, Doris who passed away last year on the same day we went to view the boat for the first time.

I got the graphics from Wild Boat Graphics - http://www.wildboatnames.com/

It cost about £35 for the vinyl graphic. Unfortunately they initially sent in to me folded up in an envolope. The creases would have ruined it, so I called them and they apologised profusely stating that they only normally use an envolope if the letters are separate. Two days later a roll arrived with 2 more copies in perfect condition.

The quality of their product is superb. I decided to apply the vinyl with the boat in the water rather than wait for the winter. I borrowed the dinghy from the boat next to us and began to apply the graphic. Unfortunately Newton's Third Law made this tougher than originally estimated. I spent close to an hour popping and squeezing tiny bubbles. I'm really not that happy with the result and will probably reapply the second graphic in the spring before she goes back in. Eitherway I need to keep reminding myself that "there's no such thing as a 5 minute job"

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Honeymoonish

We're in Sweden for a week, which has been thoroughly relaxing so far. I've relearned the boating mantra:

"There's no such thing as a five minute job"
"There's no such thing as a five minute job"
"There's no such thing as a five minute job"
"There's no such thing as a five minute job"
"There's no such thing as a five minute job"

I stuck the name on the boat today. It took over an hour, I got really wet and I think I could have done better. This just about sums up most of my boat jobs so far.

Either way great vacation so far. We've got some friends joining us on Friday, so we're nervously watching the weather forcast hoping for blue skies.

Geoff

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Fan Class 32 - Clinically Insane?

This boat is nuts., but sort of totally sane at the same time. Why have the whole boat heel over when you can just allow the rig to do it? I read about it in YM a while ago and thought: "Nice concept, but it'll never work". Guess I was wrong.

Sunday 9 August 2009

30 Years on...

There's been lots of press coverage of the '79 Fastnet disaster, but for me the most gripping was the 15 page special in Yachting World. Matthew Sheahan talks very frankly about the events leading up to the death of his father and the decision to abandon the yacht with a crewman left onboard. It's just a chilling read and is reminiscent of the famous climbing book "Touching the Void".

Good luck to this year's competitors, though the pressure charts look like it will be a milder event this time.

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Thursday 18 June 2009

Geoff's boaty link of the day: Redefining Speed

This YouTube video starts with a windsurfer tanking along. You think "those guys go really fast", then something happens to redefine your perceptions:

Wednesday 17 June 2009

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Only 48 hours to go

In two days time I'll be heading to Heathrow Terminal 5 for another long weekend in Sweden. We've chosed this weekend primarily because of the Volvo Ocean race events taking place in and around Stockholm.
There is a large bay about 30 minutes sail from Bullandö Marina called Kanholms Fjärden. We had a pleasant day sail there last month.
From Sailing Sweden - May 2009 - Kanholms Fjärden

I've not decided if we're going to attempt to find a good place to watch the racing as I suspect that every boat will be out trying to do the same and having only sailed there once, my local knowledge might be a little lacking.


There's also a race village in central Stockholm, so another option may be to motor sail into the city and let our guests (who are new to sailing and Sweden) have a wander around the city. I'm a firm believer that it aught to be illegal to go to Stockholm without seeing the Vasa. Not sure what the punishement would be, but everyone should see it.
From Stockholm (Sept08)

Boaty Web Link of the Day- Antarctica Photo Journal

I'm trying something new.... Every day I'm going to link to something boaty that is my pick of the day. So here's my first "Geoff's Boaty Link of the Day":

Antarctica Photo Journal (1)

Incredible photo journal of a Newzealander's trip to Antartica in an aluminium yacht.

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Royal Yacht Squadron - Possibly the world's most exclusive club?

I found this amusing article about joining the Royal Yacht Squadron. British flag ettiquette is quite an interesting subject as there are a plethora of different flags that may be flown depending on a variety of factors. The majority of private yachts fly the Red ensign:


From Sailing Sweden - May 2009 - Sail to Sandhamn



A complex set of rules dictate which private yachts may fly the Blue Ensign. But only Royal Naval vessels and yachts owned by the 400 or so members of the Royal Yacht Squadron may fly the elite white ensign.

The three colours are a relic of a time when the Royal Navy was divided into three fleets (Red, White and Blue). A Post Captain, when promoted to admiral, would progress up the rankings of seniority. So he'd start out as an Rear Admiral of the Blue, progresses to White, then Red. Next he'd become a Vice Admiral of the Blue, White, then Red. Finally there was Admiral of the Blue and then White. Traditionally there was no Admiral of the Red as this was synonymous with Admiral of the Fleet. After Trafalgar (1805) Admiral of the Red was introduced to reward it's top Admirals, though it may have been a device to create more space at the bottom for deserving Captains.

