Sailing to Ireland

We've completed a couple more, fairly major, boat jobs before heading off to remind ourselves that boats are for sailing, not just mending. The first was to replace the Lewmar hatch at the forward end of the pilothouse; after 21 years it had become pretty crazed through UV degradation of the Perspex.

The old hatch. Of course the new hatch had the mounting screw holes in different places than the old, just to add to the fun. But we can now see clearly through it.

The second, more complex job was to replace the holding tank for the aft heads (toilet) - the tank allows us to avoid pumping sewage into harbours or coastal water so we take it with us until we can pump it out at sea (or at a pump-out station in a marina). We first had problems with the original stainless steel tank in Martinique six years ago when we discovered it was leaking (not good!) and Graham wrestled it out to have a new base welded into it - the story of that hot and unpleasant job is here: https://maunieofardwall.blogspot.com/2013/01/sacrificial-anodes-bilge-ratting-and.html

Anyway. we knew this was only a temporary fix as the tank was pretty corroded at the top end as well so we've now replaced it with a custom-made tank made of HDPE polymer by a company called Tek-Tanks. Luckily for us, Duncan and Elisabeth on Quahog had already done the same job so we were able to order an identical tank. More serious bilge-ratting was involved but the new tank fits perfectly.

New vs old

A perfect fit, just needs the pipes fitting and the locker rebuilding

All done (a full day's work but at least no mosquitoes this time!) - a slightly different layout of the pipe positions required the bilge pump to be moved and a new hole drilled for the pump-out hose 

So now we can go and play for a little while! We thought we'd try for Ireland and, with a few days of cold but favourable NE winds forecast, we decided to travel to the Isles of Scilly first then do a long hop up to SE Ireland.

The 121nm, 17-hour overnight sail to Scilly from Dartmouth was fast and surprisingly bumpy with a lot of fishing vessels and cargo ships to avoid, so neither of us got much off-watch sleep. However a large pod of dolphins (whose squeaks we could hear through the hull) kept us entertained for a while. We were glad to reach Scilly and had a perfect, calm and sunny day there on Sunday to walk around the island of Bryher.

Approaching the northern side of Tresco - quite a sporting entrance with big waves and unfriendly rocks to concentrate the mind of the helmsman whilst the first mate focused on the plotter

On a mooring in New Grimsby Sound - Cromwell's Castle still guards the entrance

The left-over swell caused us to roll a bit so we deployed the 'flopper-stopper' anti-roll system

The beach on Bryher

Looking towards Tresco over New Grimsby Sound. Maunie is the furthest boat to the left

The entrance in much calmer conditions

Suitably recharged and rested, we were looking at weather windows to sail the 220nm up to Dingle. Monday's chart looked promising:

It looked as though we'd get a gentle start, with some motoring, then a nice wind-behind-us spinnaker run followed by quite a sporting arrival into SW Ireland so off we went and that's pretty much exactly what we got:

Sailing into the sunset. After 5 hours with the Parasailor we decided it was prudent to take it down just after midnight and this proved to be a good call as the wind increased in the early hours of Tuesday morning

Di updating the hourly log after lunch, warm inside the pilothouse while the increasing wind was pretty cold (hairstyle by Seasalt, courtesy of a large wave!)

Rounding Bull Rock and turning right to head up the west coast. The wind began to increase and the rain arrived.

The pilothouse is a good place in this kind of weather......

….. especially when you get big waves crashing over the bow!

We no longer have our expensive satellite phone on board so can't access emails or, more importantly, weather updates once we leave land. However we do have some very old technology which is still brilliantly useful: a system called Navtex. We can receive weather and safety updates broadcast by the coastguard from user-selected stations (we set up Niton in the Isle of Wight and Valentia in West Ireland); the system has a range of up to about 250 miles. Our receiver is very old-school as it prints, very slowly, the messages on thermal paper.

It was reassuring to have these twice-daily updates but they reminded us that we needed to keep our speed up to avoid stronger winds on Tuesday night. We had a couple of alternative ports of refuge in mind if things got very wild but we confident enough to carry on.

