Ships Log - Yacht "Sparrow"

Another one of those crafty days off... I had lots of plans for this day though and managed to achieve.. err.. most of them...

So with a 7 and 1900 tide it was ripe for an all-day'er, and the first job I wanted to get done was getting the new outboard on - it's a fairly heavy engine so I'd decided that a tender out to the boat and then try and man-handle it on board was probably not the best idea. The solution was to book myself a short stay on a pontoon at Northney Marina, but this was not without a enormous amount of faff as I still had to get boat to Northney and engine and etc.

In the end I drove (with bicycle on the back) to Northney and booked my pontoon (they had empty space right on the open ends of one of the pontoons..  "four hours for £8.20?? that'll do very nicely, sir"..  ouchh!) left the car with engine there, and cycled back to the club (where I'd left oars for the tender) and then brought the boat round..

Happily, no issues with the pon…

So with the aftermath of Bertha, or the next low, or whatever, making itself felt over the Sunday what better thing to utilise your time than a bit of browsing among the tat, sorry bargains, at the local boat jumble...

So it was that little'un and I made our way to a truly blustery Fort Purbrook for the boat jumble..  all in all I felt it was good value, but only because the  jumble was also in the fort and it gave me an opportunity to have a mooch round (my other interest is wargaming/military history)


Not a huge number of stands, the majority of them appeared to be professional or semi professional and the usual culprits but I went with an open mind rather than a shopping list, and came back with some bargains...


So in order
a new cleat that I will use to replace the main cleat I currently have which is a little small and on the weedy side (this is job #1 on the winter job list) - only £6 bargain..and anchor chain/hawse pipe - "Sparrow" has clearly not done much anchor…

Getting a bit jumpy as I want to get out again, last weekend was kiboshed by a lady called Bertha - this was my tide window (high was at 12) - steady force 6 gusting 7 for all of it...  wind direction was interesting (not that it made a difference as I wasn't going out for love nor money!) - it swung almost 110' in 6 hours, so from S to NW...


...so I had planned for an all day-er this Sunday to make up for it as the tides are 0500 and 1700 and would be perfect. It's not to be though, the short range forecast is firming up and shows the following - not the nicest of conditions even without the wind!



May have to take a crafty day off next week...!

Bit breezy today...

A contrast to last weekend where there had been very little wind; when I got to the boat today it was blowing force 4 with occasional wicked gusts coming through.. took the decision early to reef the main so put in two rolls. Reefs in, and it had been so long since I've had to do this (September last year according to my logs) that I made a schoolboy error, more of which later...

I was early but managed to get off the mooring by about three hours before high tide..

With a WSW it was a good direction and having motored up wind off the mooring I hoisted main as I approached the bridge (and the new main halyard, ex-topping lift, was an improvement..) and the engine went off almost immediately as I turned, for a fast run down the channel; averaging 2 and 3 knots down wind and against a strong tide..  the gusts were the issue and I noticed that some of the sail slides were out of the track, yes that was the schoolboy error...  when I reefed on the mooring I'd …

An afternoon off for some some mid-season bodging...  err..  fixing..  and just for once everything on the list was completed..

First on the list was the launch trolley (for my tender) which has been used and abused for at  least three or four years now without me having done anything to it...   for shame..  I have two issues  (well three), one of the support struts holding the flat bar that the tender usually sits on has rusted away completely meaning that the tender can cause the bar to press down on the wheel like a brake - that's a job for winter as I need to find someone in the club with some welding gear to weld in a short piece of metal bar (or I'll bolt in some metal plate more likely). Less of an issue is the wooden supports on the metal bar which are the wrong shape for the profile of the tender so I just need to add some bits - not urgent.. On the list today was the wheels which had begun to seize...  the purchase this week of some Valvoline waterproof spray greas…