When the Navy was going through a period of reduction after France had been defeated and as the war of 1812 was drawing to an end the practice of creating "Yellow Admirals" was common. This involved promoting them, but leaving them on the bench with no fleet assignment. There was no actual Yellow flag, it was more of a grim joke that their service hadn't been sufficiently good or politically connected to warrant a proper promotion. Patrick O'Brien's "The Yellow Admiral" explores this in detail by putting Aubrey in the frame for being yellowed.




This system fell into disuse when the age of sail came to an end. The Red Ensign was allocated to the merchant navy of Britain, the Royal Navy adopted the White Ensign, and the Blue Ensign was used by naval auxiliary vessels.

Generally speaking, today, the only way to fly one of the privelidged ensigns is to join a club or the armed forces. For all but the RYS this is either a blue or defaced blue ensign. As stated above the RYS members get to fly the white. It is interesting that there seems to be a vein of reverse snobbery where some people look down upon the people that chose to fly the white or blue for being pretentious. I personally feel that this is a quaint little part of British tradition that should be cherished and enjoyed lest it fade away completely.

Telegraph.co.uk - Could I endure decades of sucking up to join the Royal Yacht Squadron - God yes!

A sad tale of a Sweden Yachts purchase gone wrong

I found this link in the Sweden Yachts 36 facebook group.

To clarify: The bit in the yellow is not my story, just a reprint of someone else's experience found on the web.


Sweden Yachts corrupt bankruptcy
(Dit schrijven we even in het Engels opdat de internationale blog gemeenschap zou kunnen meelezen.)
Two years ago we ordered a new Sweden yachts 40 at the Hiswa in Ijmuiden. We paid 60% up front. It would be delivered 1 April. Last year September we visited the yard. There was not even the beginning of a boat. Sweden Yachts told us the hull was on its way. Which afterwards we discovered, was a lie.
23 March Sweden Yachts went bankrupt. No boat and money gone. No sign of owner Sven Enoch, alltough we were told he filled the fuel tank of his villa that morning and paid with Sweden Yachts money.
A Norwegian entrepreneur was willing to take over the company and we would still have a boat. But Sven Enoch had cut up the company in a way there is nothing left to buy. The lie about the hull didn’t help either.
It is a very sad thing for all Swedish Yacht builders.
If Swedish law allows this to happen, Najad, Malo and Rassy can follow mr. Enoch’s example. Don’t say it won’t happen. Two years ago Sweden Yachts was the most perfect brand in yacht history.

In the meanwhile we have bought a Sweden Yachts 42, nearly new, from Mr. Gunter Gielen and his wife Ann. It is such a beautiful boat. We thank them for keeping it so well, we can still go on with our plans. They made us very happy. We know it broke their heart to sell the ship. Anyway, someone somewhere should stop Sven Enoch from making more plans to put money of dreamers like us in his pocket without delivering a boat. Not just for us, but for all the hard working Swedes who put their heart into these wonderful yachts.


The comments also include the following:


Two years ago I order a Sweden yachts 42 and now I’m in the same situation: no boat and money gone !
What is really annoying is that at least since August 2008 they knew very well the boatyard was going worse and worse and that they would not be able to meet their commitments . In spite of that Mr. Sven Enoch and his sales staff didn’t tell anything to customers.
Well done !!


Clearly this is no kind of evidence, just the words of someone that has lost a lot of money. How very sad if it is as he states and is caused by corruption rather than honest financial difficulties.

What is equally sad is that if all of this is true, then we are unlikely to see any phoenix rising from the ashes... There will be no more Sweden Yachts ever again.

Sweden Yachts Corrupt Bancruptcy

Sunday 31 May 2009

World's most crappy boatshow (Festival of Power & Sail)


Becks and I decided it was too nice to do nothing, so we drove down to the Festival of Power and Sail at Port Solent in Portsmouth. There were 3 or four nautical stalls there and perhaps ten or so new boats, mostly Beneteau. Credit goes to them for making the effort to market to it and it being good enough marketing to drag us the 60 miles to go and take a look, but I think from now on my boat show attendance will be restricted to the London International boat show and Southampton boat show.

Avon Rover 280 For Sale

We found this dinghy on our boat after we bought it. Sadly I'd just bought a new Zodiac so we're doubled up. Anyone want it?




http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280352472581

Monday 25 May 2009

Unknown Yacht


This odd looking yacht is still on the hard at Bullandö. It looks quite sporty in many ways, but the double doors uinto the companionway look slightly cruisy. It has a massive swing keel and twin rudders, which along with the skiff like bottom make it look fast. No sign of the mast lying around anywhere.

Anyone know what it is?


Sunday 24 May 2009

Tucked up in her new berth


We found out that we were in someone else's spot, so the Marina allocated us a huge 60 foot berth near the entrance to the marina. It's not perfect as it is a bit more prone to the wash from passing motorboats. On the other hand it's super easy to get into and out of and feels a bit more exclusive than one of the finger pontoons. I suspect it's only temporary as this oversized berth is far too valuable for a little 36 footer.

