First sail of the season and more jobs done..

The Jolly Boys have had their first sail of the new season, but before I get to that, first off news of further work completed..

It wasn't on the list but at the end of last season I had noticed that the boom/sail cover needed a little attention - I bought this in 2019, and compared with the one it replaced (which died after 6 years) it's in far better condition. This one is 6 years old this year, albeit we had a year of Covid where it didn't get a lot of UV - the material is OK'ish - just a little fragile on the fold lines, so I took the opportunity to reinforce the back of those with some sail repair tape. She's good for another year..

Which brings me to the Jolly Boys first sail of the year - which was.... utterly Baltic..! 🥶

Head gear de rigeur for the day.. 😏

Lovely sail over to Cowes though, including flying the asymmetric, but we were a boat on a mission for this first sail as tide times meant we couldn't hang around coming back.. we sailed almost all the way there, but then cracked and put the engine on for the last dash into Cowes where we got a fantastic berth in East Cowes (and only a tenner for a lunch stop as they're still on winter rates!)

...that was where we wuz.. 😁

Absolutely fantastic lunch in the Lifeboat, but with the wind dead on the nose, we motored for home..  we had to be back on the mooring by 5'ish or have to sit round waiting due to tides..  happily we did it, but yee gods it was cold on the way back, an easterly head wind is no fun in March..

Log:

Distance: 28.0 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F3 very occasionally bottom F4 ; SExE going SE
Sail Plan: Full main/genoa; and we flew the blue meany/asymmetric
Speed (Max/average in knots): 7.6 / 4.1

Antifoul, paint sloshing and pontoon bashing..

...the half day of yearly penance that is the antifoul application is done..

Obligatory before shots...

...and the after shots..  

...but what a truly sh*tty and awful job applying this stuff is, especially to a small twenty footer with a bilge keel cave.. but there's no denying it, boats look the dogs nadgers with freshly applied dark blue antifoul paint..  this is the best she'll look all season..  30 minutes after she goes in the water it all goes downhill on the looks front..  😁

..just the one coat this year as an experiment - most of the rest of the guys in the club do the same, and Sparrow's bottom is as rough as the surface of the moon so anything that stops further build up can only be a good thing.. I'm going to have to bite some serious bullets in the next few years on the maintenance front, and a serious scrape of her bottom is one of them.

Elsewhere unguents have been splashed about..

• the cockpit board lasted well after an initial treatment right at the end of last season but it's been a wet and wooly winter, and I noticed a few spots where it needed re-treatment so got the sander out and then applied some more preserver..  calling that one done..
• end of last season I two coats on the rubbing strakes and they're still good - calling that one done to..
• companionway hatches had two coats at the end of last season, are ok, but will get a couple more of which the first one is done - they're one of those serious bullets I mentioned above..  wondering whether to go the perspex route..
• while I had the sander out for the cockpit board, I also did the tiller pilot support and rest..  two coats later calling that one done to..
• after the major renovation of the tender last winter she's been stored all winter in the pen, albeit I turned her upside down to give some weather protection to the inside..  she picked up the usual minor scratches and scuffs on her bottom as a result of launch and recovery from a trolley on a stone surface, so I finished off the remains of one of the tins of black paint I had and repainted them - very happy with the keel reinforcements (nose and stern), by the way, still strong, and clearly doing their job..

This update is almost turning into a "more ticks than a mangy dog" post.. 😏

Either way - still to do - in no order of importance

• finish the cockpit hatches, one or two coats will do it, and then they need to go back on the boat
• a final coat on the companionway hatches
• a surface coat on the companion sliding hatch and forehatch
• an oxalic wash down of the hull after I've given the usual scuffs and scratches a rub down with fine wet and dry
• a damn good wash of the top sides to get a winters worth of green and dirt off her

Lastly, I had a work party at the club the other day - pontoon bashing but not how you normally imagine it.. 😁

The club has five pontoons that we use during the season for occasional cruiser mooring, waiting space during lift out and in, embarking and landing lift out crew, tying dinghy's up to on race days, etcetc. They've been in the water for 10 years and were beginning to show signs of wear and damage so were lifted at the end of last season for some serious love, care and attention..  

This is one of the worst ones - were cutting out the crap metal ready to weld in new replacement stuff..

