July 20th Cherbourg

We have been thinking about a Cherbourg trip for a little while now and as we were "on holiday" and the winds were right we made a snap decision to go. I asked Greg if he would like to come, on monday he said ok. Then I told him we were leaving 4:30 the next day, he wasn't so pleased about that!

Apart from going all the way in thick fog it was a reasonably uneventful journey,  we didn't see any other boats but the radar was on all the way though.

Grabbed some wine inthe supermarket then dinner in "The Regency restuarant" in the evening.  Early to bed as another early start in the morning.

Nice sail back with the odd period of motorsail to keep the average speed up to 6.5 knots.  Again we had the target of getting Lou back for dialysis.  Came past peveril bouy doing 10.5 knots   whoohoo!

Spent the next week recovering from the 10 days of sailing.

IOW Trip The last day

By 10am the next morning all the PYRA boats had left for their return race to poole. Leaving us high and dry on the pontoon.  I had little stomach for beating into wind and tide so we waited until the afternoon for the tide to change and then began our journey back home.  It seemed a better option than having to fight the elements on Monday morning to ensure Lou was back in time for Dialysis that afternoon.

We managed to sail most of the way back but as the evening drew on the wind died and we had to motor from Ballard to the mooring.

IOW Trip Saturday

We had arranged to meet up with Graham and Wendy in Yarmouth. PYRA had a race to there on the Saturday morning.   The tides from Cowes to Yarmouth were foul in the morning but we had to go come what may. We tried sailing as there was a decent amount of wind but tidal flow kept putting us back in the same place.  Eventually we gave up and motored in order to get there on time. 

At Yarmouth I blagged my way into the middle of the PYRA fleet as they moored up and was soon recognised by a few of the boat owners.  I'll have to join next year before they realise I'm not a member.  Went to a barbeque in the evening at the local sailing club.  The PYRA crews drank the place dry, but they were happy with the revenue.

Isle of Wight Trip Friday.

With another bout of dialysis looming in the afternoon we spent the morning leisurely strolling round the town and had a coffee in the craft centre by the quay.   Whilst Lou was off at the hospital I toured the Boat museum and planned our exit from Newport on the falling tide.  I reckoned we had to be gone by 7:30pm at the latest.  As it was we had lots of time to spare (and water) for the short trip back to the Folly Inn where we stopped for the night. It was Quite windy even up there in the river making it a little difficult to come alongside the pontoon.

Isle of Wight Trip Thursday

With lots of strong wind forecast for today and Friday morning we decided to stay in Newport and do a tour of the island by bus. we settled for one of the eastern bus tours .  Arreton craft village being the first stop. This farmers market was obviously too much of a temptation for Lou and we did take away quite a lot of goodies.
Next was the Garllic farm, again with food products we were getting quite loaded up.   Learnt a new word, well 2 actually   - "Alliophile and alliophobe"  Lovers and haters of garlic.
Back on the bus and off to a vineyard.  for some free wine tasting. 
We even maaged to get to Bembridge which was a bit of nothing, and finally arrived back at the boat by 7:30 in the evening.

No Pictures today.

IOW trip Wednesday

We were debating how best to get Lou to and from dialysis, when a Prout 45 owner who was leaving the pontoon behind us on the way to Newport needed a hand pushing off.  A quick chat with him allayed my fears about drying out at Newport, assuring me of a soft mud bottom.  So a quick look at the tides, a quick phone call to the Newport harbour master who also said no problem, and we were off.  The quay is only about a mile or so from the unit at St Mary's so taxi cost would be low. With a SW f5/6 blowing just the jib up was enough to do 7Kts + another 3 on the tide - we were at Cowes in an hour.  This made us a bit early for the tide so it was a gentle crawl up to Newport with the Depth gauge often reading under a metre. Lots of pontoon space so we aimed for the nearest spot and just got there as we kissed the bottom..

We had arrived with nearly an hour to spare.  Lou ordered a taxi and went to see the Harbour master. He was really surprised to see us, He didn't think we had enough water to get there. It does go a long way out though.

IOW Trip Tuesday

Tide and wind dictated where we were going today so back down the Solent to Alum Bay we went. Forecast was not great but it stayed dry most of the time.  It was surprising that although we were sat at anchor in an almost flat bit of sea that there were large breakers along the shoreline. After a spot of lunch we went ashore, not an easy task as we had to time our landing so as to get in between the breakers on the shore.

Once ashore we used the cable car to get to the top then the bus to get to the old and new Battery's (National Trust) for a bit of sight seeing. Good view of the needles from here.