So, after 33 hours at sea we arrived into Dingle with the wind howling in the rigging - it felt very good to be securely moored up in the little, well-sheltered marina just before nightfall. However, we were delighted with the way the passage had gone, pretty much to plan, and how well Maunie had sailed. It's a credit to her design that, on arrival, we didn't run straight to the local pub but, instead, put the heating on, cooked a pasta supper and had a couple of glasses of red wine. We both slept solidly for 12 hours that night!

So today has been a recovery day - showers, boat-tidying, fish 'n' chips at the local pub and a little explore of town. As evening fell the wind has calmed and the sun made a brief appearance.

Sunset reflected on a fishing boat

Tomorrow will see us hitting a laundry and shopping for fresh provisions before we head out to explore some new anchorages along the coast. The weather forecast promises some sunshine but a return to unseasonable easterly winds which won't be too helpful as we try to sail back south and along the south coast. However we aren't rushing so we will spend a few days exploring the Kenmare River and Bantry Bay, both of which look really interesting and will, of course, be well sheltered in an easterly.

We will continue to update our location, with a few photos, on https://www.yit.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall

Twins (nearly)

We had a great trip back to Dartmouth, split over two days with an overnight stop on the River Yealm. Day 1's friendly12-15 knot SSW breeze had us sailing very easily and the highlight of the passage was a pod of about 20 dolphins joining us and playing in our bow wave for two and a half hours.

Today's trip was decidedly more bouncy as the wind increased to 20 knots and the sea was a confused surfaces of breaking waves in all directions. A bit uncomfortable for the crew but Maunie took it in her stride. We returned to our mooring to meet up with friends Duncan and Elisabeth who have Quahog, another Vancouver 38P built immediately after Maunie; they are on a shake-down cruise after a lot of hard work on the boat so we organised a mooring share with them. With only 13 V38P's ever built, seeing two together is a rarity and we are looking forward to comparing notes over drinks on Maunie and supper on Quahog this evening.

Celebrating with Sir Robin

We had lovely calm and sunny conditions for a couple of nights at anchor off St Mawes, at the entrance to the Fal estuary. A pretty but touristy town, it was busy over the Easter weekend.

Maunie at St Mawes

A traditional pilot cutter from the Isles of Scilly

We then moved over to anchor at Falmouth. It was quite a day, yesterday, to be part of the 50 year celebrations of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's arrival in Falmouth, having become the first person to circumnavigate the globe, solo and non-stop. His 32ft wooden ketch Suhaili, which he and two friends built in India, has been beautifully restored and he sailed her, accompanied by a fleet of over 40 boats, across the finish line at precisely 15.24 (the time he crossed it in 1969). 

We joined the flotilla so here are some photos:

Lively Lady (built in 1948 and sailed around the world by Sir Alec Rose in 1968 - he stopped in Australia and New Zealand) and Suhaili, moored at the Falmouth Yacht Haven

Sir Robin unveils bronze casts of his footprints, showing his departure and arrival dates

Sir Robin and a fine yacht in the background

Suhaili in very fine condition

Setting out to re-enact the race finish

Some of the fleet, including HMS Mersey

Following Suhaili and Lively Lady towards the finish line. Luckily there was no wind!

Heading back to Falmouth

We are now anchored up river and are planning to head back towards Dartmouth. The period of sunny settled weather will change tomorrow so we'll get favourable SW winds but rain too.

New pipe, clean bottom, let's go sailing

Usual trends of English Easter weekends, suffering gales and driving rain, have been confounded this year, we're glad to report, so we've taken full advantage of settled, sunny weather to sail west to Falmouth. Of course, this being a sailing trip, the good stuff has to be paid for in advance, so we spent a couple of hard days on maintenance first.

The initial job, to simply reinstall the refurbished heater, turned out to be more complicated, naturally. First, the multi-pin electrical connector socket had suffered terminal corrosion so we had to fit a new wiring loom to the thermostatic switch (Level 3 Bilge Ratting challenge) and then, when we fired up the heater, we could smell fumes coming into the cabin along with the warm air. The 21 year-old exhaust pipe was clearly shot, so new components were ordered and a Level 5 Bilge Ratting challenge (Level 5 is the highest) eventually had the old pipe out and a new one installed.

