Preparation for lift...

Had no idea that that elongated tacking session the other day was actually going to be my last sail of the season, but so it has panned out.. 😏

A succession of low/light wind days, and insufficient tide, has caused all to come to an abrupt end, as I had commitments to make with the Jolly Boys to lower the mast. With signs that the weather is also about to break (and I've seen more than one forecast showing F8's this weekend) then the best place for Sparrow is ashore, safe and sound in the car park..

Before..

Monday, then, I went out in the tender to Sparrow in quite possibly the flattest calm I've seen in the moorings, and took the genoa off, and also the boom with main attached..

During...  genoa gone..

Like a mill pond - and perfect for the operation in question..

After..  all gone.. 

Sails/boom off and there was just time to install the mast crutch, this is the Mk2 version with the folding extendable arms, as trialled last year during the mast raising... 

I foresee a Mk3 version as the folding arms are excellent, but do not fold away as easily as I would like, and it has also been pointed out that the crutch doesn't need to be so high as the mast would still clear the  cabin top even if the cross piece was a foot lower..

Once all the sails were off and crutch on a quick check of all halyards and I noticed this on the jib halyard..

Nothing too serious but clearly where the halyard has been rubbing on the eye strap I use as a halyard diverter for the furler... new line is softer than the old one..

Cut a foot off and re-whipped the hard eye - jobs a good'un and that is officially the first job completed on the Winter '23/'24 list.. 😀

That was Monday, Tuesday I took the A frame, mast support, and mast rest out ready for the drop which was today, Wednesday.

The Jolly Boys convened this morning at the club (Rodders and t'other Dave) and having checked her availability, transferred to Sparrow via Mylor, the club workboat (makes life so much easier).

The mast drop was completed successfully, and very smoothly, no issues, no problems, all limbs and external body parts still in place and intact - other than using the main halyard as the restraint rope rather than the jib halyard to all intents and purposes it all went exactly as previously documented [clicky] ad nauseum.. excellent result. 😀

Job done, the team convened in the cockpit for beer, pork pies, and a new delicacy we've recently acquired a taste for 😋, before returning ashore triumphant.. good result. Thoughts now turn to lift out which may well be tomorrow..

Mast up...

Chuffing freezing today (the day of the Coronation), but happily, in slightly warmer, but no less showery, conditions yesterday - we got the mast up..

Not one of our best efforts if I'm honest, but we managed it, and the mast is now up and ready for my halyard swap (job #14)...  😀

So what was different?? Just lack of practice, but mostly the weather was not optimal - not a windy day, but the showers were coming through quick, heavy and sharp which kind of made the whole event a bit rushed and lead to some minor errors.... nothing major but some things to add to the checklist for next time..

• Stays - I leave the lowers (2 per side) off until the mast is up, just relying on the uppers (1 per side) to provide lateral support - I use the forward lower chain plates as the attachment points for the A frame so that kind of drives the decision. On the day we attached the port upper to the port aft lower chain plate in error - which causes the mast to stop as it reaches tension on the stay - no major issue - we laughed (😊), dropped the mast a foot, detached and re-attached it to the right one..  found and accused a scapegoat, job done..
• Backstay - is complicated when the mast is down and sat in the crutch, as I have a Y back stay with short arms from either quarter to a triangular plate which attaches the long one to the to of the mast. Its a lot of wire, and the key is to lead those two short arms under the back board (which we did), but outside of the legs of the crutch (which we didn't)..  so as the mast went up, at some point it started to try and lift the (lashed down) crutch..  no problem - t'other Dave unscrewed the upper part of the back stay from the plate, slipped it over, and reattached ... found and accused a scapegoat, job done..

Everything else was found sorted and fixed before the lift which after the two minor niggles above went smoothly.. 

Two things worked very well and we will repeat next time if we can..

• Commute - I had the use of the club workboat for this mast raise, and although it was required back a little earlier than was optimal it made getting everything (four of us, plus boom, sails, and A frame) out to Sparrow SO much easier.. If I hadn't had it I would have left the boom and sails at home and bought them another day, and even with my new tender, it would have taken two boats to back and forth..
• Loosening off the back stay to the maximum made attaching the forestay a joy.. normally we're fighting to get the clevis pin and washers in, but this time it went straight on..

