Hands on safety training

We had a useful day at the Hamble School of Sailing a couple of Sundays ago, taking part in an Ocean Safety course. As well as lots of theory and discussion on how to deal with eventualities one would hope never to encounter, we got to fire distress flares and fire extinguishers. Useful stuff we hope never to need but another tick on the ‘things to do’ list.

 

 

Launch date!

Friday 13th passed without misshap and Maunie is now back in her natural environment; the engine started on the first push of the button and none of the new skin fittings leaked, which was good!

We launched just before high water at 11.00 and had to get a wiggle on to get down the river on a very low neap tide.

We're really pleased with the new colour scheme!

One Week to Launch

The countdown clock is ticking, so Easter weekend saw us removing Maunie's winter covers and refitting kit; a full-on four days! With a wash and polish, the dust and dirt accumulated in the yard has gone and Maunie is looking great.

We refitted the mainsail and book cover and fitted the new front boom cover that we made a couple of weeks ago.

We'll be back to Totnes on Friday to see if she still floats!

Long range communications at sea

When we bought Maunie she came with this SSB (single side band) radio as well as the normal VHF 2-way radio carried by most boats. The advantage of the SSB is that it uses medium and high frequencies which allow the radio waves to bounce off the ionosphere to deliver very long range - we've received transmissions of propaganda news from China - where the VHF only has a range of about 50 miles at most.

Because of this world-girdling range, the SSB requires a special Long Range Radio Certificate so Graham has just completed the course and has passed the exam. Over the summer we'll be practising with the radio and it'll be used for daily radio 'nets' during the ARC transatlantic. The radio allows multiple boats to listen at the same time and, of course, provides another safety channel whilst we're at sea; we'll carry a satellite phone, as well, which will enable us to share emails, photos and, of course, to keep the blog up to date..

Working through the pre-launch jobs

We plan to re-launch Maunie just after Easter so the focus is on a few important maintenance jobs that can only be done whilst she's out of the water.

We've decided to replace all the seacocks. These are the below-the-waterline fittings for the water intakes for the toilets, engine, generator and watermaker and the outlets from the sinks. Over time the bronze fittings can suffer something called de-zinctification in the salt water environment (particularly if there are stray electrical currents around) which can make them brittle - not a good thing! So this is a selection of the new fittings; it's not a cheap operation to replace them but provides very valuable peace of mind.

 

The other job was to polish the clever Brunton feathering propeller - we've tried a new coating called PellerClean which is supposed to prevent barnacles adhering to it. We probably won't have the boat out of the water for another 2 years so we just hope it works.

The list of jobs is slowly diminishing, thankfully, and we're really looking forward to Maunie being back in her natural environment.

Progess, of sorts, and the training begins

Dianne has just started a 9-day ship's medical course in the Hamble so that we can embark on our voyage with confidence and a full medical kit. As I write she's just completed day 2 (burn and breakages); at the end of day 4 the students get an assessment on the first aid element before they go on to the second, 5-day element of 'second aid'.

Meanwhile, I went down to Totnes on Saturday to try to resolve the stiffness in the steering system that began to be noticeable at the end of last season. Getting access to the bottom of the wheel pedestal and the gearbox below it involved climbing into the cockpit locker and taking apart the box that covers the central heating system. I'm really too tall for this kind of thing!

The downside of bigger boats is the amount of extra kit that gets fitted - lovely when it all works but another maintenance chore. In previous boats the cockpit locker was just that - a space to put ropes, fenders, and if you were lucky, a deflated dinghy. Maunie's locker has all sorts of plumbing for bilge pumps, toilets, sewage holding-tank and deck shower as well as the diesel blown-air heating system (which looks and sounds like a small jet engine!)and a vent fan which extracts stale air from the bilges:



I finally got to the root of the problem - removed the electronic autopilot motor and gearbox from the main steering gearbox and suddenly the wheel moved smoothly without a hint of friction. So the faulty autopilot has now been left with the local expert for repair. Whilst it was a tricky job to get the thing out, I'm pleased to have found the fault and am now planning a modification to the locker to allow better access in future.



The top of the rudder post after removing the autopilot motor. The grey round unit above is the steering gearbox.

Back home on Sunday the wonderful Sailrite sewing machine has been well used again - repairing the 'stackpack' cover for the mainsail and fitting a new zip to it. Over the years sunlight had rotted the stitching, though the materieal was still perfectly sound, so I had to replace quite a lot of seams but it should be good for another few years now. Another job ticked off the list, but lots still to do!

Signed up for the ARC 2012 - and a minor (?) problem

Well, we've finally bitten the bullet and announced that we're off on a big sailing adventure this Autumn. We're leaving work at the end of June and aim to sail off at the end of August. We've signed up to join the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers which leave the Canaries for St Lucia on the 24th November. All very exciting and slightly scary!

So the to-do list has reached epic and compelling proportions. Di is about to go off on a 9 day medical course and we're both doing an Ocean Safety course in April. Graham will go on a SSB radio course in July and we're looking at options for satellite phones, email access and so on.



Meanwhile, the boat work continues with routine maintenance to follow the repaint. Unfortunately, a check of the steering system has unearthed a problem with seized bolts and a binding bearing so the next trip down to Totnes will involve much swearing as I access the bottom of the wheel pedestal from the cockpit locker. The ideal boat engineer is 4' tall with 6' long arms; this is not me so I sense a struggle ahead!