And the work goes on. Here we are, closing in on the fourth Christmas I've owned this boat and progress continues to happen. The new naming stickers went on last weekend and after a bit of rain, seem to have settled in well. The boot stripe stickering is having trouble adhering tho, so we might paint that on next time the boat's hauled out.

As some of you will remember, last winter was also truly a misery. Cold temps, constant easterly winds and snow. Having fitted the Mikuni diesel heater (which does a great job heating the wheelhouse and warming the rest of the boat), I finally got around to installing the wood / charcoal burning stove. What a revelation. 8 degrees outside with a chilly wind and we're working in t-shirts inside. Brilliant. I still need to build a box around it and perhaps install a 12V fan behind (circulating the warm air will up the temperature even further), but thus far it's definitely proven to be one of the best investments. And all for £120.

Of course, there are other ways of installing these stoves and I spied this one whilst on a "come over for a drink" evening. I won't name names, but the creative effort put into this install is just amazing.

The cooler weather has produced some great sunrises (or was that a sunset? I can't remember) and this has easily been one of the warmer winters I can remember in a long time.

And here's progress. The cabin's almost finished (I'll fit the TV this weekend and stuff all the excess materials into the cabin) and other than a few jobs, we're all set for test sailling the week of NYE. I think the plan will be to head to Osborne Bay (about 15nm) for an anchored lunch, before making a decision on whether to proceed up Southampton Water and anchor again in the evening, or return to a local anchorage. It all depends on the weather really, and whether it stays calm or blows up.

The next big trip then will be a circuit of the IOW (a good 12 hr / 70m sail) before next summer's week long trip to the Channel Islands. Big tides, tight anchorages and a Channel crossing all thrown into the mix. If it's going to happen, it'll happen out there....

Anyway, that's it for this week. The next update should be from on the water... Have a great Christmas.

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Now there's a post title to get you wondering what's going on. Sadly, no, the boat hasn't sunk. Yet. A good chum (Grant) and I have however spent the past two weeks tearing aspects of the boat apart that I've never really been happy with, and rebuilding them into something a bit more useful.

Let's start with the salon table. It was one of those great ideas in principle - use a heavy bit of wood on a skinny adjustable pedestal so everyone could sit around for some fine dining, then lower it for folks to sleep on. A sizable sum was spent on the pedestal, everyone oooh'd and aaah'd, then we realised the table pedestal just wasn't man enough and frankly, how many people were actually going to sleep over on the boat (see the next paragraph for more on this)???

Next, for those people who did linger at the end of an evening and we couldn't punt back to their boats, a forward cabin seemed a logical idea. That and I'm sure I'm going to find myself banished there at some point. Did I mention as well the desk was just not really working, the TV had no place to be bolted to, and those hundreds of DVDs on the boat could be swapped for a single memory stick containing THOUSANDS of movies?

Now this presented a problem. Building a forward cabin would mean a cupboard had to be lost, but building a cupboard under the table meant we had a new place to store things. Like rum (50+ bottles to be exact). Problem solved.

Bring on the demolition team. To his credit, Grant does amazing woodwork and hasn't destroyed the boat *that* much, but it did take a tonne of garbage bags and a good couple of hours to make the boat presentable for Lauren's arrival. Anyway, here's some pictures of the work in progress. I'll get some updated pics this weekend.

What else did we get up to.... hmmm. The boat now has a slightly darker shade of blue on half of it, the salon benches are coming along quite nicely and one of them now has a paperwork locker beneath it. I've also ordered the aluminium angle for building the new internal winch towers (which, btw, will allow for a full turn on the winches) and as of a brain wave late last night, am refining a way of storing various food stuffs in the bilge areas. Needless to say it's going to take up more money and time, but will of course allow us to store even more tins of beans, vegetables and fruit. Yay.

Updates to follow.

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So another weekend out and about. Winter's on the way so having fitted a Mikuni diesel heater (3.9kw) two weeks ago, a nice cold morning presented the perfect opportunity to crank it up and burn out all the crap. This is the salon with a nice haze wafting through....

