More Storm Damage

I work in Portsmouth so on my trip in from Havant, I pass the top end of Langstone harbour. To my surprise I noticed a mast very close to the main road, so thought I'd take a look.

This is the sight I was greeted with, yet another yacht cast adrift by the stormy weather:

Luckily for the owner there looked to be no damage and it was resting nicely against the concrete sea wall.

Sorry for the intruding finger in the pictures, but I was holding onto the phone for dear life as the wind was trying to rip it out of my hand and bowl me over!

Its quite a nice Jenneau so its obviously been looked after, but again I assume the mooring line has chafed and snapped. How easily thousands of pounds worth of damage can be caused by neglecting a few quids worth of rope... You can see the remains of the mooring bridle (the dark rope) still looped onto the forward cleats.

Anyhow I sent the pictures off the Langstone Harbour board when I got into work and they hopefully contacted the owner today. Not sure how they'd get it off the wall with the winds as bad as they are. I'll see in the morning if its still there. This morning it was secure, but its very accessible and there's no guarantee it'll be secure tomorrow.

I do keep banging on about it, but really there's no substitute for chain in weather like this, especially if you're leaving a boat for any length of time. Either that or go to extreme lengths to eliminate chafe. A bit of time and a few quid spent now can eliminate a disaster happening and reduce all our insurance premiums. Something the Skint Sailor approves of.

Although just to show it isn't us amateur sailors that have problems, on the southern shore of Farlington Marshes, a cardinal Buoy had washed up on the beach!

It was some stormy weather last night!

Weather.

Sailors talk about it all the the time (the weather that is) and this weekend there has been plenty of it.

Yesterday we had blue sky but some atrocious showers including sleet and hail, but the worst thing was the relentless wind. Sprite 2 the little minx had thrown the mooring chain off the bow roller again, but this time on the side where the roller reefing fixes to the assembly. I spent 10 minutes rowing out to her against the wind (something that normally takes 3 minutes at most). Once I got to her no sooner had I pulled alongside and pulled the oars in, than the wind had pushed the dinghy away from the boat. I tried a couple of times but thought against making a desperate grab for the boat and capsizing.

So I retreated and hoped things would work out and that I wouldn't find a knackered reefing system or worst still be dismasted.

Today was clear, with blue sky, no showers and a manageable wind. I got out to Sprite 2 easily enough and made a start on the thing that was probably first on my to-do list, the charging system. Some of you may remember this thing from one of my earlier blogs last year:

I was curious to see what was inside, and seeing as the fuseholder on the side needs changing, I brought it home and opened it up.

I thought it may have some electronics in it to regulate the charge to the battery from the engine, you know, something a bit sophisticated and technical.

Here's what's inside:

Not a lot really. Just a bridge rectifier a fuse and a meter. The rectifier uses the ally plate as a heat sink.

I don't know how much it cost originally, but if it was boat-related then I bet it wasn't cheap. I'm not sure if I'll keep it in its current for or change it to make it more compact. There's an awful lot of space in there and it could really be combined with a solar charger and volt meter readout in the same size.

The rectifier needs cleaning up as there's rust at the back of it anyway and the fuse holder needs changing, so at a bare minimum that's what I'll do.

I also brought the engine home today for a service, so that's a job I'll do in the next few weeks. At least I have a few jobs I can do while I'm waiting for the weather to improve.

And to prove I do have people looking at my blog, I have a follower! A lady emailed me earlier in the week asking for advice. She's looking to buy a boat and is interested in one down at Eastney, so she might be a waterside neighbour soon! See we're a friendly lot down at Eastney!

App Time (Number 3 of a Series)

Today's app is another web site I couldn't do without: www.findafishingboat.com Not because I need a fishing boat, but because it has really good links to weather sites, including free synoptic weather charts, giving predictions for the coming few days. If you know what you're looking for then you can have a go at predicting the weather and seeing if you or the weatherman get it right.

Check out the weather/tides link

So far I've been pretty accurate but then again I only predict up to 48 hours in advance.

I  usually have a check Thursday and Friday so I can see what the weekend weather will be like.

By the way CHIMET is back! Currently only the wind sensors are working, but that's a start. Kudos to the guys running it, its probably been no fun replacing bits out on the bar beacon in the rubbish weather we've been having.

Paperwork

I've been sorting some of Sprite 2's paperwork over the past couple of days.

A while back I did the necessary changes on the Ofcom website to my ships radio licence to include Sprite 2, luckily the paperwork that came with her included the previous owner's licence details so I had her callsign readily to hand. These days ship licences and also the Amateur Radio (Radio Ham) licence I hold are all administered online. The only provision is they have to be kept up to date and of course I have to renew the Short Range Certificate every 10 years (next one due 2017 in my case **).

Of course a ship keeps it's callsign, so it has to transfer with the ship and having paperwork saves time and bother trying to get the details.

I haven't yet registered her for an Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number under the Digital Selective Calling (DSC) scheme, even though my Short Range Certificate allows it. I used to have a VHF Radio with DSC on it on my old boat and kept the radio, but on that particular radio the MMSI number can't be changed easily. You need software to do it, which is difficult to get hold of. If I can get the software and I can change the number, then I'll make the change. Sprite 2's callsign pre-dates DSC and the radio fitted to it doesn't have the capability. But DSC is so handy especially when its linked to GPS: calling for help and giving position data is as easy as scrolling down a menu and pressing a button that at some point I'll sort my old Radio and fit it on Sprite 2.