Back to Yarmouth in evening for a meal ashore.

IOW Trip. Monday

An early start today as we have to get as close to St Mary's Hospital in Newport as we can in order for Lou to get to Dialysis.   We planned on getting to the Folly Inn and then by taxi to the Hospital.  Plan worked but cost of the cab was a bit high £12 each way.

Folly Inn on the Medina river.

While Lou was dialysing I went walkabout and found the Quay at Newport which had a surprising number of yachts in it.  So I made a few enquiries and found that it's perfectly feasable to get to Newport as long as the tide is right.

Isle of Wight Trip Sunday

The tides were about right for us to make the trip from Swanage after racing on the Sunday afternoon. A lovely day for it with a nice following wind. We left about 3pm and got to Newtown Creek around 7pm sailing all but the last few hundred yards.  Here we stopped for the night.

What a week

What a cold? Why do they vary so much? When I started coughing over a week ago I thought it was just another winter cold. No not quite this ones a different kettle of fish. Not quite debilitating but it wears you out. After a week most of the symptoms have gone but this persistant cough doe's you in. By the end of the day, your ribs ache, your head throbs and you just want to sleep. Talking to friends, they all cheerfully declare that they've had it for weeks, Seven and a half is the longest claim so far. Well I hope it's not going to be as bad as that.

Shopping?

I'd been out in the morning helping Nick T get my old rowing boat to the sailing club. Za had said he was getting fat so he has decided a spot of rowing would do him the world of good. Well once he'd launched I left him to it and went back home.

Around 1.00pm I suggested to Nicky that we should get some supplies in. Now bearing in mind we had not had much for breakfast we reckoned that we should eat before we shopped, the old adage "Never shop when you're hungrey" came to mind. So we dined at "Beavers cafe" after which Nicky said we'd have to walk to Ocean Bay to burn off the enormous all day breakfast she'd just eaten.

We got to Ocean Bay and being such a nice day we thought we'd carry on and see what the white triangle was at the other end of the beach. As you can see it is a pile of white rocks which someone has painstakingly erected. There are no white rocks for a several hundreds of yards so it must have taken quite a time to build

Looking back we realised that we should get back before the sun left the sky as we had still not been to the shops. By the time we'd shopped and got home it was 5 o clock.

Time for tea already.

Fencing completed

It hasn't been the best weather for it but at least the rain held off for most of the time. We used metposts for ease of replacement but because of the soft nature of the ground we set them in concrete with the sockets just protruding to allow drainage. Time will tell if this is the right choice.

We also changed the security light on the garage and put a new alarm on the house. Mended all Lukes broken guitar leads and made a couple of new ones.

In Granpa's house we fixed his broken shaver light ( down to a bad design )

Rendering all done

There are very few manual jobs that I cannot put my hand to, so today was time to have a go at external rendering. I can plaster to a reasonable standard so I thought this would be a very similar. Well I was wrong,

Ok the technique is the same but it's so much heavier. It played havoc on my upper arms and wrist. By the end of the day I couldn't get the pressure on the float to make the muck stick to wall. It is also a lot harder to get flat. Fortunately Luke was not too worried about that as he plans to paint it then maybe grow some vines up to create a mediterranian feel.

Scratchcoat goes on

Today we cleared up the area from yesterdays bonfire and got down to removing the old pebble dash. We kept any original scratchcoat if it didn't fall off. No sense in wasting effort is there. Went to buy some materials then got down to work. Bearing in mind I've never done rendering before it came out quite well. By the time all that was done it was nearly dark. aren't the days short this time of year!

A sad end for the summer house

Dad on loan for Jobs at Lukes house.

Improvements to Lukes garden are to include a decking area in front of the garage. First job on the list is to render the end of the garage facing the house to give it a more asthetic look. However this necessitates the removal of the old summerhouse which I loving put together over a period of a few weeks, many moons ago. None of your B&Q stuff here, this was proper tenon joints, screwed and glued all made from scratch.

Well it took about 10 minutes to reduce it to a pile of timber, some rotten, some good. Then about 5 hours to burn it all, which in the pouring rain was quite fun.