A Pleasant Day Sail in Kanholms Fjärden


View Larger Map

We decided to go for a short day sail to Kanholms Fjärden - a large bay a couple of miles from the marina. The Volvo Ocean race will be using this as a course for an inshore race day next month. We started off drifting down the channel at 2 or 3 knots in light winds. As we arrived in the bay, the wind changed suddenly and found ourselves enjoying about 12 knots of wind and perfect sea state. We ran the length of the bay and back and were only out for 4 hours, but came back to the marina really glad for our outing.

Click image for gallery

Thursday 21 May 2009

Short sail over to Sandhamn

After a very lazy day on Wednesday which consisted of eating and slobbing, we comitted to going for a sail today. We had a minor delay when we found out that we were in somone else's marina berth and didn't officially have one of our own. Unfortunately today is some sort of public holiday, so the Marina Office is closed (which seems a little counter intuitive). Apparently it will be no problem, but we won't find out till tomorrow.

I was also aware that that we'd not fuelled up the boat and I had no reason to suspect that the fuel guage was any more honest than one on any other boat I'd been on. The Bullandö fuel pontoon was hugely busy, so we decided to chance it and fill up at our next stop.


The sail over to Sandham was great with a pleasant force 3 on the beam and warm sun. I was helming and Becks was sail trimming and counting off the islands on the charts.


We headed for the fuel pontoon and a man came to help us tie up. The boat handles beautifully under power and came alongside very easily. After the tank swallowed 70L of diesel, we motored over to the guest moorings to find somewhere to stay. This turned out to be much easier than anticipated as there were harbour staff walking the pontoons giving mooring assistance. Mooring involved motoring up and passing bow lines to the man, who in exchange would give a rope back that went into the water, under the boat, to a heavy something on the seabed. The bow lines were lead through rings in the pontoon and tied off on the boat and the underwater line was attached to the stern cleat. All really easy. We paid the overnight fee of 200SEK (about £19) and wandered the town.


Sandhamn is really like the Cowes of East coast Swedish sailing. The town itself is traditional Swedish architecture and very quant. We tried to get a table at one of the restaurants, but were told they were fully booked (maybe they didn't like scruffy foreign yachtie).


Click image below for day's gallery:
Sailing Sweden - May 2009 - Sail to Sandhamn

If there's a problem epoxy can't fix - I'd love to see it.

In a recent post I mentioned that we'd had some engine problems.
Earlier in the week i'd tried to bleed the air out of the fuel system and opened up a bolt that is used for this purpose (See "1" below). However when I tried to tighten it again it just spun and spun. Upon closer inspection there was almost no thread left inside the fuel filter head unit. I suspect that the previous owner was a bit overzealous with the spanner.
I tried using PTFE tape and replacing the bolt, but as soon as the engine started fuel just flowed round the edges and onto the floor.

I took a trip over to Brohall Marin to ask some advice. The owner, Goran, advised tape, failing that it is a new head unit (See "2" above). Another 1000SEK later I was walking back to the pontoon. Since the part was not due to arrive for another day or two I had to bodge a solution. Looking through all the stuff we had in stock I found a glue that claimed to work on metals. I tested a spot of it on cardboard and it seemed to dry spongy, which should have been ideal. The bolt was dipped in the glue and rethreaded as tightly as possible. In order to give the best chance of success I left it overnight.

The next morning I restarted the engine and it appeared OK. Becks checked it 15 minutes later and it had started to leak again. My last ditch attempt was to buyy some quick drying Epoxy and try again. The local shop, Bullandö Handel sold some 15 minute epoxy, which was perfect. I cleaned off the parts, mixed the epoxy, dipped, screwed and waited. Fortunately the engine was nice and warm, so the drying was quick.

After 20 minutes we started the engine and Becks reported no leaks. We checked periodically throughout the day and all was good. Clearly this is not ideal as I am now unable to bleed that part of the fuel system now, but its only for a few days until we get the replacement part.

Just added an RSS feed button

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Geoff

Not so nervous about Baltic mooring

I previously wrote in "Nervous about Baltic mooring" that we were anxious about the process of mooring up in the natural harbours that define Swedish sailing. I knew the theory, but knew it would be very different in reality. I'd also read lots of really valuable info on the Kissen site (well worth a read if you're at all interested in sailing in the Baltic)

We decided to hire an instructor for the day to show us the technique. The broker that we bought the boat from recommended Sjöskolan - a local sailing school. We were a little unsure as they were quoting 5000SEK (about £500) for the day, which is astronomical compared to UK prices. Eitherway we decided to go for it and have to say that the advice and tuition was invaluable.

Unfortunately our start was hampered by some engine problems, so Becks got a chart briefing while I bodged a solution. We set out an hour late and motored across still waters for an hour to Korshamn - a natural harbour nearby.