After two days of quite breezy conditions, Saturday dawned bright, sunny.... and windless. 0.0kts. We reasoned a motor out for mooring and berthing practice wouldn't be a bad way to spend a sunny day, so lines were cast off and we made the trip out to the mooring field.

Lauren's not had a lot of experience berthing or mooring before, so it was on to practice 101 with everyone's favourite boat yard crazy man (aka Grant). For those of you who know Grant, you'll be surprised to hear all went well and not one explosion occurred. Crazy, I know. Anyway, we were on our way back to the marina here for berthing practice.

So enough of this sailing nonsense, what did I really spend the last four days doing? Thurs and Fri (plus last weekend) was spent building a new hatch. It doesn't leak a drip and being made out of alu, is rather tough.

Here's the hatch from the outside. It still needs some paint around the edge and a light sand, but is fundamentally all done.

After that little project, it was time to take care of one of my two remaining bug bears. The outside helm position can't be fixed for the time being, but the lack of wheelhouse seating can. Here we see the alu framing for the starboard side seat - the winches will also soon be brought inside and sit on the end of this on a plinth.

And the port side. This is more of a wraparound seat with a small table to be fitted (I mean really, who wants to sit below to eat breakfast? Having a view is waaaay nicer). In the background you can also see the installed Mikuni heater and general storage heater.

Anyway, that concludes this week's update. I'm hoping to get down this Friday to get the wood trimmed and fitted onto the wheelhouse seating - watch this space.

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Quite the storm blew through this past week, with winds topping 45-50kts at the yard and 99mph off the Needles. The boat came through relatively unscathed but the same couldn't be said for the tender..... on the plus side, I only insured it all a week ago, so that'll be a new tender and outboard, thank you very much....

Anyway, that storm produced some interesting weather but blew through pretty quickly.

Having taken half the week off to get some sailing in, it was looking like we weren't going to get a window... until Saturday morning dawned. We had a 3 hr tide window, the promise of a tad breezy afternoon and a fishing fleet dredging in Chichester Harbour, but out we went and unfurled the sails (the engines stayed ticking over and in neutral just from a safety perspective). The main slid out of it's track and will need replacing, but with the genoa and mizzen out, the performance was:

45deg off the wind - blowing 12kts
2.5 kt tide against us
genoa only - 1kt progress

On the return leg, with the wind off our port aft quarter and a 2kt tide behind us, 2/3 genoa and mizzen, 4.5 kts.

So, what does this equate to? In a good breeze, we should see 5.5-6.5kts which is about spot on for a solid bluewater cruiser. Excellent.

The rest of the 1/2 week off was also successful - Mikuni diesel heater fitted, aft shower sump repaired (bl**dy float switches) and one wind gen wired up and spinning away.

This now means the first motoring test has been completed, the first motorsailing test has been completed, and now it's a case of waiting for a weekend when we can leave the harbour and get the sailing testing done. Winter is coming but with the diesel heater and wheelhouse, things should stay toasty warm. Progress....

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So today is a big day.... after much messing around with the engines, FINALLY the boat left the dock today. It was a case of make or break really - if I didn't finally start using it, it was going on Ebay, so after a bright & early start and trip down to the coast, we ran up both engines, plowed our way through the mud and made a break for Chichester Harbour.

 

Granted, we were only off to Sparkes Marina to fuel up so further sea trials could be run and the diesel heater plumbed in, but a maiden voyage is a maiden voyage, and after three years (almost to the day), it was great to finally get going.

Next on the list - sea trials - sailing....

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September 5th, 29 degrees (Celcius that is) - rain and thunderstorms forecast for the next few week or so. Is the end of summer upon us?

The boat continues of course. Engineer came out, flushed engine, I made some changes, engineer came out again to check those changes, ran them both up - all systems go!

