Socialising

I'm currently at the RAF Yacht Club in Hamble waiting for Dylan Winter's talk on his sailing exploits. Should be fun.

UPDATE:

It was nice to see Dylan in action talking about his voyages, he really is a nice guy. I hope he finds a Centaur down here he can use for his Scottish leg of his journey round Britain.

If anyone knows of an old Centaur rotting in a boatyard or not rotting that can be snapped up for under £2000 please let Dylan know about it on his Keep Turning Left blog.

Taking Stock

Now 2013 is over, its an interesting exercise to have a look at how much I've spent since August when I got the boat.

So, here's a run-down of costs.

August:
Sale of Radios:    -£530.00
Boat                     £    0.00
Engine                  £300.00
Marina 1 Night     £  18.50
Mooring Fees       £126.00
Insurance Deposit £  33.00
Van Wheel            £ 10.00
Mooring Buoy       £   0.00
Cement                 £ 18.00
Chain                    £ 40.00
Rope                    £  27.00
Total                   £  42.50

September:
Insurance              £  8.00
Teak Oil               £  7.00
Sandpaper            £10.00
Dinghy                  £16.00
Paddles                £10.00
Battens                 £10.00
Epoxy                  £  4.00
Varnish                £  9.00
Total                   £74.00

October:
Insurance              £ 8.00
Epoxy                   £ 2.00
Plywood               £ 0.00
Generator             £ 0.00
Chain Swivel        £  5.00
Total                   £15.00

November:
Insurance              £ 8.00
Oars                    £20.00
Total                  £ 28.00

December:
Insurance              £ 8.00
Seizing Wire         £  6.69
Bucket                 £  4.00
Rope                   £  3.00
Total                  £ 21.69

Total for the Year is £181.19.

That's not bad going considering its £36.24 on average per month. I did say before that expenditure was running at around £40 per month and that's a pretty accurate guess from the top of my head.

September was the heaviest month, but then I expected that as I'd used up the money I got from the sale of my radio equipment in August. Buying the list of DIY items that were needed and the dinghy and paddles bumped up the cost a bit but they were necessities.

Things calmed down at the end of the year not only because I'd already bought items and didn't need any more, but also because the winter storms had begun and stopped any work being done. I haven't used all the teak oil or varnish, nor used all my sandpaper. So I've not had to buy any any consumables yet.

Oh, and Christmas of course.

Anyway, expenditure for January stands at just £8.00, the monthly direct debit for the insurance.

Hopefully I've shown that you can own a boat and not shovel huge sums of money into it. You just have to be practical and able to take on small jobs. And be prepared to trade time for money. You do the jobs quicker by paying someone to do them, you pay more money. Money is fixed (I don't have bottomless pockets) so therefore the variable becomes time. It will take longer, but I should be sailing this spring. Each job has already got a plan formulated and is ready to roll. Of course things can throw you a curveball.

I fully expect that to happen with the mast step, which to me doesn't look quite right and I think will need some investigation at a minimum and possibly some remedial work.Its a known problem on the Sea Wyches, where the mast support goes and the mast step sinks. But isn't a major job in the great scheme of things. It just need the support for the mast step cutting out and redoing. All of which can be down internally.

Stormy Weather

I took this video last Friday to show how bad the weather was and how high the storm surge risen. You can see the dinghies under water that would normally be on a dry beach, so the surge was almost a metre higher than normal. That meant the boats at the bus stop at Eastney were floating rather than sat on a safe beach and once again they were bumping into each other. You can also see the little blue boat that was very low in the water.

You can tell its been a bit wild out there because today I checked on the boat at lunchtime and noticed something white behind Sprite 2. Yes, its a capsized boat!

If you check this picture you can see the boat right way up behind Sprite 2:

It looks like the cabin and the engine are under water along with the accessories that'll have spilled out of the boat.

Its a shame really but it does show the force of nature that the boats have been putting up with over the past few weeks and days.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, but they were taken through the lens of my binoculars.

UPDATE: 

I've just looked through my photo records from the weekend and that capsized boat was afloat yesterday, so it must have turned turtle overnight. Possibly a combination of wind and a lot of rainwater on board sealed its fate.

Yet More Stormy Weather Taking its Toll.

Friday had yet another storm, yet another storm surge on top of a high tide. High tide coincided with lunch so I nipped out of work and spent my lunch break down at Eastney.

