Musings of the evolution of boat design

This is the sort of post that would have appealed to my dad, Geoff. We miss him terribly but it's when were off cruising that we feel his loss the most; he used to love following our progress, would be watching the weather forecasts for us and would ask lots of thoughtful questions about our trips. Even when his regular sailing days were over (at the age of about 86!), he would spend happy times 'buying' a new boat - researching designs and comparing the pros and cons of yachts he'd seen advertised.

While we were in Roscoff, Maunie was moored next to a rather interesting boat with topsides finished in a rather fetching shade of pink. It was a 36ft RM1080, one of the latest designs from a French yard with a reputation for building light, fast cruiser / racers. The comparisons with the 38ft Maunie were interesting.

Lots of square edges and hard chines

The boat's full width comes right to the stern, making for a very wide cockpit and requiring two rudders

The rather boxy shape provides lots of volume in the cabins and saloon.

The bit you can't see, under the water. is a very flat bottom and the deep thin keel with a 'torpedo' bulb (its main weight) at its base.

The shape of the hull and the bulb keel makes the boat very stiff (it apparently doesn't heel more than about 15 degrees) and the flat underbody means that it will surf down waves. The downside is that it'll probably slam horribly when beating into waves.

The whole boat, without fuel or provisions, weighs in at only 5.5 tonnes and down below everything shows the designer's absolute focus on minimising weight. Even the hanging lockers (wardrobes) are made of fabric, with zipped doors, rather than wood or fibreglass.

Maunie's design is much more traditional - a deep v-shaped forefoot and a long deep keel means she cuts through waves with ease but definitely doesn't surf down them! Her widest point is pretty much at the middle of her length and she's designed to heel comfortably to 40 degrees (maybe 'comfortably' isn't the right word as far as her crew is concerned). 

Maunie's sloping bow and deep vee forefoot are great for slicing through waves

Reducing weight clearly came nowhere on her designer's list of priorities - Maunie tips the scales at about 11 tonnes, twice that of the RM!

The RM's mast is supported by two shrouds (wires)

Whereas Maunie's has five!

For the blue water voyages we've done, we certainly wouldn't consider a lightweight boat like the RM but it certainly is an interesting development in yacht design.

At the other end of the spectrum, this Canadian cruising boat came into the marina while we were there. It's a motorboat with occasional sail assistance but it was certainly eye catching:

To Roscoff (avoiding the ferries)

With high pressure moving across us, we didn't expect much in the way of sailing for the passage from Trebeurden to Roscoff but were delighted to find a 10-12 knot breeze. Ok, it was on the nose so we had to beat, but that was preferable to the alternative of burning diesel and we had a favourable tide to make our tacking angles look respectable.

 Roscoff is best known, of course, as a major ferry port and, until a few years ago, yachts were limited to the old, drying harbour. However a very well appointed marina has been built just south of the ferry terminal and it's accessible at all stages of the tide; you just have to be careful with the current that runs through it.

The old port at low tide - you have to lean your boat against the tyres as the tide recedes and dry out

The north entrance to the new marina, with the ferry terminal in the background. You can see the swirling current in the water

Looking south into the marina

The marina staff are super helpful and meet arriving boats in big inflatable RIBs with powerful engines. Their boats have big soft fenders on the bow so they can nudge boats against the current if required.

A walk into the old town took about 15 minutes and it's a very attractive place.

Eglise Notre-Dame de Croaz-Batz

The town was fairly touristy but we found a creperie whose clientele were mostly locals and had a very good lunch.

Galettes (savoury crepes) with local cider from a small jug, drunk from pottery cups

As ever we had an eye on the forecast. We had wanted to head further west out to Ile d'Ouessant (Ushant) but it was pretty clear that we'd then be faced with a lot of motoring to get back. Wednesday's forecast offered the last chance of a sailable westerly breeze so we decided that we'd head for Treguier.  More to follow.

A good Channel crossing and back to Brittany

 After our aborted night-time attempt, our second go at the 100nm passage from Dartmouth to Lezardrieux was a much more satisfactory affair. It wasn't all plain sailing of course - the first three hours were hard on the wind and in horrible, heavy rain but after that the skies cleared and the wind backed to a much more favourable angle. 

We were able to sail up most of the Trieux river in the fading light and completed the trip in almost exactly 15 hours. Here's a very short video of some of the highlights:

We moored up for a couple of nights on the mid-river pontoon in Lezardrieux, familiar territory for us which made it all very easy. The online 'Protocol' Customs system is still operating (in spite of the new fingerprint / face recognition system supposedly being in place for all non-EU visitors) so we were able to get our customs clearance emailed to us by the very efficient marina office even before we arrived.