Becks and Kent Lindberg (the instructor)


The process is actually quite simple:

  1. Motor in for a close look. Someone stood on the bow can look down into the water for a nice deep shore line free of rocks and other obstacles.
  2. Motor back out.
  3. Prepare stern anchor & bow lines.
  4. Drop stern anchor about 100M out.
  5. Motor forward slowly until almost touching the shore.
  6. Bow person steps ashore and ties up to trees.

In reality doing this is actually a bit nerve wracking as there's a big fear of ploughing into the rocky shore. I imagine it's much worse with an audience, but we've done it once now, so we should be ok.

Click thumbnail for gallery:

Sweden Sailing - May 2009 - Instructor Day

Tuesday 19 May 2009

May trip to the boat - first few days

Sat May 16th - Second trip to the boat this year, really looking forward to some sailing after spending the long Easter weekend cleaning, polishing and antfouling! Having stocked up on groceries at home, we decided to hire a car for the day to get down to the marina from Arlanda airport. The drive was much more relaxed now that we were familiar with the many tunnels under Stockholm. We decided to stop off and do the remainder of our shopping en route and found ourselves in Sabis (the Swedish equivalent to Waitrose) - great range of produce and very friendly/helpful staff, but managed to spend over 1000Kr on a few bags of fresh groceries and bottled water! We arrived at the marina at around 5.30pm and thankfully Geoff had a pretty good idea as to which pontoon we were on, having followed the launch via the webcam, otherwise it could have taken some time trying to find the boat amongst the 1,400+ in the marina - it was great to see her in the water! Unfortunately, the batteries didn't seem receptive to the shore power so we were reliant on the natural light for the evening, but being so far north it doesn't get dark until after 10pm. When we'd been here in April, there didn't seem to be any gas for cooking but it turned out that it just needed time to make its way through the pipe to the cooker...who knows when it was last used?! It was late by the time we'd unpacked everything, so decided to take the easy option and have pasta for supper. The marina was really quiet during the night with hardly any wind - not the usual clanking of cow bells, so slept relatively well apart from Geoff's snoring!

Sun May 17th - Woke to a glorious blue sky at around 8am and decided to have breakfast up on deck. After a quick trip to the marina shop to buy a new connector for the shore power, we managed to get the domestic batteries charging up. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about the engine battery - totally depleted. We decided to head back to the airport car hire around 1.30pm and after a few stop-offs via the local chandlery and a more economical grocery store called Willy's (much to Geoff's dismay) returned the car by the deadline for the one day fee (circa £52). I thought it would be a good idea to try the coach into town, thinking it might have taken us direct to the bus station where we needed to catch the bus to Bullando. The terminus is however central station and, having taken 20 or so minutes longer than the train, we only had 15 minutes to get to Slussen (wherever that was) to catch the bus or have a two hour wait so we jumped into one of the many taxis waiting. A well spent 150 kr got us to the Slussen bus station in plenty time and after a quick discussion with the ticket salesman about which tickets we needed to purchase, jumped on the 474 to Hemmesta for the first leg of our bus journey to Bullando. As we were approaching the terminus we passed 440 bus for Bullando and so jumped off at the next stop and hopped straight onto the 440. The total bus journey only took 1h20m, which is not much less than it would have taken by car from central Stockholm.

Easter Sailing Trip Day 5 - the friuts of 5 days work

Becks cut back, polished and waxed the entire hull... When she was finished it was gleaming - You could literally see reflections in it.. I scrubbed, hosed and repainted the bottom with antifoul (highly toxic stuff). Horrible job, but saved us £500 having someone else do it. Click on the thumbnail for the results of our labour:

Easter 2009 - The result of 5 days work

Thursday 9 April 2009

Easter Sailing Trip Days 2 & 3 - An Aladdins Cave

We arrived at the marina at around 11ish after a late breakfast at Hotel J. We found the boat wrapped in plastic with its shiny new propeller, but found that the bottom had not yet been painted, which would be a problem if we planned to put her in today। A quick trip to the engineers confirmed that they hadn't planned to paint her till next week and so she'll be staying ashore for this trip.

Easter 2009 - First Day with our Boat


It was raining too heavily to take the plastic wrap off (for our sake not the boat's), so we spent the day inventorying and disposing of crap.
Stuff we found:

  • Over a hundred charts
  • An old Avon Dinghy (Circa 1987)
  • A large box of flares (12 years out of date - yikes)
  • A vacuum cleaner that looks like something from the Jetsons
  • Hundreds of tools
  • A giant axe & crowbar (Maybe this was a getaway boat)

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Easter Sailing Trip Day 1 - Hotel J

We've just arrived in Sweden for our first sailing vacation of the year. The journey was uneventful except for the difficulties of lugging our new Zodiac dinghy through the Airports. One thing we discovered was that by stating that it was "Sports Equipment" we saved the cost of excess baggage.

At Arlanda airport in Stockholm, Becks had booked the smallest car in the world, which was funny because we'd brought an absurd amount of baggage. Due to many hours spent playing Tetris over the years I managed to pack everything in.



