Sitting and Waiting...

That's all I can do at the moment. It seems we've had storm after storm, all of which seems to know when it's the weekend. Only 1 casualty this winter: one of the guys on the Solent Sailors Facebook group has reported a little fishing boat has turned turtle.

So far Sprite has been ok. I went out before Ciara hit and took the boom and mainsail down and put them in the cabin to reduce windage.

Other than that, that's all I've done. I've lost yet another mooring buoy despite all the shackles being wired up, so I'm looking into something I can keep on the boat and inflate and attach to the mooring chain when I leave the mooring. Maybe one of those big exercise balls in a net bag.

I've not got around to 2019's expenses yet, but they are pretty much the same as 2018 apart from the fuse box bits which I've already documented and that cheap laminate sail.

It seems that a few salvage yards have started getting supplies of French hardwood sleepers, which may do for a mast beam. At £19 I'm tempted to make the journey (collection only) to Sussex or Devon to get one. Certainly worth checking out as a source of cheap oak. If they do turn out to be oak that is.

I have a new cockpit cover I got for £20, but I've resisted fitting it until after storm season. I want to use some old tent poles to hold the cover up so I can have decent working room in the cockpit but still be enclosed. Something for the spring.

The wife has booked us on a cruise on the Ventura in June, so that's another expense for this year and two weeks out of my summer season. Lets see if the lure of the sea is the same when someone else is driving!

Hopefully I can make some progress by being a bit canny with money again. My money-saving mojo has begun this year with finding the existence and source of those sleepers. There's enough wood in one sleeper to make two mast beams. The plan is to make one up and test it to see if it is load bearing.

Fingers crossed the mast beam will be sorted this year at the very least. Then the only other major jobs will be the window seals and antifouling.

Hopefully The weather this year will be conducive to getting some work and some sailing done. It looks like the last spell of good weather was back in 2017, so we're due a nice long sunny spell surely.

The Third Man (or Buoy)...

So, one of the things I haven't really blogged about on my local moorings is the amount of Piracy.

Not Olde Worlde Piracy, with Beards and Swords, but the odd bit of pilferage. I did report some years back that a few boats had been broken into and at that time I put a strengthening bar in the bar of my washboards, to avoid them being kicked in easily. I bet the knee joint of anyone that tried would come to grief on the teak beam bolted into the middle of them.

Anyway, over the past couple of years when I've been able to afford one, I've fitted a decent mooring buoy. The last (second) buoy was a rather large one. Half of a pair I got on eBay for the ridiculous price of £15. I thought a pair would come in handy if the Pirates struck again.

And they did about a month ago. Buoy number 2 disappeared.  Given the buoy was shackled in place an the shackles were seized to avoid them coming undone. To see the stainless shackle and the buoy missing was a bit depressing.

So, the second twin, the third buoy was fitted to the mooring chain this weekend.

Here's the installation...

Yes, that's a bloody padlock. I don't care if it turns into a ball of rust inside. That's actually better, because no-one will be able to force the lock. They'll have to cut the chain. But this time, no easily-undoo-able shackles, no cuttable rope. Nope, 8mm chain and a padlock. Lets see if that's secure now.

Take that, Mr Pirate....

Mast Rigging

Yesterday (Tuesday) was my second day off work and I spend a couple of hours on Sprite sorting out my bent mast.

I noticed a couple of days ago that the top of the mast had a distinct curve to port after I changed the rigging turnbuckles, so I set to straightening it. I removed the boom so I could lie on the cabin roof and look up the mast. Not the easiest or comfiest thing to do, scampering off the cabin, into the dinghy and then adjusting the turnbuckles.

I got it straight and then had a coffee.

While i had my coffee I watched a couple of what looked like lecturers were on top of the Portsmouth Uni buildings with a video camera taking video of the harbour and the beach (including wrecks) below the Uni buildings:

Anyway after refitting the boom I thought I'd take a picture of the straight mast to show off my prowess at rigging. This is the picture:

As you can see there's a bend at the top to starboard. Looks like I'd over-done the adjustment. Mind you it is the first time I've adjusted a mast, so I had no idea how far the mast would move due to adjustment of the turnbuckles.

Anyway, the lightbulb came on, because if I could see the bend by just taking a picture on my mobile, it saves me lying down on the deck, removing the mast etc.