Some of the boats near the bus stop; the ones that were bumped together during the first storms were yet again bumping into each other. After three big storms they were now looking worse for wear.

A little blue boat was bobbing about and very low in the water and not far off sinking, the large yacht next to it had a broken roller jib. Its not looking good for boats in that area. One boat that is more or less a hulk had its deck separated from the hull. with the loss of rigidity the hull was starting to fold up on the bigger waves. To add to the misery, another boat with a lowered mast had bumped into it and the mast was thumping the cabin top every wave. Not conducive to a straight mast at all.

Back along the foreshore mine and Jim's dinghies were under water:

However, luckily the boats were fine, bobbing about on their moorings.

Others weren't as fortunate, this boat was floating a few weeks ago:

The tide wasn't far off overtopping the road in places, something I haven't seen down there, but I've seen the tide marks to show its been close in the recent past:

This boat had  broken its moorings again and this time ended up right up at the top of the beach.

Normal tides never come this high. They may come close a couple of times a year, so if it stays there then the owner is going to have a job floating it off again.

The woes of a boat owner battling the elements. Mind you, its far better if you use decent rope and anchors for mooring. Even better if you use chain. I do keep banging on about this, but chain isn't that expensive if you buy it from the right places and it doesn't chafes as much as rope does. Sure eventually you have to replace it, but maybe every couple of years or so for safety's sake.

Okay rope is cheap, but how cheap is it to hire a crane to drag your boat down the beach, or replace a mast after its been banged against another boat?

More Post-Storm Pictures.

I took my daughter into Portsmouth today and then scooted over to have another look at the Post-Storm fallout.

Here's Mishooka with here severed bow line. Although its pretty substantial, it must be rotten its been on there for so long, like all the other green and rotting lines on her.

Shame really because for such an old boat she's in not that bad condition. Sure she needs some TLC but like many others down at Eastney she doesn't get attended to nearly as much as she needs.

Of course there's Joanna and the Snapdragon that collided:

As Joanna hit it, the snapdragon dragged its anchor yet again. I don't think its been set correctly as it did it in the last storm. It should hold a bit better than that even with Joanna bumping into the bow.

We couldn't move Joanna the other day because there's a fairly substantial step where the skeg for the prop  bolts onto the keel. Its probably 1-2 inches deep. Its also buried deep in the sand so it'll take quite a high tide to float her off. Possibly on Sunday when there's a 4.4m tide. But it'd be prudent to do some digging in front of the skeg first to make things a bit easier.

I did notice one thing now the tide is low: the wind must have changed close to low tide as there were scar marks in the mud around mine and Jim's boats where the keels had dragged in the mud as the wind changed and pushed the boats around.

The news are saying we're due for another round of wind and rain by the weekend. I'll check the charts later today and see how bad its going to be.

An Even Worse Storm Weathered

The storm this week seems top have been worse then the over-hyped one earlier in the year. Certainly in terms of the effects at home (the house was shaking and the windows had what appeared to be a jet-wash pointed at them for hours) it was worse and the effects down at Eastney were far worse too. Some bad news for a few people especially at Christmas.

Luckily mine and Jim's boats had survived, but the storm was so bad four boats had broken their moorings, On had been blown across the harbour and bumped into another boat and snapped the lines of the second boat which had then gone down the beach and collided with the Snapdragon with the dodgy beaching legs. Finally another boat called Mishooka had broken its rather substantial bow rope and had swung on its stern ropes. The downside for the beached boats is that the tides are dropping every day so it'll be a while before they can be refloated and put back where they belong.

Finally a rather neglected boat had been dismasted which I'm not sure shows the force of the wind or the decrepitness of the boat:

We only ever see the guy pop down to the boat about once a year. I think he lives somewhere up in the Midlands. He still pays harbour dues and the boat still floats but you have to ask why he hangs on to it. Most likely its sentimental, but sad to say its just dying a slow death.

Ready for Anything...

When I first started out looking for a cheap boat, I was prepared to take on almost anything as I knew I'd be up to tackling most tasks. I'm a fairly laid back type of guy and not much phases me, I just crack on and get the job done.

Even when it comes to helping out doing things like this:

Yes, I got to help out delivering grandchild number 9 last night as she arrived a bit earlier than the midwives did. The Mrs did the catching and holding, I did the technical stuff like sort the cord out.

Ready for anything? Oh yeah!

Both baby and mum are doing well.