We've just arrived at Hotel J, a J Class yacht themed hotel just outside Stockholm. Becks booked it as a surprise and I was not expecting all the nautical references,. It's a really smart place, reminiscent of a Malmaison hotel back in the UK. Outside there is a Hobie Cat rental place and a pier to catch a ferry into town. We're sat in the lounge next to a crackling fire chilling out before going for supper in the restaurant in the Yacht club.

Click image for album

Earlier today I got an email from Johan at Bullando Marina saying that all the ice has melted, so it looke like we will be able to put the boat in the water tomorrow.

Saturday 4 April 2009

Another new boat: Zodiac 260 CFR Acti-V

Another eBay bargain... 1 year old Zodiac 260 with Acti-V hull - £425. These have now been discontinued and are only available in sizes of 2.85M and above which would have been too big for us anyhow. It was hard work inflating it and harder still deflating it.
We definitely need to get a pump that can deflate as well as inflate as the one that came with it is crap. Thinking of an electric one, but that's another £125 for one that'll go to 800mb pressure. Maybe I need to decide that manual inflating is healthier and save the cash. :)

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Yachting Monthly - May 2009 Propeller Test

Preview: Yachting Monthly May

Looks like the next issue of Yachting Monthly has a big review of propellers in the market place. Having just bought a new prop, this is just the sort of article that you don't want to read. I'm going to speculate that the Bruntons Varifold will be worst in class (only on the grounds that it's the one we've just bought). I'm also going to speculate that the ones I was considering will be best in class (Gori & Bruntons Autoprop).

OK... Pessimism over... I hope the article actually considers sailing performance (drag) as well as just motoring & manouvering performance as this was one of the key decision points that lead us to chose a 2 blade folding prop over other, better motor performing models. I'm not sure how easily you can test this without the use of some sort of tank that flows water over the subject and measures resistive force on the mounting.

What a difference a day makes

Just 24 hours ago I was commenting on the first patch of water, now it looks like the melt has really begun in earnest. Fingers corssed - 9 Days to go till we hope to crane the boat into the water.

Tuesday 31 March 2009

Bruntons Varifold and Rope Stripper - Not Compatible

We read a really scary article in Yachting Monthly this month where quite a few of the boats taking part in the Biscay Triangle Rally got something caught on their propellers or rudder. Dick Durham opens the article nicely by stating:
"It was dirty weather that worried the 11 skippers crossing the bay of Biscay with Blue Water Rally's annual 'Triangle' cruise. But it was rubbish filled seas that caused the problems"

This inspired me to reinvestigate the possibility of fitting a rope stripper. I think the recognised market leader in this space is Ambassador. Yachting Monthly also gave them the thumbs up in the same issue. Handily they produced this (somewhat amateurish) video of the tests:


Apparently Ambassador Marine make the only cutter that works with a saildrive. They've got a really dated looking video explaining their offering here:


I called them and ordered one for £470. The man at the end of the phone used language like "yeah.... I think it should be ok with your propellor". This didn't instill me with confidence, so I called Bruntons and asked.

I was told that the prop needs to have mounting holes drilled into the metal and that this was possible with the Autoprop (their premium offering), but the Varifold had some sort of plastic component that meant that it was incompatible. So that was the end of that. There was no problem cancelling the order with Ambassador though.

We then spent the weekend worrying about whether to upgrade to the Autoprop and buy the rope stripper. When Bruntons came back to us we were told that we could return our (unfitted) Varifold and exchange it:





Dear Mr Collins,

Thanks for your enquiry to upgrade, the costs are as follows, this includes taking your 2 blade back into stock.

APS-416mm 3 blade £1317.01

APS –H20-430mm 2 blade Autoprop £788.01

Additional charge for rope cutter modification £145.00 for 2 or 3 blade

regards


Bruntons





So the cost would have been:

Rope cutter

£470.00

Upgrade prop

£788.01

Modification to accomodate cutter

£145.00

Total

£1403.01



The big question is: "Is this worth it?"
I suppose if one of us had to go over the side in cold, big seas with a knife to hack away at a rope, we'd probably pay that much there an then to avoid that unpleasant & potentially deadly task. We had to do this in Bequia on our first charter, except it was, warm, clear water with no swell to speak of and really the only actual risk was the ferry terminal a cable's length away and other boats in the anchorage. I don't want to have to repeat this again in a hurry. Doing it in less tropical climes would be much horrible.

So that means the big question is really: "Is this going to happen to me?"
I'm told that there's less chance of this happening to saildrive boats because the prop is much deeper in the water, but it's certainly not impossible.

It's worth noting that the vast majority of fouled props are self inflicted (as ours was), so it's possible that good boating practice (such as tidying mooring lines away quickly) can dramatically lower the chances of being stricken.

After a weekend of agonising, we decided not to bother as we'd made the decision to choose the prop that we did on the grounds of sailing performance & an autoprop and stripper will add extra drag, plus the pretty significant extra expense.