So that's what I did: do half turns on the turnbuckles and take a picture to see the results. It seems only small adjustments were needed, a lot smaller than I anticipated. After a couple of pics the mast was as straight as I could get it:

It might need a slight tweak in future: those spreaders look a bit odd and its not quite perfectly straight, but not bad for a first try!

And that was my Tuesday on the boat done apart from wiring the rigging to stop it coming undone again.

Quick Check

I've finally managed to have a couple of days off work. I have to cover a couple of different departments at work and people I cover have been on holiday for the past few weeks. Couple that with shows and bank holidays, it's been several weeks since I got a day off authorised.

So today I nipped down to the boat to make sure it wasn't sinking thanks to me scraping chunks off the bottom and getting the speedo wheel working.

While I was there I took a photo of the newly tidied 12v sockets:

All tucked up under the plate rack out of the way. I have 3 12v sockets fed from the original single socket.

To the right you can see my light switch. One switch switches the cabin lights on, the second switches from white to red in the cabin and the third switches on the red lights in the cockpit.

To the right of the switch is the 12v socket for my solar panel.

Luckily the bilges were dry so no worries in the leak department.

So just after high tide I came off and went home. I have a lawn to mow...

Good Weekend

I finally got more than a fleeting visit aboard the boat.

Saturday I was babysitting all day, but Sunday I got out to the boat as early as possible, about 3 hours before high tide.

I had to repair one of my locker tops that had started splitting: my fault for using exterior grade plywood I suppose. Some Marine ply will be on the shopping list this autumn then.

I also sorted the other turnbuckle on the main stay. Jim snapped me at work from his boat:

The dinghy looks almost as big as Sprite, which at 14ft I guess it is!

Here's a zoomed in look:

With that complete, it was a case of have a brew and wait for high tide and another job: using Sprite 2 to move Nicky's yacht Meagles to a new mooring down the beach.

Not an easy task given the number of mooring ropes fouling the shoreline from all the boats on or very nearly on the beach. But with a bit of effort we got Meagles away from the ropes and into clear enough water to move her down the beach.

No pictures of this yet. I was too busy at the time! But Jim took some from a distance so I may be able to post them later.

So a swim from Nicky pulling ropes out to us and me using Sprite, we got Meagles down the beach to her new home.

Then back to my mooring for another brew and then pack up and row ashore.

All in all I think I had 4 hours aboard Sprite and the Sun shone all the time, so not a bad day at all
.

Time on the Boat at Last.

Finally got to get on board the boat today.

Flipping the dinghy over and dragging it down the beach was fine, no back strains there.

I went out and changed the starboard turnbuckle on the main stay. It was a bit windy so it took a while to devise a knot to tie on the stay to hold it down and prevent anything happening to the mast.

Anyway a few loops wrapped round the stainless wire were tied just above the eye and then the rope led down to the deck fitting. before I undid everything I fitted the new turnbuckle to the deck fitting so I only had one end to deal with reducing the time the stay and the mast were loose.

Anyway everything worked out, got the turnbuckle on working from the dinghy lashed to the side of Sprite. That way I could work sitting or standing up, keeping my back straight. After doing the starboard side I decided the port one could wait. I drank my coffee and decided to head back to shore while the tide was relatively high and there was less beach to drag the dinghy up.

Just pulling the dinghy up after getting out made my back twinge, so I emptied the dinghy and chucked the stuff in the car.

Then I returned to the dinghy with my back-saving not-so-secret weapon: a rachet winch:

With a double pull through a block it can pull up tree stumps (allegedly) but I rigged it for single pull, which sped up the pulling process. The bad news was it was still painfully slow, lots slower than dragging up the beach by hand. Especially having to do the pull in stages. I felt such a fraud, but at least when I got in the car to go home I wasn't in agony!

So, only a couple of hours on board today but I feel so much better for it.

No visit to Sprite tomorrow, I'm off to Littlehampton for lunch.

By the way there's a really nice looking Invader 22 on eBay at the moment. £750 with only 2 hours to go. No bids on it... Very strange, but I guess the bad weather this Spring has depressed the market a bit.

First Sail

I've sailed Sprite 2 properly today for the first time.. not a lot of wind, but enough of it for an hour in the harbour. What a great day. Pictures and video to follow as I'm not home yet.