Why change your impeller every year

Simple...

Thanks to Stuart, the king of diesel engineers, for doing it properly.

The view from my office window last weekend...

Cold with a relentless north westerly blowing, driving the sea over the breakwater.

We work to get Annebella ready for another season

High winds expected

With gale force winds forecast for tonight and tomorrow, looks like the idle time to test the new Weatherflow anemometer gadget for my iphone.

That's all for 2018

That's all for 2018!

It's been a great season. We've been quite far and made some fantastic friends. See you all in 2019!

Secrets of the Walker Knotmaster!

Well some time last year, some complete nincompoop, who probably has no business going anywhere near any sailing vessel, managed to reverse Annabella over the trailing line linking the Walker Knotmaster register to the rotator - the first one being the bit with the dials and the latter the bit that goes in the water and goes around and is - or as in this case only partially - connected by string.

Fortunately it didn't stop the engine and one resourceful crew member was able to tempt it off the prop shaft later with a suitably long boat hook from a suitably floating pontoon. Always make it your business to keep at least one of the three around.

What should have been a winter job, to renew the line between connector was kicked along in the long grass until it became a summer job, and finally undertaken at the top of the season. Fortunately during that time the opportunity hd been taken to equip the boat with both a spare Knotmaster complete  and a couple of spare lines and rotators - all from the usual source of course.

There is not a lot of information on these devices available.

Which is partly because Messrs Walker of 38 Oxford Street in Birmingham were somewhat sparing in what they gave away. There is great mythology around them though, and the you can hear the clatter of pipes being set down by the bearded folklorists who explain the absolute important of the length of the line to calibration of the device.

... the brown paper label which is 33% of the known information 

So it turns out that we were in possession of approximately 33%  of all known Knotmaster documentation - which is shown above. Note the importance placed on the correct length of line - clearly important knowledge suitable only for several steps up the pay grade from them what does the line attaching. Thank you to some un-seen help from the dusty corners of a rather obscure forum - the other 66% of the known knotmaster instructions were literally pieced together.

It turns out that there are two settings for the knomaster - a 30' rode - if the register is less than 10' above the sea, and 60' if not. Also that the spare rode had been clearly passed through the hands of a different crowd at Oxford Street Birmingham, because it marked at 30' from the register connection. 

Now  apparently the only mystery that remained, was how to disassemble the nose cone ot the rotator. 

How the tight lipped author of the brown paper label would have laughed! it was prodded and poked, twisted and turned and threatened with a vice.

Finally it gave up it secrets - the nose cone is split into two and the forward end unscrews from the back counter clockwise - as the label says "(Left hand thread.)"

A left hand thread

At this point you are almost there - the final summit to surmount is that the line is much to big to easily thread through either the sinker weight  or the rotator nose cone. How this achieved at sea is not known - but achieved on land using adhesive tape, a piece of bent wire and some patience I will never have again.

There is nothing more to callibrate on it - it is what it is and the next step is to run it over a mile at low water  and see what it reads.

(Have a Knotmaster ? Have questions  about one or just want to get your hands on one of these little beauties ? Posta query below !)

Anabella is for sale

She's carried us around the four corners of Irish Sea, looked after us though thick and thin, hell and high water, never let us down and how do we repay her ?

Yes - Annabella is for sale 

In fairness we've looked after her, done a long ton of upgrades and shes a safe, clean boat that's properly ready to take a new crew on a new adventure.

Boatshed have all the details at

 https://northwales.boatshed.com/westerly_renown-boat-252452.html

or of course we can answer any questions here. Its genuinely a bit sad to write this, but there's the horizon and we just want to go a bit further over it...

Kirkcudbright - a run ashore

I feel sorry for Friday. 
Thursday was the hottest day in Kirkcudbright since 1893.
Friday was the hottest day since Thursday.

Kirkcudbright is a fine Scottish town with a strong tradition of the visual art and particularly painting, for which the artists colony was well known. Perfect to explore with our old art school chum.
Also turns out to have a number of very well appointed hostelries.

The kit bag scene again - how to manage the manifest

Well, this cruise took about 4 months to plan, and list up on list upon list.

We finally hit on a way of managing the last crucial stage of stockpiling and loading up all the stuff we'll need - and there is a surprising amount even for a short trip.

 Now it's all written on the inside of the door with dry wipe marker.
It is literally impossible to walk by and hasn't failed us so far.

Inside the Skerries lagoon

The Skerries lagoon is a special place - a haven from heavy weather and an oasis for seals, seabirds and the scientists that study them. Its a famously intimidating place to get into...

unless you happen to have the expert guidance of CM to help you, of course.
So many thanks for literally taking our sailing to a special place.

Back in the water !

Thankyou to everyine who worked so hard - and those that continue to do so:

We're back on our mooring as of 26 April !