Had to return the club prior to beers and pork pies as the boat was required, but no worries, we were all a little damp so a picnic in the clubhouse sorted us all out..

* I went back out after the chaps had left and tidied up, sorted out all the stay tensions, checked mast straightness, and generally marvelled at what four old men can still do..  she looks better with the mast up, but she also feels better (less roll).. 

Next job(s)

1. Halyard swaps, then ..
2. Sails/boom on..
3. Sort the engine out...

Mast down, boat out, Ami-Ly delivery

Phew time for a catch up - October is always busy, busy, busy... 😵

So chronologically...

• 2nd October - after that slightly abrupt and bad tempered (the wind - not me😀) sail on the Saturday I was down on the boat the next morning in conditions that can only be described as 180' the opposite of the day before...! It was scorching hot and almost windless...  genoa off first before any wind turned up, and deposited in the dinghy for more careful folding away when on shore, I then moved to the boom and as usual just remove the whole lot, boom, sail, kicker with claw and the sail cover to wrap the whole lot together I left the reef in, so I will need to take that out sometime this winter when I have more time to unroll it and flake the sail more tidily..  That done there was only one thing to be done on a day like this ==>
  
  

  

  Days like this will feature long in the memory over the next cold damp miserable months

  
  
• 3rd October - chatting to Rodders the next day while sorting out dates for the mast drop, he mentioned he was off down to Ami-Ly (his boat - the scene and host of this years Jolly Boys Riot) to do the same as I had done on Sparrow the day before - with nothing else on the horizon that day I casually asked, 'do you want a hand to do it?'  After I managed to get my arm back with only light bite marks, I found myself down on the Whale Island pontoons. Bigger boat of course but pretty much the same rigmarole as Sparrow the day before, except Rod leaves the boom on. 
  
  Glorious day watching the various comings and goings...  two mahoosive cruise liners were in on the opposite side of the creek, and then the car ferry from France arrived and reversed parked between the two - fantastic bit of seamanship...
  
  

  

  Not small!

  
  
• 6th October - the day of the mast drop, and after a truly atrocious day weatherwise the day before yet another 180' turn - not a breath of wind when I first arrived, clear open skies with more than a hint of warmth - SO lucky...
  
  No Dave this year (he was on holiday) so we drafted in the "young" apprentice and thus it was me Rodders and Smiffy in the crew this year...  I arrived early, shot out to the boat and started to get stuff ready. Crutch roped into place, forward and rear lower stays undone, A frame locked into the forward lower chain plates, genoa halyard to the top of the frame with this year the main halyard as a secondary safety line, main sheet to provide the grunt and we were ready to go once the boys arrived. There then ensured the comedy that only the Jolly Boys together seem able to produce.
  
  I think it safe to say that I had suffered sleep issues on two counts this year - one was the mast drop itself, which despite having done it numerous times still causes a slight frisson of concern (all joking aside it's a big mast, things can go wrong, damage can be done, and worst-case, injury can ensue) but the other was how the hell I was going to get these two to the boat given that normally we rely on Dave, who has access to another (bigger) dinghy?!
  
  Anyhoo...  we had to rely on my tender which is small, and has a low freeboard - I will only say that it was a good job there was no swell or wind as I reckon we had no more than 2 or 3 inches of freeboard at times and that was with only two of us at a time in it... 😂 ==>
  
  

  

  The young apprentice gets a good work out, and an occasional grope, giving Rodders a lift back to shore after the main event...

  
  The drop itself was perfection, Smiffy in the cockpit, Rod on the roof, both to guide and keep the mast straight as it came down, me on the foredeck to play out the main sheet so as to allow a controlled drop - perfection, and a cup of tea and a biccie later and we were ready to disconnect the back stay and the uppers, the A frame was removed, halyards tidied away and we were ready to slide the mast forward so as to rest on the pulpit and crutch before finally tying it all down...
  
