First Yachtless Gales.

The past couple of days have been a bit blustery. It's still weird not having to worry about the boat after almost a decade of ownership. 

I hear the wind and then have to check myself thinking "I wonder how the boat is". 

I'm sure I'll get over it, but it's going to take time. 

I notice there are a few cheap boats on eBay going in Eastbourne. I really have to stop looking.

Sailing a Different Kind of Boat.

The Mrs booked us an AirBNB with a twist when we went up to Manchester last weekend to see my Mum.

I got to steer. I can't say the handling was that responsive, it took some getting used to!

Me at the Helm. Pic Courtesy of Chris from the WCBS.

Me at the Helm. Pic Courtesy of Chris from the WCBS.

Yes, we were on a historic narrowboat. On the Canal. In Winter. In below freezing temperatures.

Having a sense of adventure is a requirement!

Thanks to Chris of the Wooden Canal Boat Society for being our host. No thanks to Canal and River Trust who have forced him to make trips mandatory as part of the airBNB deal to comply with their CRT licence. 

Not easy when you have no engine, in winter, pulling/poling through ice! Yes, it's a historic Butty, an unpowered narrowboat, so no engine.

I thoroughly recommend a stay on board. But maybe not on the coldest night of the year so far. lol.

We stayed ay Portland Basin in Ashton-Under-Lyne. The area is pretty historic. 

The Museum is worth a visit and just a stroll round the area is pretty nice, The Museum has a restored canal-powered water wheel, one of the few in the country.

Water is drawn from the canal, drives the wheel and then exits via a tailrace into the river Tame, some 40ft below the level of the canal.

The WCBS have a few boats moored up at the museum, not all in good states of repair. Sadly, the charity isn't that well funded and could do with an injection of cash. If I win the lottery, they'd be the first charity I'd bung some money. They so desperately need it and they do good work with minimal funds.

The AirBNB money goes some way to helping out, mainly because the boat is already ready to use and any labour is from volunteers.

I chatted with Chris about my memories of the canal being restored. He sent me a link to a video he'd found which shows the basin and the efforts to dredge the canal in that area. 

The video is here:

Back then I was fascinated by the monorail tipper wagon they were pushing along the towpath. Being roughly 9 when the restoration was happening, sadly I didn't participate.

One gripe I have about the area is that Ashton has now seemed to turn its back on the canal. Back in the 70s, 80s and 90s there was a lot of publicity. First the restoration of the Peak Forest and Ashton canals as documented in the video above, and later the restoration of the Huddersfield Narrow canal that joins one of the three arms of the junction. There were yearly canal festivals that helped fund the HNC restoration. But once that was done in the early naughties, the canal has slipped back into some sort of quiet slumber. Just a few boats around and very few walkers.

Anyway, we braved the weather back home. Skirted the snow in London on the M25 but made it home about 11:30 at night. Straight to bed after all that driving.

Sprite Sold.

 Well, It's the end of an era. I sold Sprite 2 yesterday. In the spirit of the Skint Sailing ethos I sold her for the same price I bought her for almost 10 years ago. 

This is My last picture of her:

As you have probably noticed, I haven't been posting anywhere near as often as before. The past couple of years have been tough financially and this year has been especially tough. I'm struggling to run a car, let alone a boat on top of that. I'm just about scraping the £300 needed for mooring fees and insurance, let alone extra money for maintenance parts. The last thing I added was the new mooring block and chain back in May.

Since then I've hardly visited, just the occasional visit to pump out the bilges.

Also the previous post about the dinghy is indicative of a bigger problem down at Eastney: that the harbourmaster is removing every boat from the beach, one by one. 

There appears to be an effort to remove the cheaper end of the sailing community down at Eastney. I know some of the boats can be eyesores, but boats have been on the beach down there especially in Winter for decades and probably centuries. 

Sadly, I can't afford to run a boat now, so it's a moot point. 

Thank you to everyone that contributed comments and helped out when required. 

I'm now going to lie down in a dark room for a few days and have a good sob. lol. 

Dinghy Gone!

I went down to the boat last week, after a weekend away in Manchester celebrating my mother's 90th and my 60th birthday. Yep, I'm old!

Anyway, my dinghy had disappeared!

I noticed however, that the area where my dinghy was had been cleared. Of bushes as well as other dinghies. 

After a few emails to the Harbourmaster, I got the details of the local council clearance department.

It appears that the local council or their operatives have cleared tenders from the foreshore! 

To say I'm not happy is an understatement!

I'm currently looking for a replacement, but it's possible that this may be the final straw and I'll be looking to sell Sprite 2 in the near future.

It's a bit much to be paying a fee to the Harbourmaster which includes the ability to keep a tender on the foreshore, if the harbourmaster isn't able to prevent other agencies like the local council coming along and clearing the tenders away and destroying them. 