With the winds now too calm for much sailing (this trip is beginning to challenge us, weather wise!) we decided to motor an hour up river and through a large lock into the little river port of Pontrieux where we spent a couple of nights. Here's a video of the trip on YouTube - click HERE: 

The visitors' pontoon in the river at Pontrieux

The village square and one of the few remaining C15th timbered houses

The return trip down river was easy, though the top of the mast looked terrifyingly close to the bottom of the suspension bridge as we passed through. We celebrated with a brilliant meal at the Auberge de Trieux, where we ate with Barbara and Steve last year.

We returned to a very calm mooring, ready to move west the following day.

The calm overnight conditions didn't suggest that we'd get much sailing the following morning but we rigged the spinnaker lines anyway and we motored out of the estuary.

Passing La Croix navigation tower

Lovely sailing with the Parasailor

The breeze gradually picked up from a gentle 8 knots to a very respectable 16 knots so we covered the 37nm in just over 5 hours to arrive at Trebeurden which has a large marina with a flap gate which only opens for about 2.5 hours either side of high tide. We picked up a mooring to wait a couple of hours for the tide to rise and made our way in. The marina was fine but the town didn't have much going for it so we just stayed for one night.

The marina at high tide. At low tide all of the water in the foreground disappears and the marina retains its water behind a wall and the flap gate (which can just be seen on the right, with its red and green markers).

Our departure the following morning looked a bit in peril as we were greeted by thick fog and less than 100m of visibility. We crept out of the marina just before the flap gate shut and picked up a mooring just outside for a second coffee to wait for the visibility to clear. Thankfully we only had an hour to wait and enjoyed a good beat to windward to the big marina in the ferry port of Roscoff. More to follow!

It's involved a lot of waiting but we're exploring again

 The trouble with normal life is that it all too easily gets in the way of sailing, so we blocked out the month of June to go off cruising. The problem was that the weather gods didn't get the memo.

After a couple of weeks of the hottest May on record, the start of June saw a succession of very unseasonable gales so our plans to get across to Brittany were suddenly put on hold. We did try an overnight passage on the first Thursday of the month, in between two weather systems but sea state in the English Channel, left over from days of strong winds, was pretty horrible and we turned back after a couple of hours.

Back in Dartmouth we saw the next gale approaching on the Saturday but, in the meantime had managed to negotiate a last-minute and unplanned haul-out at Darthaven Marina. Our Thursday night foray had told us that Maunie just felt slow and we'd realised that in only two months afloat she'd gained a tenacious coating of green weed on her hull.

Talking to the yard guys, they said everyone has been reporting really back weed fouling this season and it seems that CopperCoat just doesn't cope with it. I'd tried scrubbing and scraping as much as I could reach from the dinghy but the stuff really didn't want to release its grip. Paul, the man with the super-powerful jet washer did a meticulous job and too about 90 minutes to get the hull clean.

Back afloat, with an extra knot of speed, we fled the impending gale to pick up a mooring in Dittisham. Even there, the boat heeled and tugged at the mooring in the gusts so we didn't get the best night's sleep but it was reassuring to have our anti-chafe mooring line rigged, with a spare added for good measure,

Our mooring line has a section of chain spliced into the middle to stop the metal ring of the mooring from chafing through the rope.

We finally got away the following Tuesday - more photos and stories to follow....

It's the Dilithium Crystals, Cap'n! (Chief Engineer Montgomery Scot, USS Enterprise)

Maunie is safely back in the water after a relatively early (24th March) relaunch. We stayed for a couple of nights at the lovely Bull Inn in Totnes to allow us to remove covers, put sails on and finish lots of relatively minor but nonetheless time-consuming pre-launch jobs. Thankfully we had warmish sunshine for it all.

Folding up one of three sections of winter cover

The day before launching and we were alongside another Vancouver 38 called Nimbus

Nimbus is a V38 Classic, rather than a Pilothouse, one of only three built. The hull is identical to Maunie's but the deck and cabin layout are very different

Nimbus launched immediately ahead of us and, as always, the team at Baltic Wharf Boatyard did an excellent job and had 3 boats launched in quick succession within an hour.

 

The spell of kind weather suddenly turned cold, wet and windy as we motored down to the mooring so we came home for a couple of days to let the gale blow through and then returned for a long weekend to celebrate Graham's birthday (with a lovely lunch at Andria in Dartmouth), finish off a few jobs and complete a shakedown sail to test all the systems.

The time aboard gave us the chance to test the new replacement for the old diesel generator that we removed earlier in the winter. Graham had spent a lot of time over the past few months researching some relatively new bits of kit, often known as portable power stations, that have become increasingly popular for boat, caravan and campervan users. They are small but powerful LiFePO4 lithium batteries with a built in inverter to deliver 230v AC. He eventually chose a Jackery Explorer 3000v2 unit as it seemed to offer the highest storage and output capacity in the smallest size. There were a number of 'January Sale' offers so we took advantage of a substantial discount and ordered a unit that came bundled with two, folding 100W solar panels.

