Nav Light Fitted

Well, I got on the boat and got the Nav light done. Took two days as I only stayed on board for about an hour each day. I'm still quite washed out from the heart attack.

Yesterday I didn't have enough stainless nuts, so a trip to Marine Superstore at Port Solent got me a few nuts. Thankfully they are open on Sundays early enough I could pick up my bits and get on the boat before high tide.

But here it is in all it's glory:

The white gel coat is spread about a bit as I used it to fill in some spider cracks that were in that area. Looks like the core had blown a bit there. 

I fitted a socket rather than use the original "wire through the deck" approach. If it ever becomes necessary to replace the nav light I can simply wire it to the socket and bolt it to the bracket. It just makes the job simpler and if necessary I can wire the lamp up ate home and take it to the boat to fit it, saving time.

The back of the light is fully sealed and being LED I shouldn't have to worry about it for a few years.

Looking around the boat, the windows are in urgent need of replacement rubbers, so I'm going to have to save up for that. I'll do one window first so I only order a quarter of the rubber I need. I don't actually know what the sizes are and Google unfortunately isn't helpful, 

So I'll order 3 metres of rubber and have a go at one of the windows. If the rubber isn't the right size then I've only ordered one window's worth.

Right now I'm back home, the Mrs is doing tea and I'm recovering. This heat isn't helping!

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.

Nav lights fitted

I spent Sunday down the boat fitting the new (4 year old!) LED nav lights to sprite.

The ex-cordless 12v drill came in handy once again. I can't believe how many times I've used that drill now. Converting it to run off the boat battery was a stroke of genius. Especially as the lead length allows me to use the drill in most places on the boat.

The first step was to come up with a solution to the fact I was fitting the lights myself. Now I don't have long arms, but I bet the tallest person in the world hasn't got the reach to hold a nut inside the cabin whilst simultaneously turning the screw from the outside.

The solution was to glue the screws into the light fittings: just a light sliver of glue because there wasn't such a big gap between the screw and the hole. Here's one waiting for the glue to set:

The next step while the glue was setting was to offer up the rubber gasket for each new light and drill pilot holes:

Then the correct hole sizes for each hole. 4mm for the screw hole and 5mm for the wiring hole.

Once the correct hole sizes were drilled, the area around the wire and the screw was given a dollop of polyurethane sealant. The wires were fed through and the screw was pushed into the screw hole. The advantage of drilling a hole just big enough is the light stays in place while I crawled in the cabin.

I fitted the nut (and a big penny washer to spread the load) on the end of the screw and tightened it up just enough to compress the gasket and spread the sealant.

Here's the light in place on the starboard side:

The white gelcoat filler shows, but another round of sanding with some wet sandpaper will get rid of the over fill and I'll just be left with a small white dot.

The same was repeated for the port side.

I've yet to figure out the wiring. As the switch box is on the starboard side, the wiring for the port light will have to run through the bilges. I seem to remember many years ago, when I did the wiring from the engine, I left a loop of string in the bilge so I could pass wire to and fro.

Lets hope it's still there and not rotted away, otherwise it's going to be pretty difficult routing the wiring across the boat.

Next weekend one of the grandkids wants to come on the boat as a birthday treat, so I shall be distracted somewhat. No work being done next weekend.

As it is I spent a good couple of hours on Sunday clearing up all the tools and rubbish from wiring up the fusebox so there will be space in the boat.

Long Row, Short Visit

Today it's been blowing around F6, so it made rowing out to the boat a bit of a slog. Eventually got there and then the heavens opened. So just a quick visit to check the hatch would fit the front panel.

It does, although it takes up most of the front panel. An Ocean 20 is just about the max size for that panel I think. I didn't check on what the fit was like inside, as I was fearful of losing the dinghy it was that windy. I was only there for a minute but already one of the fixing had come undone, such was the wind and wave action tugging at the ropes.

So back in the dinghy and to row against the wind again back to shore.

The wind was blowing parallel to the beach so I was fighting it there and back again.

I must admit I'm not a fearful rowing out to the boat in this weather, I'm just not happy about losing the dinghy and getting stranded on board. :-)

Anyway, it's good news the hatch fits. Now I know it does, I've been cleaning off the old sealant with my new power tool: my multitool with scraper attachment. It made short work of the sealant, I'm hoping it will make scraping the bottom of the boat an easier and quicker job too.

Sunny Saturday.

Saturday was clear, dry and pretty warm. Very un-February-like.

I got on the boat and had a tinker with my 3.3Hp outboard that steadfastly refused to start. The petrol tap was refusing to let more than a small dribble of fuel to the carb, so it started and then stopped. So that's another job to sort. I need to get it going, because Jim's travails the previous week focused my mind onto having backup options like an alternative motor if the main one conks out.