  I'd made some modifications to the mast crutch for this drop and have to say I think they worked 100% - one of the issues we always had before was that the arms of the crutch extended to the point where lifting the spreaders up and over them when moving the mast forward after the drop was a major PITA. This year I sawed them off shorter, but to allow for the crutch still to act as a crutch ie. for the arms of the crutch still to guide the mast, had put on new swivelling/swinging arms held in place by a bolt at the swivel end and a peg at the other end. Once the mast was dropped and the arms had done their job, you could then just slip the pegs out and swivel the arms down allowing for a much smaller arm to lift the spreaders over - and it worked exactly as designed, SO chuffed - in fact it prompted another idea (cheers, Rod!) to lock the mast in the crutch which I'll investigate further - either way, job done and off to the pub for beer and smuggled in pork pies! Big thanks to the Jolly Boys once again...
  
  
• 9th October - time to start moving boats for their respective lift outs, first on the list was to move Ami-Ly round from her home mooring on Whale Island to Port Solent where she was due to have a lift out first thing Monday morning - just over 6 miles - all under motor (as we'd taken the sails off already as above) and after a little sightseeing down harbour (Rodders had his son and grandson with him for this one, in addition to Smithy and I) we were up to Port Solent, locked through, moored up, and in the pub within a couple of hours - lovely afternoon out
  
  
  
  
  
• 17th October - not only Rod's lift out but mine as well - and as trouble free a lift as I think I've had. Got there early, cadged a lift to the boat on the club's workboat (to save getting the tender out and having to recover it later) and once on board got the tools out to see if I could get the top gear (ie. shackle/swivel/pick up chain and buoy) off my mooring - don't like leaving it on, as all that happens is that it gets trashed in the winter storms; it may as well live in my garage under a coat of oil for the winter as sit on the mooring rusting...  once again, the spray of white grease on the threads for the pin for the shackle holding it all together did the trick and one grunt and it loosened off (bloody brilliant - hacksawing them off is a major pain). Fired up the donk, and for one last time this year motored over the pool and then under the bridge before putting her on the clubs waiting pontoon ready for my turn.
  
  

  

  😍

  
  Sat in the cockpit in the sun, chatting with the other club members doing the boat moves, Rod joined me for a chat and to pick up a bag he'd left in my car the day before - most pleasant. Then after the big one's had gone in, it was my turn, three crew on board with me, motored over to the hoist, didn't cock up the entry, secured, engine off, lifted and 15 minutes later I was ashore and, on my blocks, the 2022 season is over...  😏

Jobs:

1. Centre mast support needs trimming - slightly too long for the current configuration
2. Pressure wash her bottom - no weed video this year as I started clearing the barnacles before I thought to do the video - but she is covered in a fine growth of sea weed, and the barnacles (I thought) were far more prevalent this year - the insides of the keels were covered with them, plus the forward part of the hull where she sits in the mud. Just need to wait for lift out to finish so I can get down there and give her a good going over..  this weekend hopefully.

Mast up, sails on..

Lots (and lots) happening and not a lot of logging go on so here goes..

First, off a cracking shot of "Sparrow" from fellow blogger "Stargazer" (link in the caption) who recently spent a few days in the harbour while on passage .. 

Picture courtesy/copyright "All at Sea with Stargazer" [clicky]

Mast up

Which leads me nicely into the point where I left of the last log - on the Thursday (21st April) the Jolly Boys convened and almost drowned before even attempting putting the mast up - t'other Dave had conceived of a plan to try out, for the first time, a used inflatable that had come to him, albeit in the depths of one of the deepest lockers in his boat, when he bought her...  

So it was that as I departed the shore to get all ready for the mast lifting party I was hailed by the aforesaid, who along with Rod the Mod had arrived early as he was so excited about trying his rub-a-dub. Convening on shore we all looked at it in a knowledgeable manner, as he connected up his battery air pump and proceeded to inflate it - the good news is that it did inflate, and better still, didn't deflate when he took the pump off...