The to-do list is shrinking and growing on a weekly basis - movable objects have been more-or-less secured in preparation for sea trials and the electrics slightly reworked to remove reliance on shore power.

Sea trials were set to commence two weeks ago but with a storm forecast for the Saturday, the decision was made to wait for a better window. Saturday came around and we saw the grand total of 8kts.... ugh. Ah well, there's a busy five weekends coming up then it's time for another crack at taking it out.

I've also enlisted some outside help to assist with finishing the boat off; a good mate of mine does amazing woodwork and painting, so much of the outdoor work has been handed over to him to get it done before the great British winter sets in. I've also been looking at diesel heaters - the whole point of the wheelhouse was to use the boat year round - so watch this space. We'll see what deals they're doing at the boatshow (next weekend!)

Update to follow....

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Time for another update methinks. So... what's happened since May? Quite a lot really, although having to return to work has meant I've not had a chance to post many updates.

From the top then - this is how the boat looked externally at the start of the summer. 99% finished on the painting (just the boot stripe and porthole surrounds to go).

The interior is coming along nicely as well - those cushions still need final finishing, but it's getting there...

Interior again... clean this time!

And again...

And the galley (granted, I probably should have done the dishes prior to taking this photo).

Nav station

Aft deck - those boxes are Acacia wood and will shortly be bolted to the lower railing.

I still need to fit a chain / wire railing across that entrance gap...

Double wind-gens mounted.

And davits.

That's not all tho - frustratingly, the new starboard engine developed a problem last week, whereby it sucked in a considerable amount of water after shutdown, and drained it into the engine. Not good. A hurried call to an engineer later and they had it drained and will be resolving the installation issue - the frustrating bit being, I paid the resident boat yard engineer good money to check my install and ensure it was 100% safe / appropriate.

Still, no / minimal damage done, so still on for a maiden voyage soon. Watch this space.

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After the great engine fiasco of 2011/2012 and the subsequent wrapping up of the court case, it was time to order new, *working* engines, haul the boat out and have everything fitted up. Nice and easy, just like that. Hahahahaha. If only.

First up - hauling out the boat. Now, living on a boat in the water is quite easy. There's unlimited water, showers and toilet facilities aboard, etc etc. Living on the hard? No siree. The saving grace this time was the yard's new facilities block but goodness me, I won't miss the trudge between shower and boat again. I digress, the boat hauled out just fine and everything looked ok underneath.

Next! The engines duly arrived, looking splendid in Bayside Blue (ala Ford Blue). On the not so splendid side, they were slightly larger than quoted so the boat needed some.. ah... adjusting.. with an angle grinder. 5mm (1/4 for you American & Canadian lot) to spare all round? Perfect!

Craning them in - always a boat owner's nightmare, having 300kg (660lbs) of marine hardware dangling above your head. Still, all went well and no-one lost any fingers. Spectacular.

And the follow up - engines roughly placed, the crane and it's £150 an hour bill sent on it's way. Now to work out how to move them a foot either way.....

Ta-da! Yes, I'm aware that knot doesn't look very strong and health and safety likely wouldn't approve (it gets worse. I was sitting between these two engines, holding the lifting chain with my feet whilst unbolting and bolting on the new engine feet. Somehow, I still have all digits and toes. Time to buy a lottery ticket? Uh huh....) Anyway, engines now more-or-less aligned.

 

Next.... props. What a tale. In short, I bashed in the propshafts with a metal hammer, thus destroying the threads that the nut screws onto, that hold the prop in place. Still following? One nut was stuck on, one was off, and the one that was on disintegrated when hit with a blow torch. Balls. Bearing in mind this is T-minus one week to re-launch. Cue hurried run to the engine guys for new nuts to be ordered.... a few days pass (now at T-minus 72 hours to launch...)... the nuts are ordered!! Aaaargh. They then arrive the day before and didn't fit. The air was bluer than the boat beside me at this point. Anyway, the launch was scrubbed due to high winds and I headed off to eventually have the nuts re-threaded and re-tapped the propshafts for a similar thread. After that came the afternoon (and 20 drill bits) of drilling a hole through the nut, through the shaft then putting in a clevis pin to hold everything together. Clear as mud? I'll find another pic.