After opening the lockers to get two stroke oil, I noticed a bit of water in there, so I got to work with the pump and sponge. Got the water out and then started airing the wet bits. The rope in the lockers came home for a wash in the washing machine.

Yep, the lockers are odd. I need to get the new locker top on the port side this year. The locker top isn't delaminating, it just offends my slight OCD-ness. I like things to match and be nice, I'm just hopelessly sluggish at making it happen.

With the sprayhood up, and breeze was blocked so the cockpit was a pretty nice place to be.

So with the lockers dried, some bits dried and some in the dinghy to come home, after a brew and a few biscuits I rowed back ashore.

One thing I noticed on the dinghy are scratch marks. It looks like Mr water Vole, Rat, or whatever got stuck at the bow of the dinghy and wanted out:

I will have to think of a solution to this, because if ratty makes my dinghy his home and then graws through the hull at all, I will be very upset. Plugging the open inspection holes up seems like a plan so he can't use the buoyancy tanks as a home, then maybe lifting the dinghy up on bricks  so it's not as safe and cosy as it used to be would seem to be the plan.

Costs for 2016 and a Review of the Year.

So, here's the annual round up of costs for the previous year.

As usual first are the basic expenses.

£132      Mooring Fee

£160      Insurance (reflecting a higher valuation).

Up £10 on last year at £292.

Fuel this year was £11. I only bought 10 litres as I spent most of the year using up 2015's stockpile.

£2.50 Absolute tides Update.

£13 Navionics Update. I think it was around that much.

£5.00 Sail Bungie Ties.

£6.00 20m of 8mm Rope.

£5.95 Barometer set from Sue Ryder shop

£0.00 2.5 litres Hempel Classic Antifouling (was £35, but it was a late Xmas present so zero cost)

£19.95 Hempel Waterproof Undercoat.

£25.00 Various bits of sandpaper and cheap paint brushes.

£8.00 A few sets of needles for sail stitching from the Craft Shop.

£12.99 Speedy Stitcher.

£6.95 Mooring Buoy (subsequently lost)

£15.98 2 x 1oz Reels of Polyester sail Thread.

£28.88 Marine Ply for locker tops.

£19.00 Stainless Hinges for Locker Tops.

£19.95 Grey Paint for Locker tops (Hempel Gloss)

£17.95 Undercoat for locker tops.(Hempel Primer)

£20.88 Head Gasket for 2.2 outboard. (still needs an impeller)

£6.00 Assorted Stainless screws. (for cam cleats, etc.)

£17.75 Barton Cam Cleat.

£7.70 Second (and hopefully current) Mooring Buoy.

£2.99 Polyprop rope to secure Mooring Buoy.

£4.99 Set of 4 Nautical themed mugs.

And they were my last purchase for the boat.

£570.41 is the Total Expenditure on the Boat for this Year. (£47.54 per month)

Which isn't bad as it corresponds quite well with last year's £556. Considering the amount of  Paint and related painting kit I've bought this year, it surprised me that the yearly costs were so close.

One of the stand-out features of this year has been the lack of time spent on the boat. This time partly to do with the weather (which still didn't deliver a long enough spell of settled sunny weather to do any planning ), the other part to do with other commitments: Birthdays, weddings, holidays and the like.

The plan to grab odd days or half days on the boat worked reasonably well. So that will probably stay as a theme for 2017. I neglected Sprite a bit last year, not really following through with jobs like the antifoul and the port side locker top. Hopefully I can muster the gumption to get these done this year. From the amount of time it took last year, I'd say I need a long weekend when the tides are right to clean the hull and get it painted.

I learned in 2016 that a sailing boat needs a clean hull to perform well. I also came to the conclusion that I really do need to do longer sails than just up and down the harbour. But to do that I need to be able to plan a couple of consecutive days of mild weather. The only decent periods of weather we had in 2016 I was either in France or at my stepdaughter's wedding.

I also learned that Sprite's rigging can take a bit more stress than I thought, having sailed down Langstone Harbour with Sprite on it's scuppers, although at the start the weather helm was horrendous. Trimming the sails for less weather helm is another lesson learnt. :-) In my case, ease the main as the wind picks up.

In 2017 I'm visiting family in April so if things continue that may be the best weather period of the year for everyone else out there. Mark your diaries.:-)

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...

A Very Productive Day

Yesterday I spent all day on Sprite. Well not so much on board, I'd put her on the beach, but I did quite a few jobs while she was there. I unhooked from the mooring at 11:30, which was just over 2 hours past high tide. That way I could just beach her and I knew then that I'd be floating well before high tide in the evening.

First off, while I was waiting for the water to recede I got to work in the cabin brewing a cuppa. :-)

Next job in the cabin was to sort out the fixings for the table. It fits in several places on the boat, but the chart table position fixings had broken. It just needed a couple of pieces of thin plywood to sort out the brackets, but its something I'd not gotten round to. So out came the hacksaw and the hand drill to make some. Job done in an hour or so:



Table in place. That cup looks empty.... time for another brew!