Fingers crossed.

A first glimpse of water


I've been watching the Bullando Marina webcam nervously after an engineer at Brohall Marin (who are based there) told me a couple of weeks ago that there was still 20cm of ice in the marina. Finally the ice now looks paper thin and even a few patches of water - which is good because we're planning on putting the boat in the water in 10 days!

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Propeller Decisions

One of the points raised in the survey was the need for a new propeller - the existing one is badly pitted and I'm told causes some nasty vibrations. As with anything in the marine industry - the choices are endless. However they can be grouped into the following three categories: Fixed, Folding & Feathering.

TypeProsCons
FixedCheap, SimpleHighest relative drag
FoldingLowest dragTraditionally poor in reverse & less power than feathering
FeatheringBest motoring performance both ahead and astern. Reduced "prop walk".Higher drag than a feathering prop.
The original specification had a Volvo Penta folding prop. It's safe to say that there have been quite a few advances in this field in the 22 years since the boat was built. The blades of the prop are flat like the tip of a screwdriver, which has an impact on the motoring performance. Premium feathering props solve this problem by offering variable pitch based on RPM and some can even reverse the blades when going astern. The only downside of feathering propellers is that they produce significantly more drag than a folding prop. I've known of a racing skipper fit a feathering prop to replace his folding prop and get a better handicap, so it clearly makes a difference.
In terms of vendors there are a lot of choices:

This is a feathering prop made in New Zealand (as if the name wasn't enough of a clue). What makes it a little different from the rest is that the blades are plastic. They supply a spare blade as a part of the package, the intention being that these are sacrificial in the event of an underwater impact. It is pitch adjustable by the user with an Allen key. Whilst it doesn't offer variable pitch in the strictest sense, there is some clever trickery when reversing that makes the blades snap into "optimum" angle of attack.

Bruntons is a UK company and is definitely one of the leaders in the field. The offer the Varifold - a range of 2, 3 & 4 blade folding props and the Autoprop which is a premium feathering prop with variable pitch and a number of other special features. They also offer fixed props and at the boat show were exhibiting standard feathering propellers, but these are not mentioned on the website.

At the London Boat show, Bruntons had a tank with an Autoprop running in it. Every five seconds it would switch between ahead and astern propulsion. Seeing the blades feathering and unfurling for the new direction was really fluid, almost organic in motion. The Autoprop is a truly impressive machine, with only one significant disadvantage - Cost. We were quoted a boat show price of about £1700 for the saildrive model, which is about 70% more than a branded feathering propeller. That being said - I'm absolutely convinced that if I had a motor sailor or planned on lots of motoring I think the cost would be more than justified.

Gori is a Danish company who specialise in low drag folding propellers. Like Bruntons, they have their own magic that sets them apart from the rest. Their folding props are able to unfold differently for ahead and astern as well as providing an "Overdrive" feature which is a different blade profile for fair weather motor-sailing.


They also sell ultra low drag racing propellers, which would be tempting, except I suspect that these are built with sailing performance as being the primary factor, and motoring distant second. If I had a race boat they would definitely be on the list. Speaking of which, Swan mainly use Gori propellers. I feel that they let themselves down in terms of customer interaction. I mailed them for a quote and absolutely zero response two months later. Additionally there was no sign of them at the London boat show (although they do plan to be at Southampton). For the above reasons I can't tell you what these beauties cost.

Volvo Penta These guys represent the safe choice if you're already equipped with a Volvo engine and saildrive. They are obviously a Swedish company. They offer standard 3 & 4 blade folding propellers and represent the vanilla end of the market. I'd suggest that these are probably more appropriate for cruising boats in that they don't offer a 2 blade option for reduced drag that would appeal to the cruiser/racer market. Expect to pay around £700-£800 for a 3 blade folder.

Max-Prop

Offering a range of feathering props, which seem to be the Oyster Yachts weapon of choice. Some positive user reports of these across the Internet.

Flexofold

Apparently the Managing Director of Gori left and created this range of propellers, which is claimed to be superior. They also appear to have good links with various boat builders. Interestingly there are relatively few user anecdotes across the net good or bad. After meeting Bruntons at the boat show we decided that we liked them as a brand: Friendly guys on the stand, British company, great products. Our main fear of going for a folding prop was the much fabled poor performance when going astern, but the Bruntons guys explained that with modern folders such as their Varifold, this issue is greatly reduced. This is due to a twisted blade profile - making it more similar to a fixed prop in terms of motoring characteristics. We decided that we valued the low drag of a folder more than the better motoring of a feathering or Autoprop. The same logic applied to 2 blade vs.. 3 blade, so we settled on a 2 blade Varifold. At £740 it was also nearly £1000 cheaper than the Autoprop.

It arrived in the post yesterday. My first comment is that I'd have liked to see a little better packaging. The bottom of the box was sagging from the immense weight of its cargo. When I opened the box it's clearly an exceptionally well engineered product and effortlessly glides between motoring and sailing configuration.