The old, sorry-looking pipe

One of several holes in the stainless steel inner pipe

The next day's job was to put Maunie onto the Dartmouth scrubbing grid to clean her bottom of 8 months' of accumulated slime and weed. Unfortunately, we were told that the electricity supply (vital for our pressure washer) wasn't working and so we (briefly) considered a quick-lift for a pressure wash at the local marina until they informed us of the price - £368!! So, with a bit of planning, we used two hose pipes on the grid, one feeding the pressure washer and the other providing a supply of cooling water to Maunie's on-board diesel generator. Perfect and very satisfying.

Half-way through the clean. Maunie's Copper Coat antifouling is wearing thin after 8 years of great service so we'll add new coats later this year

We were very lucky with the weather - warm sunshine and a gentle breeze

Hard work done, we could go sailing. Lovely. A nice 12-15 knot Easterly allowed us to fly the Parasailor for about half of the 64nm passage to Falmouth and the trip was enlivened by a couple of close encounters.

Heading towards Start Point

Not the usual sailing vessel to be seen on this coast!

The Dar Mlodziezy is a Polish sail training ship, built in Gdansk in 1982. 357ft long, she has a crew of 40 and takes up to 180 trainees

The Eddystone Light. These isolated rocks poke up out of deep water some 15 miles south of Plymouth harbour and accounted for many shipwrecks until the lighthouse was established. The first light was a wooden structure built in 1698 by Henry Winstanley, a shipowner who had lost two vessels on the reef. It was washed away in a storm five years later.

The current lighthouse was built in 1882 after the rock on which the earlier Smeaton's tower (1760) started to crack. Smeaton's granite tower was dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe.

So, after a very relaxed and interesting passage, we anchored off St Mawes at 17.30 on Good Friday and have had a completely calm night. 

Dawn at St Mawes

We'll spend a few days around the Fal and are looking forward to catching up with friends and seeing Sir Robin Knox-Johnston arriving in Suhaili, the wooden yacht in which he won the first Golden Globe single-handed around the world race 50 years ago. He's planning to cross the finish line again on Monday, exactly 50 years to the minute since his triumphant arrival.

Blowing the cobwebs away

It's been really wet and windy for the last couple of weeks but we saw an opportunity and took a couple of days off work to head down to Dartmouth on Wednesday evening. Thursday dawned bright and breezy, though only about 7 degrees, so we headed out for a couple of hours of entertaining sailing. 

The inshore forecast gave W to NW F6-7, Gale 8 later, so, unsurprisingly, we were the only boat out! The National Coastwatch Institute volunteers, based in a WW2 gun battery observation post at Froward Point to the east of the Dart entrance, were reassured when we called them on the radio to tell them that we were out for a play rather than setting off on a passage.

Looking back toward the Dart Estuary. Froward Point is next to the right of the photo

There may be trouble ahead. A rain squall, bringing lots of wind, approaches us from Start Point

Reaching out towards the sun

Beating back in to Dartmouth, lee rail submerged

Maunie is temporarily in residence on a pontoon in the river, rather than on her normal mooring, which allows us the benefit of electricity to run a dehumidifier when we leave her - it make a huge difference as she feels completely dry and free of the dreaded mildew.

The blue made-to-measure cover completely encloses the cockpit to help keep Maunie snug

The ability to run a fan heater comes in handy when we're aboard, particularly as the diesel central heating system has packed up. Graham had a fun couple of hours in the cockpit locker removing the heater (which resembles a mini jet engine - the combustion fumes are exhausted overboard and heated air is ducted around the boat) and we took it ashore for a full clean and service.

It looks as though we'll have much more time on Maunie than we thought this year. Graham's job hasn't worked out as he'd hoped, sadly, and so he's decided that sanity and enjoyment of life should prevail. This means we'll get the opportunity to do a refit of Maunie this summer as well as getting some decent UK and Ireland cruising. We'll update the blog as we go.

Happy New Year!

This time, 12 months ago, we'd successfully fended-off the hoards of little motor boats with no anchoring skills, the wind had calmed and we were settled in prime position alongside the Sydney Opera House to watch the best fireworks in the world. There's a link to photos and story here

Things are very different a year later. Our lovely Maunie is afloat in another beautiful place but she has her winter coat on.

We've moved her to a temporary winter pontoon on the Kingswear side of the River Dart - it still needs the dinghy to access it but comes with an electricity supply so we have a dehumidifier plugged in to combat the damp air. Shame we can't find a plug-in device to fight the green algae that's creeping across the rainwater soaked decks - a scrubbing brush and buckets of seawater have to be manually deployed.