Lacey

This rather glum looking thing is Greg's new puppy that they have named Lacey. Very well behaved and almost house trained. The photo doesn't do it justice as when it's not asleep it bounces around trying to ambush Bailey (Gregs other slightly older pup)

Back in the water

Whoo hoo. At long last she's back in the water. After a week or so of bitterly cold east winds, everything calmed down and as you can see, it was a lovely evening to put the last bits of antifoul on the centreboards. I get the last lift of the day and he guys at the yard lift her to about six feet off the ground. They leave her there overnight which gives me about three hours before dark to get the last bits done. .
You can see the difference in draft quite clearly in this shotNext day we set off with four aboard Robert, Mike Greg and me. Stop off at Dorset lake to drop Mike and Robert on Yeta then travelled back in company. .


After a gentle start we ended up with a reef in and were about to put a second in as the wind rose to 25 knots off Old Harry As we entered Swanage Bay it settled down to an easier 17knots as we moored up.

Busy week ... Again

Well, again a week has gone by without a blog entry. The move went well on Friday, a warm and pleasant day. We were on the go from 8.00 in the morning till about 10.00 at night and absolutely knackered by the end of the day. Saturday we woke with stiff muscles and sore body parts where we had injured ourselves lifting and carting. We only had the van for a day, and we should have recruited more muscle as there was still lots to move. Thank goodness for the carrying capacity of our Previa. . We had motored down on Saturday for a surprise 50th birthday meal for Greg, the meal was a surprise, not the birthday. And then came the snow. To be honest there wasn't much of it in Swanage. However there was a 10cm layer back at the house in Heston.

Movin' House

Haven't blogged for a week, as we have been so busy. 30 years of accumulated tat to sort out, much of which much is now in the council dump.
It's going to be strange when we come back to visit Luke and Sarah. They will no doubt be decorating in a style that we wouldn't have chosen, but thats a good thing. It was also quite revealing how many little defects in the house you've just put up with over the years. The creaky floorboard, the unpainted pipe on the radiator, that sticking door, the unfilled screw holes from when you took down the shelf three years ago. Now they all stare at you and say "five minutes work/effort would have put me right".

Anyways, three more days and everything has to be packed and ready to go. Must stop writing and start packing.

Rudder noise solution?

The gemini forum is regularly speckled with entries complaining about rudder slap when at anchor. This is a consequence of the raising rudder design

The Bearing Casing (pictured below) is the part that swivels and this sits in a slot. That slot has a fairly generous amount of clearance, about 2 -4 mm. In certain tide / wind conditions or even the wash from passing boats is enough to make the casing "slap" within the slot. Now if you reduce the clearance then you will have the danger of seizing the mechanism. There are various workarounds, the most popular being thin wedges pushed into the slot. Well here's my attempt at a solution. I have attached to the casing some rubber cups which bridge the gap without seizing the casing in the slot and at the swivel point some rubber tube again either side of the casing. These rubber cups are the items you place in the feet of your furniture to protect your polished floors.

Until we get back in the water theres no way of knowing how effective this will be and I'm guessing I might have to employ stronger rubber but then we are back to the problem of siezure

Jobs on the boat

At long last I have been able to get to the boat to some work on it. I resecured the shore power socket. Cleaned the rear port cabin as there was some mould building up in there. Re - installed the water tank and tightened all the water connections. I have long suspected one of the joints has been leaking as I get water in the port bilges. As there are no though hull connections below water line in this side it must be rain water or water from the tank. Investigations continue.


As the weather was dry I decided not to delay and got the antifoul applied. Blakes Tiger plus did a very good job last year with only a small layer of slime evident at haul out at the end of the season. it was a bit of a rush as light was fading towards the end of the job. Not perfect , as the masking tape didn't stick in a couple of places. Ooops! Waves on the waterline.

It's been a rainy Weekend

It's been a miserable weekend and now it's over I can get down to some work on watanga. Lots to do as launch time is looming. I want to get it back in the water as soon as possible. The wind speed seems to have given up, the rudders are going to get a hush kit. Hopefully I have thought of a modification to silence them. Theres water tanks to refit all the soft furnishings to go back, and I still have to find out where the rain water comes in although I now have a couple of ideas. The stanchion bases are a favourite leak site and also where the shroud plates pass through the cabiin roof. so there a bit of work ahead.

Diet that infamous word.

I have been at 12-13 stone for some time now and while it's not obese I am aware that I'm still over weight. From age 17 through 35 I weighed exactly 10st 4lb and it didn't seem to matter what I ate or drank, the weight just stayed the same. However I was playing Rugby and squash and training once or twice a week.

Now there's nothing like stating publicly that you are going to diet to doom it to failure but here goes. I weighed in at 12-6 this morning and would like to get to betwen 11 and 11-7 for the summer. I also have read that you should aim to lose weight slowly so at 1-2lbs per week I aim to hit the top target 11-7 around June time .