I’ll post more when we fit and use it.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Christmas in the Caribbean Part I - Picking up the boat

I'm nearly 2 months late in starting this write up, but better late than never...

In October last year, we decided to return at Christmas to the Grenadines for the 3rd time in just over a year. Why do we love it so much? It's a lot less developed than places like Barbados, totally chilled out, and has a real yachtie atmosphere as it's where many ARC participants choose to spend their Christmas and New Year.

Barbados
Silverpoint

We flew into Barbados for a 2 night stop over at Silver Point boutique hotel. We'd stayed there about 6 months ago on our second trip out here. It's situated on a quiet part of the island well away from the main tourist area (St Lawrence Gap & Rockley Beach). It's a great hotel for a couple looking for a quiet & high quality get away, less recommended for families or people looking for a lot of nightlife. We met a couple on the first night and ended up having supper and a few drinks with them. (Click on above image for album)

We took a trip into the capitol, Bridgetown, which I didn't think offered much other than to see local people going about their business. I don't think I'd bother going back. The best bit was the always-a-cultural-treat Route Taxis / Rasta Bus. These are privately owned buses that drive along set government routes and tend to be a bit spartan inside. The first few time you use them, it can be a bit intimidating, but it's a fascinating cultural window into the life of the island.
Barbados



St Vincent



St Vincent is only a short hop away on the local airline, LIAT. You'll typically pay about $200(US) return. As the flight comes into land, you pass very close to the main charter fleet anchorage - Blue Lagoon. Both Barefoot and Sunsail have bases here. It's worth noting that St Vincent Airport has one cash machine that, in 4 visits, not yet seen working: Get at least enough cash to last you until you get to Bequia.


We'd chartered Pelican Pete - a 1999 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 34 from Barefoot Yacht Charters. We got a pretty good deal - $2,450 for 10 days. This is pretty good considering you'd normally pay a minimum of $3,000 for 7 days over the Christmas period. We both instantly liked the boat, smaller than we'd previously chartered, but still more than spacious enough for us both. Actually I think the cockpit locker would have been spacious enough for us both.


The check in process consists of a skipper's technical briefing on the boat's systems, checking inventory and a chart briefing to a acquaint you with the cruising ground. We'd been only 6 months before, so Becks went off to find a cash point and I sat through the briefing. Either way Barefoot strike a great balance between enough information and not wasting a whole day of your trip.


When we were ready to depart, the Barefoot dockside team take you out of the bay, hoist the sails, leap into a dinghy and wave goodbye. The island of Bequia is only a short 3 hour sail from Blue Lagoon. Conditions were blissful as we were on a broad reach all the way down into Port Elizabeth. I suspect that the wind was a force 2, but this is based on instinct rather than data as this is out 3rd consecutive charter without wind instrumentation.


Bequia
We arrived in time to pick up a mooring buoy and enjoy the incredible Caribbean sunset.

To be continued...

Sunday 8 February 2009

Bargain Number 2



These are award winning LED navigation lights. They have the distinction of being the only MCA approved LED lights on the market today. The advantage of LED lights is massively reduced power consumption versus a conventional light.
A typical nav light (above) will consume about 25 watts of power. The Lopolights for up to 12M boats consume 0.7 watts and are visible 1 nautical mile away.

The ones we bought are suitable for a larger vessel (12-50M), so consume more power (4.6W) but are visible 2 nautical miles away...

Anyhow... Online chandleries, such as Mailspeed and TCS sell these for more than £125 each.
Online Chandlery Price £250
Ebay Price £87
Savings £163

That works out at us paying 31% of the discounted online chandlery price making it a massive 69% saving!

My bargain purchase for the boat!


Geoff is concentrating on technical gear for the boat, whilst I have been buying soft furnishings!

Bought two Heals duvet sets on eBay for less than £50 - bargain!  What's more, the colour scheme will go perfectly with the boat's blue interior.  Very pleased with my purchase :-).

Becks

Friday 30 January 2009

Bargain!


These relatively new top of the range Raymarine ST70 displays are different to traditional instruments as they can be configured to show the readout from any onboard sensor (wind/speed/depth etc) rather than the more conventional single purpose instrument approach.

Anyhow I bought one on eBay today. These things are normally around £450 each, but managed to get this one on ebay for £350 which is nearly 25% off online chandlery prices. Now I just need the rest of the system...  :|


Right now we've got ancient (1987) Silva Speed & Depth instruments, so we'll be looking for something like the above diagram as a minimum. 

Wednesday 28 January 2009

Nervous about Baltic Mooring




In the Baltic they tend to moor bows-to against rocky shorelines. This goes against the natural instinct of attempting to avoid rocks where possible. I've not yet looked at any charts of the area, but I assume that there is a very sheer drop down to several metres of depth. I don't even know what scale of chart I'd need to see this level of detail - Luckily Katarina has dozens of charts on board that the previous owner accumulated over the years.

