Home duties on Saturday.

Motorsport on Sunday.

MSA Steward at a Rallycross north of Gainsborough.

Left home 6 a.m back 8:30p.m.

Lots of action.

Hope to have a full weekend on the boat next weekend.

Looking a bit wet at the minute.

Down to the boat by myself.

Make up some dividers for the shelf behind the port bunk in the main cabin to stop All the bits and pieces we put there getting mixed up.

Light northerly wind blowing.

Decided to try sailing off the mooring.

Engine running just in case.

Mainsail up.

Go forward and drop the mooring.

Back aft and pull the genoa out.

Hold breath.............

Yes she is picking up way and we will miss the other boats moored around.

Tack up river beyond The Rocks and spot the racing fleets from Waldringfield Sailing Club heading towards me.

Turn back and anchor of the Rocks.

Another member of the YBW.com forum came and anchored near by.

Had a good chat.

Headed back to the mooring.

The wind has done a 180 so it is tack back against wind and tide.

Managed to do it and sail back onto the mooring at the 1st attempt.

Well pleased with that.

A friend from my Car Club came down on Sunday and we motored down to the sea and up to Woodbridge.

No wind.

Good relaxing weekend.

Miles this trip 25.4

Miles this year 313.8

Back home now following a good weeks sailing.

Following the Mid-Channel Breakdown and fix we spent Saturday and Sunday in Oostend.

There was the Oostend at Anchor event on with visiting classic boats from Dutch barges, and classic yachts to large square riggers.

There was also a Marine based market.

One stall was selling rope by the kilogramme.

14mm anchorplat was €2.00/m.

Jimmy Green want £ 3.50/m

40m found their way on board in short order.

This was spliced onto our 30m anchor chain and an soft eye splice added to the end.

The Chain splice was a joint effort by my son Jonathan and myself.

The eye splice was by Jonathan.

I had given up on it as the instructions we had where not very clear but Jonathan would not give up and spent a couple of hours working it out.

He produced a fine job.

The resulting 70m anchor cable was laid out on the pontoon and marked with cable ties every 5m.

The chain locker is now somewhat full.

Monday we headed off to Dunkerque in company with Neal, Debs and their kids in Morgana (a Beneteau Oceanis 400 )

Motored as far as Nieuwpoort and then a sea breeze picked up and we sailed the rest of the way.

About 3 miles short of Dunkerque we had a solitary dolphin playing in our bow wave for about 5 minutes.

We spent Tuesday relaxing in Dunkerque.

Wednesday we headed for Ramsgate.

We managed to get the tides just right and with a good F4 wind abeam Sirenia flew along at near hull speed (6.3 knts)

We followed the cost to Calais and then crossed the TSS at 90°

We only had to alter course for 1 ship.

Once across wa turned up the inshore side of the Goodwin Sands and with the wind dead aft and the genoa polled out we romped up to the entrance channel for Ramsgate.

At times we surfed on the waves at upto 7.7 knts.

We also had a lot of tide under us.

Once we turned to enter Ramsgate we found the the wind had increased to F6 with F7 gusts.

With the tide sweeping us past the entrance and quite a chop we had an interesting time getting in.

Thursday was spent sorting out a few things on the boat and the crew took The junior section of Morgana's crew to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film.

Friday we headed off to cross the Thames Estuary towards the Walton Backwaters.

We stated out with about 2 miles Visibility and not a lot of wind, so it was engine power again.

Morgana was to leave about 2 hours after us.

We where surprised when she caught us up after 3 hours.

We where soon very grateful for their presence as the Visibility dropped to 50m as we approached the Foulger's Gat.

this lets out onto the Black Deep that is the main shipping route to and from the Thames.

Morgana kindly waited for us to catch up by the buoy at the south end of the Gat.

Finding that was a bit difficult and only achieved once they had radioed us their position.

The electronic charts we have did not show the buoy's location exactly correctly.

We were surprised at how close we got to them before we saw them.

Niel had his radar running and said the the black deep was clear for the moment so we headed across with the intention of running along the shallow area on the north side of the Deep.

Just as we got there the fog suddenly lifted and we could see for miles.

The wind also picked up.

So it was up sails and off engine.

Once we could turn North east we got the Spinnaker up and managed to hold on to it all the way into the Backwaters.