The icing on the cake is the local council not only won't talk to be specifically about my dinghy unless I prove ownership, but if I DO provide proof of ownership, then I may be liable for payment of the removal fees and may be open to be charged with an offence.

I don't think that the local council understand the difference between a hulk abandoned on the foreshore, and a tender that has a legitimate use.

Anyway, this has obviously left a bad taste in my mouth as I don't really have the funds to buy another dinghy. The cost of living crisis has hit hard and I don't have any spare cash to spend after bills. 

That's why I'm contemplating selling Sprite. I can't afford to maintain her and it's been bad enough over the past 12 months as I've found it hard to just pay for the mooring fee and the insurance, unlike previous years where I've had a bit of spare cash to spend. 

I'll keep you posted.

Jim's Funeral.

Went to Jim's funeral yesterday. 

One mention during the eulogy was the time his engine failed just outside Langstone Harbour and he had to be brought back in by the RNLI. As was the time his first boat sank. 

Not a lucky sailor then...

Anyway, we had a bit of a laugh at his expense, saw him off and then went down the boats to check on them. 

RIP Jim.

Now I'm helping the next generation of his family. I've been messaging online with details of how to get his boats off the beach. 

Clearance

Well, it's been noted in the local news that boat owners have been given 7 days to remove their vessels from the beach at Eastney. 

Row erupts after boat owners along shore at Eastney given seven days to move vessels the council claims are 'abandoned' or 'wrecked' | The News (portsmouth.co.uk)

So at the moment Jim's boats are at risk, although I did let the Harbour Master know we're attempting to move them as soon as we can.

I've talked to Jim's family about what's necessary to make a new mooring and get the boats moved. Hopefully we can work together to get Jim's boats moved.

There are rumours that the harbourmaster wants to install jetties, but I think that's more to do with Eastney Cruising Association wanting to expand the mooring jetties they've already installed. 

The usual story of gentrification pushing out the poor.

Well, It's been a While. Some Good News, Some Bad News.

 Well, that flew by!

It's been a bit of a busy start to the Year. Sadly my usually dependable Lexus started to show it's age and the gearbox started making all sorts of noises. I suspect several 300-mile journeys to Manchester and back after my Father passed away at the end of last year and in January for the funeral did for the poor beast.

So visits to the boat have been limited by how much mechanical sympathy I had for the car.

I re-established the Boat on it's mooring over the Easter Holiday Weekend. A truck tyre full of concrete and some fresh 10mm chain should provide security.

That's done, but the old sinker is about 12 inches away from the new one. I have to lift it at some point. I did say I'd donate it to the even skinter Jim so he could get his boat off the beach as well (the Harbourmaster has been calling regularly to get us to move our boats).

Sadly Jim passed away last week, so I don't know what's happening with his boats now. I'll still raise the sinker and put it in the place where Jim had his boat originally. I'll see if the family want me to move the boat off the beach for them.

It seems to be that as I reach 60 this year, the mortality of family and friends is coming to the fore. 

I will certainly miss Jim. His humour matched mine and we spent many happy hours just sat on the boats chatting about the state of the world and how we'd put it to rights.

Here he is in happier times aboard Sprite:

RIP Jim, you will be missed.

Anyway, more on the lack of boaty stuff. I bought a cheap, more economical replacement for the Lexus about 5 weeks ago. As an aside, how dear are used cars at the moment? Especially small petrol cars. Due to the various cities in the UK declaring Ultra Low Emission Zones around them, the price of older Diesel cars has started to wane and small, economical Petrol car are now worth 2-3 times more than they were probably a couple of years ago.

It was cheap for a reason: it had a few issues. But I thought it might last a while while I saved up and sorted the issues out at my leisure. So I duly bought my bus ticket up to Manchester (a quarter of the price of going by train!) And to be honest, it did get me half way down the country. and I did drive it to work the day after. But on the second day, coming back from work the gearbox died! Well, exploded would be a better description. The gears trying to make an exit out of the case.

So I spent the next 4 weeks removing all the bits to remove the gearbox, selling the Lexus to fund a new gearbox and then a couple of weeks re-installing the replacement gearbox and all the associated gubbins. 

See, I'm not just handy with Boats.

It's been a bit full on the past few weeks!

The "new" car continues to cause issues. The expansion tank was cracked, so I replaced that last weekend but now the pressure in the cooling system showed a weakness in one of the cooling hoses. Replacing that is tonight's job.

So you can see, it's just not been practical to get down to the boat for a number of reasons. 

Oh, and I had Covid again About 3 weeks ago.

In July I'm on holiday, on a cruise to Amsterdam. A freebie, for those wondering how a skint sailor can afford to get aboard P&O's finest. I may spend a couple of days on the balcony just watching the sea roll by. Just to recharge my emotional batteries. I've been close to spent both physically and emotionally over the past few months. 

