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

Unknown Yacht

Click for gallery

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?

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

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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

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.

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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

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