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

...at last, the new cockpit table

Now, where's the ice and the lemon...

Hoorah!

...the lid of the ice box is fixed !

22 December at last!

Like sailors everywhere, the heart is cheered by passing the winter solstice, when the sun declination reaches its southerly maxium and begins to decrease.

Hurrah - the days are getting longer!

One more weather post

Wow, just look at that low in the bottom right corner of next Sunday's chart ....

















....not that we're going anywhere near there. It will be interesting to see how it fills as if crosses the Atlantic. (I'll be interested anyway)

Tracking the sailing for 24 and 25 September - Saturday

Good call then...

On the other hand, next weekend is looking more of a proposition...

Pwllheli

 Splendid photo of a gloriroius evening on the Sunday. Thanks to MS for use of his photos, of which more anon, and for pointing out to me that this is the approach to Pwllheli not Porthmadog.That's me paying attention!

Gasp as we enter the technological age!

On the passage back to Pwllheli from Arklow the wind dropped and the sea became flat. So we decided it was time to try out the autopilot.

Look at the awe on the faces of the crew ! These simple fellows have never seen anything as advanced!
*
The continuous, minor adjustments made the autopilot straightened our course and we were back on the berth more than an hour earleir than expected.

Where to eat in Arklow...

We recommend it...

Slipways of the World #5 - Pwllheli Marina

Beware of speed boats and jet ski drivers which launch from here into a constricted basin, then roar off in a fit of excitement, without even thinking of the other water users. nearby..
Be especially careful at the fuel berth, which is in the path of destruction.

Awaiting Flaking

On Monday I took off our large genoa - also known as the "Trireme Sail", on account of its ability to propel us forward at close to ramming speed whilst almost totally obscuring any poor unfortunate water users who happen to be in its lee. As I had thoughtfully prepared the slot in the foil with silicon spray when the sail was bent on, it whistled down and ended up in large heap around my feet.  I was only a small way successful in flaking it into the sail bag, which then filled the back seat of the car. Luckily a kindly friend allowed me some early morning access to one of the community rooms at nearby St Mary's to sort it out properly.

The 'Trireme' sail laid out flat, awaiting proper packing

Its much bigger on the ground than even I had expected and I've been sailing the darned thing for 3 years ! Comforting though it is to have a sail which can perform so well - and it is jolly well cut - it has an impressive ability to get us into trouble also.

Before I left the boat, I replaced the sail with our number one jib. I was equally surprised by how small this now seemed. The idea was that it would be easier to handle shorthanded but am now a bit concerned that it will be too small - I wonder if I sold the wrong sail when I had a clear out...

Keep microbeads out of the ocean

If you're angry about the ubiquitous and utterly useless microbeads that are flowing into our oceans you may like to sign the petition organised by the  campaigning organisation Greenpeace at
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/ban-microbeads?source=fp&subsource=fp33secsmicrobeadsvid1
Why not sign up ?

Back in the water

Back in the water and off for a super day's sailing last Sunday:

Consistent F4 westerly all day brightening in the afternoon.
****
Michael joined Annabella for the day and is definately the coolest helm we've had so far...

Following on from a series of setbacks this was a great return to form and we're looking forward to many more.

C for Charlie...

Unfortunately the bad weather had prevented us from visiting Annabella for a few weeks, but it had given us chance to get hold of code flag Charlie. The first workable weekend of the year has give us chance to fly it from the messenger pennant, in solidarity with the action of members of the French sailing community - see the previous post below.
***
Unfortunately it became sadly appropriate as events unfolded and the lunacy continued...

Sea Survival - A Manual

The first mate also read 'Adrift' (see previous post) with an interest which I find slightly uncomfortable, as there is an unhealthy interest in disaster and deprivation at sea. Steve Callahan refers a number of times to Dougal Robertson's
book 'Sea Survival'. This was unavailable for many years, and certainly out of print, but was a welcome Christmas present from the first mate.
Robertson - now dead - had been the skipper of the sailing boat 'Lucette' with whcih he was attempting a circumnavigation with his familly, when it was lost in the western part of the pacific in 1972. They spent 38 days in primative survival craft and much of the manual is informed by this gri first hand experience. 
Although some (much) of the content has now been superseded by more modern information, taken overall it's themes are still very valid  and would be valuable addition to the grab bag.
Regrettably the two 'survival charts' have become disconnected, but the hunt goes on!

My special sail batten tool

This

This is my new sail batten tool. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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Many thanks to Jonathan at JKA Sailmakers for not only making this for me but also providing an ad-hoc short course on how to properly insert (and remove) sail batten to pocket and fix with velcro.

Its the end of the season!

Just one more sailable weekend before Annabella comes out of the water !

Thorpeness - in Suffolk.

This last week or so saw the weather turn really wintery - and I woke up in the forepeak last Sunday morning  really quite cold.  We had a few days off in Suffolk (without the boat). Look at those cloud formations - brrrgh.
It has been a long summer and a good season. In some ways not all our objectives have been met - but we're reacxhing the end better sailors and with a better boat, and we've had some good times, so well satisfied.
We've reached some conclusions about how to improve the boat - so watch out for our posts over the winter!

How to run a chandlery #101

Isn't it interesting how different people take to working in a chandlery ? Even when I'm not sailing, given the opportunity I'll have a good nose around whenever I see a chandlery that's new to me. Mostly people are friendly and helfpul. It woudl be nice to think that this is because they're just super cool, but I expect that they have already worked out that anybody who owns a boat will need to buy expensive boat stuff at fairly regular intervals.

Not so everywhere though. Yesterday, I was passing through one of those small towns on the south coast which likes to think of itself as the 'home of sailing', and called in to one of those chandleries that makes a big thing of advertising on the internet. After a while, no-one helped me.

Some time passed, and then they didn't help me again

At last I was appraached by a chinless wonder who I can only assume was head of public relations:

CW  "Can I help you ?"
Me "Yes, I need three things"
CW "Okay"
Me - working from the cheapest up - "Firstly, I need a pair of stainless hasp and staples"
CW - pulls a face and makes a sort of grunt, so I expect that means they don't have any.
Me "Okay 2nd, I need a rigging gauge"
CW "Do you know what kind of rigging gauge you need - they're all different ..."
This is partially true - 2 different size upto 4mm or 5mm and up 
CW "What kind of boat is it?"
Not - what type of lovely craft are you accustomed to waft around on, Sir ?
Me " a Renown"  
CW "Never heard of it"
Maybe because they stopped making them literally before you were born, sonny.
Me -  now feeling picked upon - "Okay, maybe I won't  bother then"

Pity - item 3 would have been five hundred quid's worth of refrigeration kit, but I guess he'll never know that now...

Good company and some succesful work

A great weekend in our home port - even if we didn't leave the mooring. It was mainly spent upgrading and repairing some of the minor damage suffered last weekend !

We had an excellent Saturday night with Joe and our neighbouring berth holder, who un-fortunately arrived too late for dinner, but not too late for a glass of very passable claret and some good conversation.

It was good to see the Autohlem successfully power up (just a minor tweak there)  The wind instrument problems seem to relate to not carrying out the linearisation of the anenometer during the calibration process (whatever that is ?)  Next time out, we need to do the bumps and turns required for to properly calibrate.  

New mooring lines fore and aft have at last been respliced and fixed on, and the main sheet traveller has been repaired and modified to give us some more control - as shown in the photo.

The new traveller / control lines

I think this should see us out for the rest of the season (...although if Santa was passing the Barton store on his way to our house!)

Most importantly of all, the loo brush is now also  fully secured in the heads - all crew please note.