This article on fat and diet http://members.shaw.ca/bodybuilding/Fat.html seems to make sense and I lke the idea of not stopping eating so lets see what happens.

High Tides and Storms

The sea was as high as I have ever seen it at Swanage today. With very strong winds from the southwest the sea in the bay was relatively flat. However there was still a significant swell coming in despite the offshore wind direction. The studland ferry suspended operations at high tide. The ferry was fine but the road leading to it was awash at times. It's not often you would be able to drive upwards onto the ferry.!


The pier head building was getting an impromtu pebbledashing as the sea surged across the road at pier approach and the Police decided to close this to traffic. The Mowlem too was getting a right pounding.

At Buckshore, the tenders on Slippery ledge were being jostled by the waves. Just as well they were all tied down. The sea was washing under the boats on the beach but local club members were there monitoring the situation, ready to move boats if necessary.

Another rush Weekend

The weekend's here again, Hoorah. It's almost like when I was working, slogging through the week only wishing the weekend was here. Still I keep telling myself it will all be over soon, house sold, other place rented, Sitting on the boat wondering where to sail next.

Still there's a social on this weekend with a meal and music from Jim Etherington to help us through the evening.

Sundays another blur of candidate interviews, the end is getting close only a few more to do. Frankly this is the best part of the membership job as you get to know everyone.

Have spent a lot of time today investigating the web for suppliers of various parts for the boat.

Putting up a new fence

It is sad to think that for over 25 years we have got on with our neighbours. For all that time we have had a shared alleyway between the two houses. Now we have decide to erect a high fence to hide the slum that was the house and the jungle that was once a beautiful garden carefully tended by the original owners. The place is now rented accomodation, and while the neighbours are pleasant enough, neither they nor their landlord give a monkeys about the state of the house or garden.

New Members

Dashed back to Swanage on Saturday night as I was interviewing for New Members at the sailing club on Sunday morning. This takes about 30 mins per applicant depending on how chatty thay are or how many questions they have. Everyone seems quite keen to help out this year. It's good to see enthusiasm in an applicant. No bad vibes from anyone yet. Had a sore throat by the end as had so much explaining to do.

Monday Back to London on the coach leaving Swanage at 7:30 am, back to work on the house. I need to start thinking about ordering bits for the boat, and scheduling the work in that needs to be done.

London Dinghy Show

About 25 members of the sailing club travelled to Alexandra Palace in North London to support the club as we had been shortlisted for thre RYA sailing club of the year award. As well as keeping an eye out for a bargain or two!

It was all very exciting, Swanage Sailing club had made it to the last five in the country to receive the award. We didn't win but it was a great honour to be up there amongst the finalists. Top honours went to Gurnard Sailing Club on the Isle of Wight. We were secretly relieved as once we saw the the size of the trophy we realised we would have to have a new trophy cabinet!!!

The floor finished

Well thats it done but in hindsight maybe we should have hired a cement mixer. Luke and I both have backache now.

Next onto fitting the doors, door furniture and refitting the alarm.

We are off to the dinghy show tomorrow, Swanage Sailing Club are in the top five shortlist for club of the year. There's a good contingent of us going so should be a good day out.

Luke hard at work, leveling the floor

30 years of not throwing stuff away!

All the bits and bobs that were banished to the garage are now piled up in half a garage. Theres no room to move. I will miss having the space to do stuff here. It's been a garage, a car repair shop, I've built a rowing boat in here, built furniture, mended bikes. Why am I selling it again?

The floor

Project Studio

With Luke now wanting to extend his music publishing capabilities further, we have gone into project mode and are extending his studio. This involves refurbishing the garage which has been in a state of disrepair for some years. The end and side walls of this end of the garage were cracked and ready to fall down. So after propping the roof up, I helped it on it's way. You can just see the bow in the side wall thats being held in place by bracing.






Then you rebuild it, adding a brand new door.

Yes I know the courses are not level but I felt more important to be able to "stitch" the bond into the side wall when the time came.

Once the walls had been built and the room was all cosy we put up 4" of acoustic lagging followed by two layers of 12mm plasterboard. The room became a lot quieter almost as soon as the last piece was up.



A hole was sawn through into the mixing room and a frame put in and sealed with caulking. This frame was later triple glazed.







Then the whole room was dry walled using the direct bonding method




Then we added the electrics all surface mounted

Next the floor!!!