By then the water had receded far enough to have a look at the state of the greenery attached to the hull of Sprite.



This picture was taken on my Hudl2, the rest on my Galaxy S2.

So I set to with my favourite tool, the garden hoe. It's got a handle long enough to keep you away from the nastiness but it certainly works scraping the hull clean. Last year I didn't have anything to lay on, so I left the hull between the keels untouched. This time I was prepared, so set to work with a small scraper.

I found that between the keels there were barnacles upon barnacles, creating a layer about 1cm thick in places! Don't get me started on how fouled the speed sensor for the log was... but I cleared it and got it spinning again. Just need a head unit now...

Eventually after much scraping the hull looked like this:



Its not pretty but its free from weed and barnacles.

Free from weed maybe, but that staining looks unsightly.
Something the Mrs keeps having a go at me about. She like a pristine boat she does.



Yeah, one day  I'll be able to afford to antifoul under the waterline.

Not sure if you can see the amount of barnacles on the ground. There were lots!

So... Bottom declagged, what next. Well, I've seen the videos on youtube about cleaning hulls with oxalic acid. As you can see, I had a major staining thing going on with the hull. So for just over a tenner I got a kilo of oxalic acid crystals delivered off eBay.

I used about 200 grammes in 2 litres of water. That de-stained the whole hull!



As if by magic the staining has gone.



I need to research removing waterline algae next if the acid hasn't killed it.

Within minutes of application with a sponge, the hull had returned to white.

I don't have any pictures, but it even reduced the rust stains on the transom.

All I can say is, its great stuff for cleaning staining off the hull. I bought a kilo and only used 200 grammes, so I have four more hull cleaning sessions before I need to buy any more!

One word of warning is don't use it on painted surfaces, because it will bleach the paint.

So, once done it was back inside to brew another coffee and wait for the water to return. I did a couple of jobs that I'd been ignoring like screwing the 12v sockets in the cabin in place properly. Then a well earned rest for an hour or so, resting my back.

Finally the water stopped slopping under the hull and started floating the boat, so I could pull Sprite off the beach using the anchor. The force 5 that had been blowing all day and prevented me having a look at the sails died down after dinner time which was a bonus as I got off the beach and hooked up without a fight. I was back on the mooring at 20:30.



What a lovely evening.

And today I'm full of bruises and I ache. Rest day today I think.

Updated to add the usual disclaimer: ALWAYS use Gloves and Eye protection when using Oxalic acid as its pretty nasty stuff.

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: Video.

Here's a short video of me and Jim sailing Sprite 2 in Langstone harbour. We had an hour sailing up the harbour and back in mist and light winds. The engine worked, the rig worked and the light wind we had was just right for trying stuff out.

The little wind we had shows she sails quite reasonably. The occasional gust we had made her pick up and scoot along quite well.

I'm actually quite impressed.

Now to sort out somewhere for all the rope to go, because it was getting on my nerves continually being sat on!

Here are some more pictures of the historic event:

The sails work quite well. 3 knots when the wind picked up a little.

Not much wind at this point as evidenced by the lack of wake.

Jim posing at the front of the boat. lol.

All in all its been 9 months since I took ownership if Sprite 2, but really 2 of those were abandoned due to the storms, so in reality its taken 7 months of work to get to the point I can sail her. To keep costs down its been slow but steady progress. Now everything works as it should I can concentrate on the less major jobs.

The main priority is to source a depth sounder, as I'm paranoid about running aground. Especially in Langstone where the bottom is very close to the surface. Its a hard task finding a cheap one on eBay. It looks like the transducers already on Sprite are for a NASA instrument, probably a Clipper Duet, but Duets get quite (very) expensive. I might try and get a different depth sounder that's compatible with the NASA transducers rather than get a Clipper Duet. I can save money by ditching the speed log as my phone's GPS function can tell me that.

As it was I used my phone's chartplotter app to keep to the deep water channel rather than use real under the keel depth data.

Locker tops come a close second as priorities. Then I'm thinking of resealing all the deck fittings as it gets warmer.

All I can say is thank you to Sprite 2's previous owner Pam for letting me have her and I hope she still watches this blog and is happy that Sprite 2 is now back sailing again.

I've already dug out the tiller pilot that Pam gave me just after I got Sprite 2. There's a problem with the wiring to it. The tiller pilot works OK on a power supply at home, but plug it into the socket in Sprite's cockpit and it sits there forlornly with dim lights. I suspect corroded wiring reducing the amount of current to the tiller pilot. It needs a LOT of current to work properly! Hopefully it won't take months to fix like the charging circuit, as I have wire now!

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.