Watching a Sinking

I was back at Eastney on Sunday. The wife wanted a picnic and what better thing to do than park up at the entrance to Langstone harbour watching the watercraft.

Much hilarity watching the Harbour Master try and control the jetskis. One unfortunate chap cam hooning into the harbour entrance, past the harbour master, then turned around and went past him again even though the harbour master was holding his hand up for the jetski to stop.

Sadly for the jetskit on the other side of the entrance was a bi Police rib. Which promptly gave chase! Those Police ribs have some acceleration! Jetski man sheepishly came back in the harbour with the Police and had his name taken by the harbour master and then endured another 15 minute lecture.

About half an hour later I noticed a boat in some difficulty amongst the fishing boats near the harbour entrance. I had noticed him go through the fishing boat moorings and thought it a bit tight to get through there. Not something I'd personally attempt. Especially after what ensued.

The yacht got pinned up against a fishing catamaran. Not a small thing. The tide was running into the harbour at quite a rate and at least once I saw the yacht tip over dangerously as it went side-on to the current.

Around the same time the harbourmaster rib noticed the same boat and scooted over to offer assistance.

By now the yacht had tied onto the bow of the cat I guess because when he was pinned to the bow of the cat by the tide, the bow of the cat holed the yacht below the water line. The second harbourmaster rib got a call and went over. But now the yacht was down at the bow.

Then the Gosport lifeboat came round the corner hopefully to bring pumps. Then 10 minutes later the Portsmouth lifeboats were launched too. I was parked next to the lifeboat station and watching the ensuing drama, so they didn't have far to go.

Unfortunately the yacht had by now gone down top the gunnels at the bow and to be honest it looked like the line to the cat was the only thing stopping it from going under.

The lifeboat guys put pumps aboard, but to no avail: the angle of the mast kept creeping further and further to the horizontal as the bow went under the surface. At one point it got to about 45 degrees.

In the end they made the decision to cut their losses and let the yacht sink in case it damaged the cat or took that down too. They cut it free from the cat and the yacht drifted maybe 50ft with just the stern above the water before it succumbed and slipped beneath the surface.

It settled on the seabed with about 4ft of mast still above the water. Such a sad thing to watch for any boat owner.

The two people on the yacht were taken to the lifeboat station and I assume at some point the yacht will be lifted from the bottom as it lies amongst the deep water moorings on the eastern side of the harbour entrance.

UPDATE: I went down the boat tonight for a couple of hours and noticed the mast of a boat at an angle over the other side of the shingle spit. I guessed it was the boat from the weekend. After coming off the boat I walked down to have a look.

Here's what I found:

Looks like the boat has been semi-floated out of the entrance. Hopefully it can be pulled further up the shingle to expose it. This was high tide, but I doubt much will be exposed at low tide.

It's a shame bu it looks a total loss.

Gosport Lifeboat have their side of the story with dramatic pictures of the sinking here: http://gafirs.org.uk/2020/07/13/collison-and-sinking-lifeboat-crews-respond-to-calls-for-help/

I went down to Eastney this week and the boat was almost floating:

One of Too Few Visits.

I visited the boat today, just for a short while to refit the solar panel. I removed it a few weeks ago when I found it had stopped charging the battery. when I checked it out at home, I found the wires in the junction box on the back of the panel had corroded and had become disconnected.

So a new sealed box on the back of the panel and cleaning of the wires ensued and the whole lot was sealed to prevent corrosion.

Back on the boat today I checked the battery voltage. It was 12.8 volts, which isn't bad for a battery that has been left on it's own for a couple of months without being charged. That's quite a healthy charge for a lead-acid battery.

Anyway, after the solar panel was connected, within 20 minutes it was up to 13 volts, so showing a healthy charge. 

Job done.

Then back to shore while the tide was still high. I had a small heart attack a couple of weeks ago (so mild even the doctors weren't convinced and it only showed up on a blood test) and I still have to take it easy. So the dinghy was winched up the beach. Slowly. Luckily I still have the tirfor style winch from when I pulled my back. So that came out to play again. 

Instead of taking 5 minutes to pull the dinghy up the beach, it takes 15 instead with the winch. But hey, I'm still alive!

When back on land I was reminded why I don't like single keelers with beaching legs.

This blue boat had one of it's legs collapse and the boat had tipped over onto Meagles next door. 

While I was winching the dinghy up the beach there was loud twanging from the rigging of the two boats as the backstay of the blue boat slid down the forestay of Meagles as the tide dropped.