..and at the end of a hard day this is one of the ones we were working on (following)..  this is 80 or 90% done, each of the floats has been attached with two boards underneath, to galvanised metal right angled shoes, with 4 x 4's to support a through threaded bolt all the way from the 4x4's at the top through to underneath of the shoe, through the 4x4, and also through the end of the board - M16 nuts and washers throughout, all wood work bitumen'd.

Just the fender boards to attach and this one will be done - you can see the new boards in the background of the picture above. Hugely rewarding but hard day..  I ache this morning!

Outboard serviced and the first Jolly boat in the water..

Slow but steady progress as February wends it's slow old way to the March launch month..

The engine has been serviced - it's still under warranty and I'm keen to ensure this continues but not at the expense of having the mickey taken. Last years service came to just less than 25% of the cost of the engine (! 😏) so this year I double checked before taking it back for another service with them and having confirmed it would be the same cost, this time after asking for recommendations, took it to another service centre..  

Very pleased with the service from Bursledon Outboards who are themselves a main Tohatsu dealer so my warranty has been maintained, but at an overall cost that was significantly less than the previous guys. 

Impellor changed, fuel filters changed, spark plug changed, new anode on the leg, and then a couple of things that for me confirmed my choice of changing to them despite the additional distance to get to them..  one the engine had been overfilled with oil at the last service, not something I would have expected from a main dealer..  what was also strange was that the bolts for the cover on the magneto fly wheel were only finger tight and had loosened to the point where the cover was now rubbing the fly wheel - weird... I would definitely have noticed it last summer, so my assumption was that the manhandling of the engine off the boat, into the garage, and into the car, had been enough to joggle it loose...  the engineer was happy that there was no permanent damage but was keen to see if it qualified for a repair under warranty - we'll see ..  either way, I was impressed with their customer service, and the engine is done!

Elsewhere, and in between the showers and shocking weather, the Jolly Boys convened  or the first Jolly Boys boat to hit the water this year, which was the good ship AmiLy who went in on Monday.. Rod's done a lot of work on her engine over the winter so clearly that needed testing, but he'd also contracted with one of the Hong Kong sail lofts for a new main sail. 

He's never liked the old one, which is probably original to the boat so he was keen to get that on as well to make sure it fitted. Hmmm... too windy really for a conclusive test, but the biggest "concern" is that the supplied sail was loose footed, which he very specifically asked for it not to be. He's back in touch with the loft and they have acknowledged their fault so he's just waiting for them to agree what to do - in all likelihood a trip to a UK based loft to have a bolt rope fitted, in the meanwhile though, a smaller subset of the Jolly Boys met on Tuesday (today as I write) to take AmiLy round from Port Solent to her home berth on Whale Island.

They're dredging the main channel into Port Solent, so we met these guys as we exited the lock

Glorious day, but chuffing cold, the sun eventually shone and an ideal day for a 40 odd minute perambulate down the harbour - all of it on a smooth as silk engine (Rod most chuffed) and 40 odd minutes later we pulled in on to the home berth. There is something very pleasant about slurping tea, on a boat, after a winter ashore... 😊

As the wind was considerably less (though still feisty) on the pontoon when we arrived, we decided to have another go at hoisting the new main - first, despite the fact that it's loose footed, it is an exceptional quality - it's fully battened and the pockets/tensioning system are amazing, very impressive. Good quality sail cloth, well stitched, with plenty of reinforcements and good reefing points. Most impressed, (as was Rod 😏)

Minor issues? Well apart from the foot, but two it's an absolute bugger to hoist and drop - now that may be as a result of the full length battens being over tensioned (?), it may also be that we weren't completely head to wind so there may have been some lateral wind pressure - what we are agreed on is that the sail is staying on and we need to go out and actually sail it to see how it performs..  bring it on we said!

Log:

Distance: 3.94 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F4 gusting F5: NW
Sail Plan: n/a
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.4 / 3.3

Glacial progress...

..is being made...

• The life jackets are serviced - no issues..
• I have a new mooring buoy shackle to replace the one half hack sawed at the end of last season 😏
• I put the genoa in for a new sacrificial strip as the old one was 10+ years old and beginning to shred - got that back from Batt Sails yesterday - lovely job and worked out at about £12'ish a metre to remove old, and replace with new
• I have a launch date - I'm going in Sunday 31st March 😀

...next jobs, get some antifoul and sort out an engine service..