We've had a couple of nights aboard this week and were very glad of the electricity supply to power a fan heater as our Eberspacher diesel hot-air central heating decided it wouldn't play ball. It provided another opportunity for Graham to display his contortionist skills as he climbed into the cockpit locker to disassemble various bits of woodwork to access the heater and replace some corroded wiring connectors. After a couple of hours work the heater burst into life, thankfully.

Sadly, there was absolutely no wind so ideas of a sail were thwarted and we both were left feeling a tad deflated that we weren't enjoying the bright warm sunshine of Australia. However the evening gloom (it gets dark by about 4.45pm at the moment) was lifted by a whistle and a strange glow on the Kingswear shoreline.

This is the new Big Idea (and an inspired one) of the Dartmouth Steam Railway - the 'Train of Lights'. Engine and carriages are draped in multi-coloured LED lights and the effect is lovely to see. We dinghied ashore to see (and hear) it close-up:

Here's the professional video of the train - click here

We're now back home, celebrating Di's birthday and preparing for a big (1920's-themed) party at the Hood Arms in the village this evening. We're on a table of 18 so it should be a great evening.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

The Beating Keatings

After a pretty hectic summer, getting the hang of both working long hours and sorting house and garden, we finally took this week off and planned for some cruising aboard Maunie. In particular, we'd hoped to make the 95 nm, due south, crossing of the Channel to Treguier in Brittany. The idea was to meet up with Adam & Cindi from Bravo while they were visiting the Boreal yard to see their new boat take shape.

Of course, November isn't exactly the best month for crossing the Channel and we had brisk SW and southerly winds all week which whipped up a big, short-wavelength swell. Much as Maunie is well equipped to tackle anything, we didn't feel that being the Beating Keatings for 18 hours or so would be much fun! 

Still it was good to be living aboard again, even if only for a few days, and our old adverse-weather trick of scooting up river for a pub lunch at the Ferryboat Inn in Dittisham didn't disappoint. We even had an amazing fly-past on the way back - we heard the unmistakable 'wop-wop-wop' of a Chinook helicopter which appeared at only 100 ft above the water.

Southerly winds combined with strong ebb tides can result in mildly uncomfortable waves at our mid-river mooring so we took advantage of the cheaper winter berthing rates for two nights in Darthaven marina. This allowed us to plug in to shore power for a fan heater to keep things warm below decks and made the walk to the excellent Steam Packet Inn all too easy.

We did get a cracking day-sail in blustery conditions and lumpy seas; strangely we were the only yacht out! We were keen to test out our new addition; yes, we've just spent another dollop of money on the boat (no surprise there, then) but, so far, it feels like a good decision.

After our last boat, a Vancouver 34, the only downside of moving to Maunie, from a pure sailing perspective, has been the steering. The 34 had a rudder whose pivot point is set back a few inches from the leading edge to give it some 'balance'. This, combined with the long keel, gave the boat a very easy feel on the helm and superb directional stability.

The 38 has a full length skeg supporting its leading edge, so the huge rudder has no such balance and the helm can be a tad heavy at times. The relatively small 30" wheel doesn't help with leverage (and makes it hard to reach when helming from the side of the cockpit) but access to the starboard cockpit locker wouldn't allow a bigger version. However, for a while we've been eyeing the clever but expensive Lewmar folding wheels so we finally made the decision to buy one.

During our first trial sail, we were delighted with the difference that a 40" wheel made to the sailing experience. 

Graham, happy to be able to steer from the windward side of the cockpit

Di enjoying the conditions

The wheel folded to allow access to the locker

Our week ended up being just a few days aboard so we left, rather frustrated not to have been able to get to France and remembering the challenges of winter sailing in Britain. At the beginning of December we'll move Maunie onto a temporary pontoon mooring for four months - it comes with the luxury of electricity so we'll be able to keep a dehumidifier on board and have a heater running when we're there.Just as well, we think, if the media reports of a very harsh winter are to be believed.

Meanwhile the current weather is amazingly mild for the time of year and, returning home, the mower came out to deal with the still-growing lawn and the dead leaves scattered over it.

Mow-vember!