Pilsey shuffle..

After the last trip out I think it fair to say that there was a slight sense of unfinished business about the dock side.. 😁

Wednesday looked promising, but there was a clear requirement (from the forecast) to get going as soon as possible so as to make the most of the westerly wind before it started bending round from the south (guessing they were foreseeing a growing sea breeze)..  things didn't start well when I go to the club only to find I'd forgotten my phone..  not mission critical, but if I wanted any photos, or music to listen to, I was going to struggle.. 😏

Half an hour later I was back at the club, once on the boat I filled up the outboard fuel tank with 5 litres of fresh fuel (took half a litre of the old stuff home and put it in the car), covers off, engine on to warm up, mooring dropped at 11:24. With a HT at 13:45 I could have used the 30 minutes I lost to make some south'ing, but the wind was light anyway so I guess I didn't miss much..

As is usual with these westerly's the main went up in the pool by the bridge and then I bore away for a run down the ditch.. left the engine running until well past Emsworth Beacon before turning it off and trying without.. winds were light and fitful, but every now and again there would be a useable gust but all in all it was quite frustrating, and with a huge spring tide there was a lot of water to fight head on..  shades of the last trip!

With more fuel on board though I put the engine back on and motor sailed down past Marker, only to find the wind filling in, but only as it moved southerly..

..hitting the overdrive for the return trip on the last of the incoming tide..

N'er mind - a lovely single tack down to the Pilsey boys (there are two of them) saw me almost at HISC before I tacked and bore away back to Verner - glorious speeds SOG saw me at Verner in a quarter of the time it had taken to go the other way, but when I gybed to head back to Pilsey it was clear the wind had filled in very quickly indeed and was now more than enough to start the sails flapping.. 

Tacked again and headed for home - I'd had a cracking sail, and it was time to head for home... sails down just shy of Sweare Deep and I was back on the mooring 3 hours after I'd left..  brilliant..

Sparrow's bigger brother - a Hurley 22 - met her on the way back..

Notes:

• 5 litres fuel added

Log:

Distance: 8.64* (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F2 going F4 ; W going SWxW
Sail Plan: Full main / full and 90% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.3 / 2.7

*includes distance covered while the GPS needed a battery change.. 😁

In and out..

Not much of a trip - had hoped for more (clearly.. don't we all?! 😏), but lack of wind stopped play...

Two and a half hours before HT (12:23 and 4.10m) saw me on Sparrow after a chat with my mooring neighbours Jolly Boy Dave and Simon, covers off, engines started, and I dropped the mooring at about quarter past ten...

What wind there was was westerly so I put the main up by the bridge as is becoming the norm, and then headed off down the ditch after Simon. Motored all the way to just before Sweare Deep where (as usual) the noise of the engine finally got to me and I turned her off, and then I sailed for all of, oooh..  15 minutes (?) before the wind dropped completely, and I ended up going round and round in circles heading back towards Emsworth Channel..

Didn't have enough fuel for an extended motor to the bottom of the harbour so decided to call it quits..  the forecast is good this week - there'll be other opportunities..

Time to get some fuel..

Log:

Distance: 3.57 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F1 gusting F3 ; between W and S 
Sail Plan: Full main and genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 4.4 / 2.7

Make do and mend..

Little make do and mend session last week - we've been on the water couple of months now, and sun, rain, and UV never let up, and it was time I attended to a couple of things that I'd been noticing..

Locker lids:

Those of you who follow this nonsense will know that I have a hate hate relationship with these..  my fault assuredly as the ply they are made of is rubbish..  worse than rubbish..  anyway, those of you who follow will know that I'd already treated these over the winter [clicky] but some cracks on the edges of this one needed to be treated quickly lest the damage get much worse very quickly..

... regrettably though the damage on this one was done a long time ago, and it was shot.. look away now if you're of a nervous disposition...

..look at the quality of that ply - utter rubbish wood scrapings barely glued together..😐

..my plan had been to slip some epoxy into the crack using some thin plastic sheet to get it in but it failed completely when I then applied some pressure to press the sheets back together while the epoxy dried..

So....  what to do..

I can make a new one - but I need new supplies of ply, and I want time to find either a good source of marine ply, or ideally plastic/UPVC, to do this permanently - there's sailing to be done so I've bodged it to get me through to the end of the season...

I glued all the dust and scraps back together, and then glued two squares of 3mm plastic card, one either side to hold it together in a sandwich, and then clamped it for 24 hours to let the glue go off..

Tidied up the excess glue the next day, gave it a couple of coats of paint, and then reattached the locking hasp...  it's not pretty (ain't that the understatement of the year), but it's sound, and more importantly will last me to the end of the season.. 😏

Gel Coat:

This has been on my mind (and the job list) for a while - Sparrow is 60 next year and her gel coat is getting thin in places. Just to be clear, I will not paint her (that way lies the madness of endless patching and maintaining on a huge scale) but I do need to stop further UV damage to places where it is thin - see following... 

Previous experiments [clicky] have proved to be fairly good, and it was time to do a few more... 

The hardest thing is getting the paint colour to at least a reasonable approximation (which I haven't done 😏), but the most important thing is that the damage is now covered, and the maintenance of these patches is far simpler..

Now - let's go sailing..