So with the launch scrubbed, what was I going to do for two weeks? PAINT! Now, some of you will know I can be a tad fussy and with the boat already going through iterations of white, black and grey, a new colour was needed. Thankfully the guy two boats over had a nice blue anti-foul, so off went a sample to the paint place and back came some test paint. This is it after a coat, some filler and some sanding.

And this is it after coats 1 & 2.

  

Before the smart-asses jump in (you know who you are......), yes, I couldn't get that spot under the anchor and yes, I'll do it in the water... haha. Anyway, this is yesterday - re-launch day - with the token "taken for size comparison" photo.

And another... here you see the magnitude of the disas... I mean, experience that has been rebuilding this boat.

A new entrance hatch was also required, courtesy of the fabulous English summer and it's unrelenting rain. With the molds made, it was time to chop up the mat....

And glass....

Trimming and paint to follow.

Anyway, with all that done, time to put it back in the water. Hi-ho, hi-ho, off to the launch ramp we go....

And big boat, meet little boat. I know, I know, they match in colour (the speed boat will be changed over the summer) but for now, all is back to normal.

(On that note, did I mention about the little boat? Maybe not. I've always had RIBs and they always go flat on me, so it was time to add a bit of James Bond into my life and find a speed boat that could be put on davits on the back end of the mothership. Much ebay'ing in Australia later - bingo - one for sale in Norfolk. 48 hours after touching down in ol' Blighty, it was off and up to collect and bring it back - a thousand thank you's again Jax! - then get it in the water and do some... testing. Hahaha. The outboard needs a bit of work and there's new paint, a windscreen, etc but essentially, it's a 10 ft unsinkable speed boat. The crack up? A chap walked past and after looking at it, commented on what a HUGE project it'd be to repaint and clean up. Perspective, I guess.....)

'til the next rainy Friday morning when I have more to add....

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So some of you will know the story, but for the benefit of everyone, let's go back to the start.

Having allowed sailing to wreck my life a few years back, it became apparent that this was where I wanted to be and no amount of bricks and mortar were going to suffice. Wreck my life, you ask? In jest and a manner of speaking, yes. I was quite content grinding out the 8-6, six days a week, swanning around London and enjoying what life in the City has to offer UNTIL I followed a friend on a boat shopping expedition to Florida. Through a series of events, I found myself the owner of a gorgeous sloop (S/V Voyager) that proceeded to carry captain and crew throughout the Florida Keys and Bahamas for half a year, highlighting the freedom and joys of living under sail. Idyllic, you say? Indeed. Now try returning back to that 8-6, 6 days a week job.....

... and that, dear reader, is how sailing wrecked my life.

Attempt at doom and gloom aside, Voyager was sold (whilst still in her Bahamian Hurricane Hole location, via the internet, to a buyer I never met) and the quest was on for a new boat to really see the world. She had to be more spacious, more livable and have the ability to take captain and crew around the world. Cue what became known as the Bellissima years.

Bellissima was a tired 43ft steel schooner, once a custom one-off build who'd travelled far and wide, and now sat derelict in a southern England boat yard. She was rough but had potential - it was just going to take some hard grind to get her back in the water. Photos tell a thousand words (see: The Bellissima Years section), but in effect:

- The boat was gutted completely
- New deck and wheelhouse welded on
- New wiring, plumbing and interior
- New rigging
- New paint

Now, that may not seem like quite the to-do list but almost three years, one court case, one magazine article, three boat cars, one relationship and tens of thousands of ££ later, the clock is (finally) ticking down to departure.

The plan is listed in (funnily enough) The Plan section, but going forward I'll be posting up where as & when I can, covering the final parts of the build, the results of this season of testing, then preparations for heading off.

Enjoy!

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