Quite an apt post title, given the events of the past 24 hours. You see, after a long 24 hours of sailing, my brain is absolutely dead.

I digress. Bank holiday weekend here in the UK (we get Monday off) and whilst these are normally known for a lack of sunshine and mass amounts of rain, sunshine was predicted instead. We picked up the afternoon tide yesterday (Saturday), left Chichester Harbour and made our way over to the Hamble, via Southampton Water. Now, this whole shebang almost didn't happen as the starboard engine (the one & same that flooded with seawater when it was 2 hours old) decided to spring up an oil leak, but we pressed on and with the tide and most of the sail up, made good time.

The Hamble is a loooooooong river that comes off Southampton Water and having by now dodged a number of coasters and oil tankers, it was time to moor up on a visitor's pontoon and hit the pub.

Cue this morning. Time to go. This would be Lauren's and my first trip out in a long time just by ourselves (we've generally taken crew, given it's an untested boat) so first thing this morn, off we set.

Same issue with the starboard engine and the wind was dead on the nose, so motoring only, but we still made good time and having arrived in Chichester Harbour again, dropped the hook for a bit of anchoring practice before coming back into the marina. 

Which is where we sit, now in glorious sunshine.

Now, the engines. The port one is 26hrs old and has a very, very small leak at the sump gasket (very, very small). The starboard one however has what appears to be the same leak all the way around the sump gasket, plus the oil filter spun off quite easily in my hand. Not good. Also, the starboard engine runs at 105psi when first starting (drops to 80psi after a while) and also runs 20C hotter. I'm emailing the manufacturer now and will see what they say......

Continue reading

Has it really been almost a month since I last updated the blog? How time flies.

So where are we at. After the fun & games of our last departure from the dock, we laid up the boat for a couple of weeks while we undertook our annual trip back to Australia to visit family and friends.

Back down to the boat this past weekend then to see the state of things. A few issues seem to have come about:

- A drip around the mast needs investigating (and likely another mast base. And more sikaflex. And more creeping crack cure).

- One of the Rule auto-bilge pumps has finally failed after two years - these are the ones that spin up every couple of minutes to check for water then power down if none is present. To be quite honest, having five of these chirp away all night has been a bit of a pain these past couple of years but due to the cost (£60 each), I've been loathe just to throw them out. Anyways, now this one's failed I'll refit a standard bilge pump & float switch, and await the failure of the other four......

- The Dickinson is proving to be a right pain to wire in the variable speed fan switch. The original switch was wired for 24V so after chopping out the resistor, I thought I had it wired in for 12V. Nope. Either off or on at full speed. Next I wired in an aftermarket variable speed controller. Still nothing. How hard can it be right? Any thoughts would of course be most appreciated.

Anyways, that's about it for the moment. We headed out to the Beaulieu Boat Jumble yesterday and managed to pick up a few bits & bobs (nearly all parts now purchased for the external helm addition), even if it was an utter mudbath....

 
The to-do and to-buy lists are shrinking dramatically, and this coming weekend we're off on a 50-nm round trip to another marina. If the weather stays from the north, it should be a cracker. Updates to follow.

n

Continue reading

So.... another weekend has passed and what's the update, I hear you asking?

Well, this is us at anchor:

But I'm skipping ahead here. We had 18-24kts SE predicted for Saturday so out we went on the high tide (about 09:30) and got some motorsailing in up and down Chichester Hbr. After a brief visit to one of the local marinas to drop off crew and fuel up, we figured a nice blast outside of the harbour would work a treat. Unfortunately though, a combination of wind against tide meant we had a choppy blast out to West Pole at 6kts, followed by a rather slooooooooow return trip back into the harbour at 1.5kts.

After that, and a subsequent six failed attempts to pick up a mooring ball, it was time for some impromptu anchor practice before eeking ourselves in at 21:00 in pitch black, back to the marina.

Now, we knew we were a bit early coming in but that beer was waiting to be opened, so we powered through the mud a wee bit (well, we draw 6ft and the depth was 4ft, so I'll let you work out how much mud we eeked through......) then it was back tied up for a well deserved night's sleep.

Sounds like a great day, right? Frankly, I could've sold the boat when we were sat at anchor. It had been a terribly trying day of testing the new rigging setup, pounding through the chop, the palava of wanting to be moored up and instead sitting on edge for a few hours wondering if the anchor had bitten, and of course coming back through the mooring field channel in the dark. Add to that we're still breaking in what is effectively a new & untested boat, and it was an incredibly exhausting day.

On reflection though, we learned two big lessons on Saturday:

- The weather was a tad breezy but more importantly was from the wrong direction. The prevailing SW puts us in the lee of the Isle of Wight, whereas SE means we're getting everything straight off the channel. Couple that with a fast flowing outgoing tide, and we should've known conditions would be trying.

- Mooring balls. Why faff trying to pick one up (six attempts and a lost boat hook later) when we anchored first time and sat comfortably on the hook for 5.5 hrs? We're going to be anchoring all around the world, so might as well get used to it now.

Anyways, it's not all doom and gloom. We took some great positives from the day out:

1.) We finally got out of Chichester Hbr! Result.
2.) Anchoring practice and successfully tested the manual windlass.
3.) Nothing broke inside the boat, even with all the heeling and pounding. Again, result.
4.) Whilst the Dickinson failed to light at anchor, we worked out how to sure-fire light it the next morning.
5.) The ol' rudder is heavy under power, but quite light when the rig is balanced.
6.) The engines did a great job against the fast running tide and recharged the battery bank quick smart. (Those of you who remember the shit-bag that was Voyager's engine will understand why I'm so happy about this point.) 
7.) We both got that bit more confidence having been out for the first time without assisting crew. It's going to take some time for us both to get our rhythm but that's what this summer's all about.

So there you have it. A tough, but overall successful first trip outside the harbour. We're off doing other things for a few weeks but will be back soon enough for more shenanigans...

n

Continue reading

"On an Ancient Wall near Cairo

where a dusty Pharoh blinks

Deeply graven is the message -

It is later than you think.

The clock of life is wound but once

And no man has the power

To tell just when the hands will stop

at late or early hour.

Now is all the time you own,

the past a Golden Link,

go cruising now my brother -

It is Later than you Think".

Continue reading