We managed to anchor behind Stone point near Morgana on the 2nd attempt.

We had a BBQ and fire on the beach to finish the day off.

Saturday.

There was talk of going round Horsey Island in the dinghies.

I said why not do it in Sirenia.

So we did.

Neil, Debs and crew joined us and away we went.

All o.k. until we got round to the SW corner.

We must of touched the bottom 5 or 6 times from there to the Wade.

We ended up with the keel right up and the rudder blade only just in the water.

But we got round.

Sunday was a motor back to the Deben and our mooring.

There was some wind but it was light and on the nose.

The vis was only about 1 mile.

We found quite a few ships coming and going at the Harwich harbor entrance.

The mist lifted as we went up the Deben with the tide.

Had Fray Bentos Pies and tined spuds for lunch, cleared up and went home.

Miles this trip 217.5

Miles this year 288.4

Max speed this trip (GPS) 10.4Kts Tide assisted

We left Harwich at 03:30.

Very little wind so we motored out with Mabel the autohelm doing the driving.

All went well.

We even managed to cross the main TSS with only 1 small deviation to avoid a ship.

We were about 1 mile clear of the TSS when there was a clattering sound from under the cockpit sole and the engine sounded wrong!

1st move was to stop the engine and clear out the cockpit locker.

I thought that something had got mixed up with the propshaft coupling at the back of the engine.

Once I had got down to the back of the engine I found that the exhaust outlet had broken just before the water injection point.

This was going to be difficult to sort.

There was little wind but we put the main up to use what little there was to keep us clear of the TSS and hopefully move on towards Oostend.

We also called another YBW.com forumite, “Morgana” who had left for Oostend at the same time as us to let him know what was happening. 

I thought that we may be able to join the parts back together with a section of exhaust hose.

The hose is designed to be used in the wet section of the system, not before the water injection point. this area is a lot hotter.

We had to give it a try.

I cut a section out of the hose behind the water trap.

I thought that this was the correct diameter to fit the part remaining on the engine but I could not get it onto it.

there was a short section of hose that was a larger diameter between the rear of the exhaust outlet and the water trap.

I cut of a bit of this to try.

it was to big for the section on the engine but a perfect fit for the water outlet section.

There were 2 problems with this.

1. there was only a very short part of the water injection section before the inlet pipe  and we did not seem to have enough jubilee clips big enough to fit the bigger section hose.

After some head scratching I decided to cut a slot in the hose and allow it to go past the inlet pipe.

This meant we has plenty of pipe to clamp to and we could use a slightly undersize Jubilee clip.

Once we had forced a smaller diameter clip onto the other end we managed to clamp it to the outlet on the engine.

I then put all the rest of the system back together, crossed my fingers and a few other things and started the engine.

Water was being blown out of the stern as usual and there was no sign of any water leaks in the cockpit locker.

There was some signs of exhaust gases blowing out.

Ran the engine for 10 mins and checked that the hose was not melting.

Seemed o.k so we ran it aging for ½ an hour.

Seemed very hot but no major problems.

We decided to try sailing for a while to allow it to cool down.

2.25 knots under main and spinnaker.

It seemed that we would not be into Oostend until very late if we carried on like this.

I decided to push on, keeping an eye on the hose and keeping out of the cabin etc in case of carbon monoxide.

We let Morgana know we were on our way again.

He said that he had sorted a berth for us.

The hose held and we arrived in Oostend at 19:25, about an hour later that we would have.

Once we had moored up and sorted our selves out we made enquiries about a more permanent repair.

Another Forumite “Gupea” whe had come over on the same day said that he had an engineer coming to do some work for him the following morning.

The chap said that he could re-weld the thing.

He did so that evening.

Wonderful service!

Visited the swindlery this morning and spent more than I wanted to.

I think we got all that is needed.

We managed to hoist my son up the mast and he fitted the VHF Antenna whip.

Seems good reception.

We had a nice sail this afternoon down to Harwich and are now alongside Half Penny Pier and are ready for an early start tomorrow.

VHF Whip should be in the post, hopefully it will arrive tomorrow.

My son had agreed to go up the mast to fix it.

Pump tube for the inflatable dinghy found in the shed.

Can't find the radar reflector etc.

This will have to a visit to the Swindelery on the way to the boat on Thursday.

Cork screw yet to pack.