So, apologies for the lack of blogging. I have not been sat at home vegetating in front of the telly. I've been busier than a man of my advanced age should be. 😀

This Sunday I hope, and I stress I hope, to be lifting the old sinker. I did try on the Easter Monday, but I didn't have enough tide to do the job. Hopefully this Sunday the tides are at a reasonable time (H.W. 11:30) to be able to get on the boat while it's still on the mud, shackle onto the old sinker and let the tide raise the boat and hopefully the sinker. 

Or Sprite may be doing an impression of a submarine doing a crash dive. I imagine the way my luck is at the moment it'll be the latter. We'll see. 

To leave on a more positive note, I've got the charging system working perfectly now! Two 10W 12v panels in parallel seemed to provide enough oomph over the winter months to keep the battery topped up. I think the lowest it dropped to was about 12.6v and that's with the panels fixed facing the wrong way while the boat was on the beach. Now on the mooring the panels should point mainly to the South due to prevailing winds. The battery was up to 13.9v during the day so the charge controller has been backing off the charge current. Happy days!

UPDATE: The car continues to exhibit more health issues. Now the water pump has decided to leak. Yet another job. Although I'm not wishing it upon myself  I'm sure the radiator will be next. That's just the way of these things, especially on a car that has been laid up for a while as I suspect this car has.

Trying to get it moving under it's own steam after a long slumber is proving a bit of a mission.

Costs for 2021 and Annual Review.

Okay, let's have a look at 2021. Not a lot done unfortunately in the great scheme of things. The first half of the year was dominated by me getting Covid in January/February and various other things put paid to regular visits to the boat. 2021's weather seemed a bit naff too, not allowing regular visits to the boat. The sun only really came out in the Autumn. I do remember a few unseasonal windy moments in the summer.

As usual first are the basic expenses.

£148      Mooring Fee

£170      Insurance.

Now the expenses for 2021:

£3.25        GRP Tape. For the dinghy, which was leaking. Again. 

£5.95        New Bailer as the old one had fallen to bits.

£3.94        GX12 Aviation Plug. The power plug and socket for the AIS 12v conversion.

£5.49        Surface mount 12v socket for the solar panel. 

£125         A Big one This: for some stainless anchor chain that won't hopefully rust into a solid ball.

£10.00      Anchor rope. Because I can't afford 20m metres of Stainless chain.

£6.25        Cork plugs for the floor drain holes.

£8.99        A New Solar Charge Controller 

£7.29        A charge monitor for the battery to complement the charge controller. 

£4.84        Replacement Tap with microswitch for pumped water

£5.49        New LPG Gas hose.

£8.18        Water hose for the tap

£12.95      Rule Slimline Submersible pump.

£10.49      Flexi hose for the Bilge pump.

£9.95        Twin core wire for the bilge pump and the water pump.

£20.00      Two 10 Litre water tanks for the fresh water.

£565.06    Is the Total for the year.

Now Let's Review the Year.

Well, at the beginning of the year I caught Covid and survived. Mark that as a positive. 

I scrubbed the bottom of the boat for the first time in a couple of years, and found Oysters! The first time I had them on the hull. I really need to antifoul if they are going to be a thing in Langstone harbour, because they are the devil to remove. They're welded on with nature's equivalent to superglue. I guess that's down to the university trying to grow oysters in the harbour. They have a new pontoon out in the middle of the Harbour. I guess the increased Oyster activity is seeding the whole harbour with little oysterlings that weld themselves to your hull.

The main task this year was to get the electronics installed. The chartplotter and the AIS receiver I got back in 2020. 

First the dry run electronically on the conservatory table to get them all talking together. Then mount them in the boat and wire them up. Now I have everything talking to each other, with the chartplotter and Navionics on my mobile receiving AIS data. Along with the GPS repeater and the VHF getting GPS data from the chartplotter.

That task completed, I sorted out the fresh water on board. Mainly because one day I was gagging for a brew and couldn't make one. But a few quid on the bits and I have pumped water. Sorted.

Just before Christmas Sprite broke her moorings during one of the storms and thankfully rather than floating off and being lost forever, ended up on the beach 100 yards away, albeit above the 5 metre mark. One of the local guys untied the anchor and set it while I got down to the boat. Luckily I was able to take a day off work and refloat her the day after so the tide was thankfully still as high. She's now tied on the beach near Jim's boats.

I've bought new chain for the mooring and I have a contact that will get me a lorry wheel for the sinker. The chain will be on 2022's list of expenses.

Sadly the car is a bit sick so that needs attention at the moment so the boat is taking a bit of a back-burner. Plus I've almost attended a wedding that got cancelled due to Covid the day before it was due to happen, attended a family funeral, and attended the rescheduled wedding all in the past fortnight, so it's been a bit hectic recently.

Anyway, happy New Year everyone, lets hope it's a better year weather-wise and virus-wise.

And I'll looking for things to be a bit more chilled out!