But for now I have a VHF only Ships licence and also a VHF portable licence which allows me to use the freecycle handheld on any boat.

I also registered Sprite 2 on the MCA's CG66 database so that god forbid if anything bad happens, they will know who the owner is, the appropriate shore contact and all the physical details of the boat if they have to go looking for it. I must say that the web pages for the CG66 service are functional (just) but could do with a spruce-up.

I tried entering a photo of Sprite 2 onto the page and even though all the parameters were correct, it kept failing. I fired off a support request this morning and to their credit I got an email back from a lady at the Bridlington station asking for a copy of the photo so she could add it manually. I did and now all the details are correct.

I'm not sure adding Sprite 2 to the SSR is necessary, it depends on if I have £25 to spare!

On of the next thing I need to do is register with the Sea Wych owner's Association which might prove to be useful. Looking at the web pages registration seems to be locked in the pre-PayPal dark ages but once I have the cash I'll give them a call and get things sorted.

So there's been plenty happening even if its been tippling down for the past month and a half!

** I did my SRC on 20th May 2007. How do I know? Well, I first met the current Mrs Phillips the day before. I had been chatting to her on the internet after having been introduced over the 'net by a friend. I arranged to meet her the day I came down to the South coast the day before the course in Southampton.
Obviously things worked out. :-)

Eastney

The main reason I moor my boat at Eastney is because its the cheapest place on the Solent. I don't think you can get much cheaper than £126 a year and that's including harbour dues!

Of course many other people do the same, although some can't afford to maintain their boats either, so they end up sunk or abandoned on the shore. If Dylan Winter is reading this no Dylan, people don't abandon Centaurs on the beach. More's the pity as I'd have snaffled one long ago!

Anyway, I took some photos today of the sadder looking examples.

First there's the Falmouth Gypsy that was in my storm video, which has got even worse now.

The loose bit at the back of the cabin has fallen off, the transom has a huge split down it and the hull has a huge split in it where it has been flexing. Basically its scrap.
Here's the transom:

Luckily it has a secondary bulkhead at the stern, but it won't be long before its no longer watertight. Either the crack in the middle of the hull will reach the waterline, or the secondary bulkhead will spring a leak.

At least its still floating (just). A few other boats at Eastney have succumbed to the sea, or filled with rain water. Not small boats either: here's an old fishing boat that seems to have filled with rainwater to the point it no longer floats and now the sea fills it at high water spring tides.

Its a shame because you can see at the stern that its set up for fishing or ferry service. You can imagine it taking people out on trips. But not any more.

Finally there's a lovely cute little clinker built, gaff-rigged sailing cruiser that has sadly seen better days. Its been several years since it saw a coat of varnish and everything on it is weathered and green. In places it has moss and Lichen Growing on it, showing possibly a decade of neglect.

Every rope is green, the wood has long since lost its weatherproofing and there's a fist sized hole in the roof.. The hull is no better, it doesn't float. Such a shame for such a lovely little boat to end up like that.

App Time (Number 2 of a Series)

This time its not so much an app as a web site, but I do refer to it constantly on my mobile browser. This blog is a bit unusual in that I'm blogging about the loss of an app.

Its the CHIMET website I'm referring to (http://www.chimet.co.uk). Its a real-time automated station on the Chichester bar beacon that reports everything you need to know about the weather, tide and sea state in the area.

Unfortunately it got struck by lightning at the beginning of the month and its like having your hand chopped off. No longer can I check on what the wind is doing right on the coast, nor can I see the actual tide gauge reading (including storm surges) as opposed  to the predicted tide level.

I can't now see how lumpy the sea is either: CHIMET reports on the wave height and the period between waves which tells you how bad it really is out there before having to sample it for yourself.

I just hope it comes back soon!

Save a Centaur: Help Dylan Winter!

I blogged about attending Dylan Winter's talk at the RAFYC in Hamble on Friday night. It was quite a good talk and any yacht club can do worse than invite him down for a chat and to have him talk and show a couple of his videos.

Dylan has a dream to restore an old Westerly Centaur with a knackered inboard engine and take it to the Shetlands and round the top of Scotland. He took in a bit of local knowledge on Friday night and trawled the boat yards of Chichester harbour where he found loads of Centaurs, but not quite the right one.

Not by replacing the engine, but giving it a new lease of life by cutting a well into the cockpit floor and fitting an outboard which should put the prop right where it used to be with the inboard, rather than the more ubiquitous outboard bracket on the transom.

That way he saves an old boat from rotting to death in a boat yard as its cheaper to buy a new or used outboard and create a well for it than pay a few thousand on a new inboard and possibly gearbox, stern tube, etc.

He has the backing of one of the Yachting Magazines who will support him in his quest by taking his article (and thereby supplying a small money supply for the project).

He's also got West Systems the Epoxy people on side as well who have pledged to support the project. After all, they may get a new stream of people cutting holes in their boats and fitting outboards in them if it catches on!

Its a noble idea which if it gains traction might get a few larger old boats out to sea.

So, does anyone out there know of a half decent Centaur (it HAS to be a Centaur apparently) somewhere on the South Coast who's engine has just coughed its last and who's owner really has had enough of the bills for an inboard and wants to move on? The budget is up to £2000 for a good 'un that doesn't need much more than the old engine ripping out and the outboard well fitting along with some sprucing up.

As a skint sailor I fully support Dylan's project up to a point. If it pushes up the price of mouldy Westerly Centaurs I might change my viewpoint. lol.