I hope they get sorted without any damage, but Meagles' forestay looked under a lot of tension and the blade of the roller furler was bending from the weight of the other boat.

Costs for 2019 and a Review of the Year.

Here's the yearly roundup of costs, which this time are pretty meagre:

As usual first are the basic expenses.

£142      Mooring Fee

£170      Insurance.

The only new stuff this year was the fuse box and rewiring.

£9.39   Fuse box (eBay).

£13.99 Battery Switch (Amazon).

£7.45   10m 11A red/black twin wire.

£5        Terminal Blocks.

£14      LED Stern light (I bought the Nav lights a few years ago).

The only additions apart from the electrical stuff were:

£18.41 Water Pump Impeller for Outboard.

£20      Laminate dinghy mainsail.

Total for the Year: £401-ish.

Sailing in 2019 was again thwarted by something cropping up instead of actual sailing. In this case it was the electrics not being fit and requiring a new fuse box, which took a few visits to make and finally install. 

It seems I've fallen out of the habit of going down to the boat on a regular basis, especially after the conveyor belt of storms over the winter. I need to change that hopefully when the restrictions are lifted.

2019 was marked by the loss of not one but three mooring buoys. The second one was padlocked and chained to the mooring chain and the third was definitely securely shackled with seizing wire, but still went missing.

I'm not sure what security measures I can put in place for the next one. Short of using a longer bolt and bending it or welding the thing closed, it looks like someone wants my mooring buoys.

In 2019 I also tried to improve the sail, but the cheap laminate dinghy sail was actually too big! 
It's now sat in the shed while I think about what to do with it. I'm still on the lookout for a flatter mainsail.

The highlight of 2019 was the floating picnic. Daughter and Granddaughter enjoyed the day even though we didn't sail.

That's about all for 2019. Not as bad as some years. If 2020 allows, hopefully I can get an oak sleeper and fashion it into a mast beam. Then next on the list will be the window rubbers. 
Both of those have been on the to-do list for a number of years now. They need sorting. 

It seems there's always something else the boat requires before I can get to the big jobs. Or is it my own procrastination?

COVID-19 Look at that weather!

It seems like while we're all banged up on what feels like house arrest, the big fella upstairs has decided to pull another funny one and decided the weather should be gorgeous fettling/sailing weather.

All us sailors can only gaze up at the cloudless skies and feel the mild breeze and wonder if our wives and partners would have given us the time to go fettling or sailing. ;-)

I must get round to sorting last year's expenses. The first of this year's has already popped up: £143 for mooring fees. No dispensation for COVID-19 when it comes to fees then...

Went delivering food into Pompey on Saturday and as I was there took a wide route home and drove by the boat (no stopping, no contact with anyone else). All is good at the moment.

Maybe single-handed sailing comes under exercise? I can do an hour up and down Langstone harbour. And dragging the dinghy up the beach is more exercise.

But instead of boaty stuff I'm relegated to garden duty and car washing.

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.

It's Been a While...

Wow, September since I posted something.

Lest assured I have been on the boat, it's just that life is getting in the way. The cover is on for winter, although I have a bigger cover in the boot of the car ready to fit at some point. But it's a really boring post if all I say is that I've put the cover on for winter. The bigger cover is a cheap eBay one that may last the winter and afford me a covered cockpit with more than kneeling space.

A little windfall I had this month will hopefully allow me to buy a chunk of hardwood that I can use for the mast beam. Also money for the window rubbers, if I can find someone to tell me what size rubber I need. Fingers crossed.

When I'll get round to doing it is anyone's guess. I have work stacked up elsewhere that I need to attend to, with not a lot of time available to do it all.

We'll see I suppose, as the New Year unfolds.

As it is, I'm rushing around over Christmas. As I do most of the time it seems.

It's pretty clear that the goal I had for getting the boat in a yard or Marina on the hard is totally out of reach. The plan will have to be beach-based. Certainly I can lower the mast and sort out the mast beam on the beach. I don't know whether it's realistic to think about anti-fouling, not if the boat gets wet between tides.

Roll on 2020. I'll have had the boat 7 years next year.

Yacht Design.

I know I'm late to the world of yachting, but like all things mechanical, yacht design does interest me.

I've commented before on the plague of insufficiently supported keels snapping off offshore yachts (possibly the worst type of yacht for this to happen to).

This is a more positive post.