Pausing only to grab the mighty Torqueedo he was going to strap to the back, he launched, attached the Torqueedo, and the transom, held only in place by glue that must have been at least 153 years old gave way and the transom fell off . His suggestion that "it would be OK" having been firmly rebuffed by Rod the Mod, so it was that slightly later three fat old blokes then found themselves in my tiny tender, with a Torqueedo on the back...  suffice to say that this log is proof we survived, but my sides ached for days after all the merriment while we wandered all over the anchorage trying to get to "Sparrow".. 😂

Having got there however, the usual professionalism reverted, and I have to say that without a lie, it was the best mast lift we've done - from shore to mast up in less than an hour...  hugely impressive. Beer and pork pies in the (un-forecast) sun and light breezes finished off the day before I gave them a lift to shore (single occupancy this time!) and returned to tidy up..  had enough time to rig the boom, and then headed to shore myself.

Genoa Tension

Weekend weather was rubbish, but I managed to sneak out a couple of days later on the Saturday to put the genoa on, checked the tensions of the standard rigging (OK - may need further tightening) before it started to rain in earnest and drove me home. 

Last year I was really struggling with the roller furling being hugely stiff -having thought long and hard about it, I think my issue was too much luff tension, so this time I put none on - the furler boom holds the luff straight so there's no need for huge tension..  just put it up and lightly tie it off, and I have to say the difference is little short of miraculous..  unrolls and rolls like lightening - superb!

Tender titivation's

For the May bank holiday weekend tides were again awful (6 in the morning, 6 in the evening), but the weather was glorious, so I instead devoted my time to making the tender trolley more user friendly - my temder is flat bottomed, but the trolley is optimised for a V bottomed boat, so as a result the tender just sits on the two high spots either side and slides around, or off, the moment you start moving...

My plan was to fit a piece of deck board to the trolley boat support - U bolted in place, which would accommodate the tender better - a couple of wooden uprights at either end would hold the tender in place.. 

Job done, and a huge improvement. 

Next log...  shakedown sail and and additional wrinkles...

Time enough..

...to catch up finally with events on Sparrow, or more properly to Sparrow, and Sparrows current skipper..  

...been a while since I updated, and that is not due to lack of water time, and more to do with too much water time... 😀

So a quick series of posts covering off the multifarious activities over the last few weeks..  and for this post it was mast dropping time, which with a bout of heavy weather coming in off the Atlantic during the week before when I would normally do it, was much earlier than I wanted in order to meet the requirement for lift out..  my season has ended...

On the Saturday (16th) then I went out and took sails off, boom off, main still on it, all parcelled up in the boom cover, dropped the jib, tidied up lines, tied off the roller furler swivel, and attached the boom crutch ready for the drop which was scheduled for the next day...

Sunday dawned bright, but soon started to cloud over as a portent of the heavy weather to come..  went out to the boat in advance and took off the forward lowers (stays), took my glasses out of my pocket to see what I was doing just in time to watch my phone, which was in the same pocket, drop out, take two bounces and hit the briny..  f*ckeration!!! 😠

A-frame then attached to the chain plates for the aforesaid lowers, jib halyard to the top of the frame, lifted slightly, main sheet (6:1) to the bottom of the frame and stem of the boat, put some tension on, and then waited for the shore party* to arrive (still quietly fuming).. 

* yet again the mast raising A team of the Jolly Boys had been inveigled out to drop the mast in return for a paltry payment of pork pies, kettle crisps, and beer...

Quick chat with the advance water party (Smithy turned up on his kayak - think he must have heard there might be beer on offer) and then t'other Dave and Roddders turned up on their almost silent tender (Dave's got a Torqueedo of quite astonishing quietness, and surprising power)

Best mast drop I think we've had - no more than 15 minutes later and the last was down - another 15 minutes and she was in the cradle - lashed fore and aft and ready for lift out...  brilliant..  like a well oiled machine.

Beers, pies, banter and crisps later it was time to head for shore - mission accomplished, but not without the usual wrinkles#..

# PS. Phone was on a contract with early payment charges if I want to end it..  boat insurance specifically excludes phones, house insurance excess was ten pound more than the early payment charge..  new phone bought, replacement SIM and I reckon not having my pocket zipped up cost me about 150 quid..  be warned fellow sailors...