The unit is smaller and about a third of the weight of the old diesel generator but will deliver up to 3600W of AC power (enough for electric kettle, induction hob, microwave and hairdryer) and holds up to 3070kWh of energy. We built a wooden frame to secure it in place and spent some happy(?) time sorting the electrical connections to supply power to the boat's 230v AC circuits and a 12v supply from the boat to allow us to recharge it when the engine is running.

The Jackery installed, with the folding solar panels strapped to the ceiling of the locker above it and new storage boxes in the void behind. The white plug and cable supplies AC power to the boat and the orange cable supplies 12v power to recharge the Jackery.

Sunshine over the (otherwise bitterly cold) weekend allowed us to set up the solar panels, pointed directly at the sun, and we were impressed with the power they supplied (all monitored by a phone app, of course). 

Peak output from the panels actually exceeded their stated capacity. They produced more than the boat's fixed solar panels (which have a theoretic combined capacity of 380W but can't be pointed directly at the sun).

With the experience of just a few days aboard, we think this is going to be a great addition to the boat - we'll certainly save on expensive bottled gas to heat water and make tea and the ability to run power tools and wet/dry vacuum cleaner will be very handy. 

Many people are going the whole hog and replacing their lead-acid batteries with Lithium ones but it's a substantial and pricey undertaking as this requires a new charger / inverter and a new controller for the engine alternator charging system so isn't really a viable DIY job. Having only replaced Maunie's main batteries relatively recently this wasn't something that appealed so the Jackery solution feels like a good one for us. There's a useful side benefit in that we'll bring the unit home during the winter so we'll have a emergency supply in case of power cuts.

Anyway, once we'd got over the novelty of all this, it was time for a cracking sail on Monday. A cold and gusty NW'ly made for some fast sailing in relatively flat water so it was perfect for checking that everything worked and that we could remember how to sail!

Here's hoping for a great sailing season ahead!

Winter works

We hauled Maunie out in November so she's happily sheltered from several winter storms (and January's seemingly relentless rain) under her winter covers at Baltic Wharf in Totnes. We took the decision to stay in a holiday cottage for 5 nights immediately following the lift-out so were able to get most of the routine maintenance jobs, plus a couple of one-offs, ticked off early.

Of course, we discovered a couple of unexpected issues but we're pretty happy with progress and will launch early, in late March, in the hope of better spring weather.

The routine jobs included:

• Engine service, with oil and filter changes
• Sails removed and cleaned at home
• Cockpit cover removed, cleaned and re-proofed (with a few minor repairs)
• Seat covers cleaned
• Seacocks serviced
• Lockers emptied and deep cleaned

Meanwhile the more serious one-off projects have taken more time and effort. First on the list was to remove the 28 year-old diesel generator; it was a handy piece of kit but, was being used for less than 10 hours per season now that we aren't doing long ocean passages, so it didn't really justify the annual maintenance costs. These machines need regular use and ours had become less keen to run when requested. The Farymann diesel engine at its heart is no longer in production and spare parts are getting hard to find, so we took the big decision and spent more than a few hours removing it, plus all the associated fuel lines, pumps and filters, plus a lot of electrical cables.

Stage 1 - the generator is man-handled out from its locker under the pilothouse seating

The yard crew and their huge crane were called in for the next bit!

 

We've gained a large and very handy storage space (now cleaned and repainted) and Maunie is about 100kg lighter and significantly less complicated

We were delighted to be able to sell the generator on a 'spares or repair' basis to a chap who intends to renovate it and install it into his canal boat.

Next on the list was to finish the upgrade of the cabin sole (floor) that we started about 3 years ago. We'd completed the addition of new laminate to all of the floors except in the pilothouse so its seven floor panels were brought home for treatment.

Gluing in progress

The completed panels, trimmed and ready to go back aboard

The finished result - our combined OCD traits made it imperative that the stripes are perfectly lined up from bow to stern

Having sorted the floor, we couldn't ignore the ceiling any longer. The headlining panels in the pilothouse were in dire need of an upgrade as the old upholstery material had badly degraded over its 28 year life. We found a local business who would fit new headlining material but we saved some substantial cost by removing the old stuff ourselves and then refitting the panels. It turned out to be a bigger job than we expected, naturally, but we are very happy with the results.

Of course, Graham has done a short video of the project - click HERE

Finally (we fervently hope!) the cause of the vibrations from the propeller that were becoming increasingly hard to ignore was identified. The cutless bearing in the p-bracket directly ahead of the prop was worn so this meant removing the prop, releasing the coupling at the back of the gearbox and sliding the prop shaft out. Thankfully the old bearing came out without too much of a battle and we brought the prop and shaft back home for servicing, polishing and, for the prop, the application of antifouling paint. We've yet to find a product that works perfectly on propellers and avoiding barnacle growth (which really reduces their efficiency) is vital - so we are now trying a product called Velox. Time will tell if it lives up to its reputation.

Anyway, the drivetrain is now all back in place, with new gland packing seals to keep the water out, so we are edging ever closer to being relaunch-ready.