Looking at the latest racing yachts, starting with the one most local to me, Alex Thompson's new Hugo Boss IMOCA boat.

Some interesting design features on that boat already. It looks like the philosophy around the bow on racing boats has changed in the past couple of years. The Mini-Transat boats, with their bulbous bows for increased buoyancy up front are no translating to the bigger boats.

Some good picture of the boat here: https://www.sail-world.com/news/220602/The-new-Hugo-Boss-boat-hits-the-water

If you look at the picture of the box, it's quite bluff and has a whaleback to disperse any water that gets on top of it, so the bow is designed to travel over waves rather than the wave-piercing design previously used.

Makes sense in a boat that is designed to fly or foil, rather than sit on the water. I assume the idea is to get the bow on top of the waves as soon as possible, so the boat can foil. The same bow profile seems to have migrated to a few other racing yachts that have been announced in the paste few weeks.

The bulbous bow design can be seen on the latest Jeanneau IMOCA boats, although they don't foil, I assume the increased buoyancy at the bow helps to stop the bow digging in and slowing the boat. It will also help stop pitchpoling at high speeds.

In fact the new Jeanneau SunFast 3300 has the same bow profile. A very tasty looking boat that... Just need the lottery win...

Finally in the bluff bow category, we have the newly-launched Team Emirates New Zealand AC75 Americas Cup boat named Te Aihe. Maybe not quite as bluff as the European boats, but still has the essence of the design philosophy.

Moving back from the bow, the hull profile has started to flatten out. I assume because the boats (except the AC75) will be mainly travelling at an angle (the bluff bow also makes the buoyancy even along the hull when heeled) or if not heeled, then foiling. Here, drag is the issue, so drag reduction is the key in order to get the boat up to speed quickly. For the foilers, getting up to foiling speed is the primary function of the hull profile.

The AC75 seems to have a flat section apart from the centre, where there is a bulge in the hull. The AC75 has two massive foils that are down all the time and are ballasted. The boat is designed to sail flat and then foil  so reducing wetted area in the centre reduces drag and gets up to foiling speed quicker.

The new Boss Boat seems to be entirely flat, although the long pictures of the hull seem to indicate a long concave to the hull. But that could be due to camera optics. This is definitely designed to sail heeled.

In this regard the Jeanneau IMOCA boats take the design a step further and add concave sections to the hull. Getting the hull away from the water reduces drag.

Finally we come to the foils. The Jeanneau boats are not designed to foil, being a cheaper entry to the IMOCA class.

First it's interesting to look at Charal, Jeremie Bayou's new boat. It can be classed as a transitional design. It has the element of the latest IMOCA design rules, like big adjustable foils able to change angle of attack, but the hull profile (especially the wave-piercing bow and hull bottom) is rooted in the previous designs.

The New Hugo Boss boat takes the New IMOCA rules to a totally new level of design. The boat is currently running large adjustable foils, but I assume they are not the final design.  Interestingly, there appears to be no pictures released of the boat foiling yet. I do know it's been out in the Solent, but I assume the pictures give a bit too much away about the hull's interaction with the surface of the water. Scrub that: seconds after I wrote this footage appeared on Social Media of the new HB boat in full flight.

Of course the AC75 has just been launched, so not pictures of it actually sailing yet. But the test mules run by the different teams across the globe show that the boats will be big, fast, foiling and not too easy to control. It should be an interesting Americas Cup when the final designs run off against one another. I do hope that it will be available on free TV somewhere and not behind a paywall or subscription.

Another interesting feature of the New Hugo Boss boat is the amount of solar panels installed. Virtually the whole boat's top surface is covered by a bespoke solar installation. This allows more electrical kit to be used without having to use diesel to generate it or having to have a draggy water-powered generator. Looking at it, the boat is designed to be run from inside. The aft end of the boat doesn't look to have any equipment for human interaction at all. How that works out when having to trim sails mid-ocean I don't know, but by 'eck it will be fun to watch.

So, there you go. Yacht design at the top end has evolved yet again. The SunFast 3300 looks to take the latest design philosophy and cram it into a 33ft boat. Very, very tasty. Out of my league, but then again so is an old Westerly Centaur!

Still, it doesn't stop me appreciating these new designs and any traits they have filtering down to boats even mortals can afford, even if it's for millionaire mortals. Those flat-bottomed designs would translate well to sitting on mud moorings like mine, all they need is a retractable keel. Now then, I need plywood for a mould and a ton of carbon fibre and resin... anyone got any going spare?

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