I looked on the YBW forum and found the following in response to a thread about Med mooring:

 Re: Mediteranean Mooring with a Shoreline

Dont think it should be necessary to drop the anchor off the stern followed by switching the warps round. You can go in forwards by dropping the bow anchor, heading in forward not too fast, heading a boat length or less to one side of where you want to be, then helm hard over and snub bow anchor simultaneously to spin round in half a boat length or so. If choosing propwalk side, a blast in astern will make her spin on a sixpence. Then take out stern warp to shore by whatever means seem appropriate.

The Baltic way is even simpler if the shore is steep-to: drop a stern anchor, motor the bows in with a crewman standing on the bows looking for rocks. Motor bows right up to the shore and bowman steps ashore onto a rock with the long warp and ties it to a convenient tree. Then tighten stern anchor (I use a sheet winch on the warp to dig it in). Bob's your uncle. 

But I guess that's unfashionable in the Med.

End result looks like this 
:


Insurance

Navigator & General - £425
Pantaenius - £585
GJW - £650

Pantaenius also insisted in referring to me as Mr Geoff in all correspondance. Eitherway Nav & Gen won.

Tuesday 27 January 2009

It's finally ours

We finally completed on the boat last week while we were Snowboarding in Val D'Isere - So it's ours now... Bit scary really. Above is from the web cam of Bullando Marina... I guess one of these boats is ours, but I can't figure out which....

Now there's a big list of things to take care of: Insurance, Sail drive work, new prop, Antifoul (bottom paint), etc. We're planning to launch her for the first time over a long weekend at Easter.

Thursday 15 January 2009

Boats of the London boatshow

We did the London Boatshow and wandered on and off many of the boats. 

Hallberg Rassy 372

Last year we were blown away by the 37 and the 43 MkII. However this year, we were totally underwhelmed by the new Hallberg-Rassy 372. There was something a little more mass-produced about it than the other Hallbergs I've been on - Just sort of lacking that special something. I understand that everything must be built to a cost, but these really aren't cheap boats. Put one of these next to a Malo 37 and I think it would look like the poor relation. I walked off feeling a little sad.

Southerly 38 & 42


Every time we go onboard the Southerlys, we have lower expectations than we perhaps aught to, but they always surprise us: Space, comfort, decent build quality. The 38 seemed like a lot of boat for the 38 feet (certainly a lot bigger than our Sweden 36). Becks really liked the 42 because (obviously) it was a bit more spacious.

There were some nice touches, like specifying more premium hardware like the alloy Spinlock jammers rather than more plasticky ones that prevail on many production boats. 

It's nice to see a British company producing such fresh and relevant products to today's marketplace. In an interview with Dick Durham of Yachting Monthly fame, they claim that they are struggling to fullfil orders (due to demand) and that there is a decent sized lead time for boats right now.

Bavaria 35


Launched at the show this year. Let me begin by saying that I'm not one of the Bavaria haters. They have their place and everyone I know that owns one loves them.

Initial impressions were that she was pretty enough for a budget average white boat. They don't seem to do a 2 cabin version of the new 35, just the 3 cabin version, which hints at a charter fleet life that lays ahead of it. One interesting innovation is an adjustable bulkhead between the aftcabins to switch between one large and one small or two equal ones to shift the boat between a 2 or 3 couple configuration.

She has a retractable swim platform, which I can see it being hugely successful in the Med charter scene (as long as it doesn't break).

I had quite high expectations of a return to the Bavaria 36 of a few years ago. Overall I think I had higher expectations than I should have, because it wasn't the budget crusader I was hoping it would be.



Monday 12 January 2009

London Boatshow: SeaMe / Echomax Active-X

After reading the MAIB Report on the Ouzo tragedy and the uselessness of most radar reflectors, we'd pretty much decided that we wanted to buy a SeaMe active radar reflector for our new boat. We were shopping around for a good price at the boat show. The best we found at the show was £440 (Mailspeed Marine). 

When we spoke to the guys at TCS Chandlery we were told that they would not be stocking the SeaMe because EchoMax had a new product called the Active-X. It's not even on the Echomax website yet. Their position was that Echomax were so prevalent in the space that "we'll be seeing the slow demise of SeaMe over the next year or so". I'd like to hope this isn't the case because SeaMe clearly are innovators. I suspect that the MAIB report makes such a strong recommendation for SeaMe that they'll survive at least in the medium term. 

It's not yet clear if the Echomax product has an audible alarm like the SeaMe does. I see this as being a key feature as it would be an invaluable aid to short or single handed sailing.

We also saw another Active radar reflector product (sadly I didn't catch the name) that was designed to be hoisted up the mast . The chandler said "there's no mounting bracket yet, but it's very new".  

Looks like this space will start to get a little more competitive - which is often good for the consumer. We're going to hold off making a decision until next season.