Other things to sort.

Fill the 5 gallon diesel can for spare fuel.

Sirenia's tank only holds 5 gallons say 25 ltrs.

The engine data states that consumption is about 2.5 ltrs/hr

That is only 10 hours at best.

We filled the tank to the brim of the deck filler on Sunday.

We have another 5 gallon can on board.

If the forecast is correct we will be motorsailing, so expect to have to top up the tank on the way over.

I got some s/s split pins from eBay the other week to finish locking the rigging screws etc.

I managed to leave them at home last week end.

They are now packed to go.

Off  for a sailing weekend with my youngest daughter and her boyfriend.

Strong SSW winds when we arrived at Ramsholt which with a strong out going tide made getting the dinghy away from the slipway interesting.

First attempt ended with me having to get over the side and wade through calf deep mud back to the slip for a 2nd try.

Good job I had chest waders on.

Out on the mooring it was a bit rolly as Sirenia was laying across wind and tide.

We decided to go and have a look at conditions up at The Rocks.

No better there so turned round to return to the mooring and then there was a pop from astern.

The painter had come loose from the dinghy and 32 was making up river at a rate of knots.

We took chase and caught her before she went ashore.

Fitted a mooring line with a soft eye splice and said nope get out of that.

Saturday morning we went to have a look at conditions over the bar.

Wind against tide but not to bad.

Punched the tide with a good following wind up to the River Ore.

The daughter went below to lay down as she didn't feel well.

Nealy high tide when we got to the Orford Haven buoy.

Followed the Buoys in.

Just getting to the inner buoy and the was a Bang from the dinghy.

32 was of on an independent trip again!

This time the bow fitting had broken off.

Turned back to catch her.

When we did there was no method to fix a rope to her.

Boy friend held on to her whilst we got into the river and found some shelter.

Tried to wake daughter - no movement.

Tried to anchor but could not get it to hold in the shingle bottom with a 2 knot tide running.

Let it drag with the engine in gear ahead whilst we sorted out a tow for 32.

Rope onto the main seat and a flattened out plate shackle screwed down over the rope at the bow.

That sorted we headed up river and picked up a buoy at Orford.

The reason that we had taken 32 along was that we have not found the pipe that joins the inflatable dinghy to its pump.

32 was used for a trip ashore.

Today we had a good trip back with the tide pushing us along, once we had got out of the Ore.

We encountered a 3 to 4 knot flow into the river and had to moter hard against it to get out.

We even had the spinnaker up for a short while.

By the time we had decided to use it and had sorted out the lines etc. and popped it up we where nearly past the Deben entrance.

Had a good lift up river to the mooring from the tide.

Now back home with a longer list of jobs.

Find the air hose for the inflatable.

Find the Radar Reflector

Find the anchor ball and motoring cone

All the above in the Shed some where

Get a new whip for the masthead VHF antenna. We noticed it missing this afternoon. Work out how to replace it.

Take a corkscrew.

Had difficulty opening wine for Saturday evening meal.

Miles this trip 29.4

Miles this year 70.9

Max speed this trip (GPS) 8.9Kts

Visited the local metals warehouse at lunchtime and purchased some ali tube and 1" solid brass rod.

Used the ali tube when I got home to fix the launching trolley.

After tea I went along my Model Engineering club and turned a new end fitting for the tiller extension from the brass on the club lathe.

This is the 1st lathe work I have done since I left school in '72!

Finished it off in the shed with hacksaw, file and bench drill.

All ready to fit when we go down to the boat tomorrow evening.

A satisfying evening

With a great deal of help from my wonderful wife the Sail cover is complete.

Have to wait for the weekend to test fit it.

Other jobs to try to complete before the weekend:-

Repair our old launching trolley.

Visit my Model engineering club to use the lathe to make a new fitting for the Tiller extension.

Fox's are trying to get an up to date chart from Imray for me.

No issues with exchanging it.

Good for them.

Could not get to the boat yesterday due to other commitments.

Went down this morning.

Nice and calm when I arrived.

Just about top of the tide.

1 puncture and 1 broken rim on the old launching trolley.

Will have to sort our Trolley out and bring it down.

Put some charge in the battery with a small generator (Left it in the dinghy so it was not to noisy).

Tried the new sail cover on the boom prior to fitting the zips.

Scraped the old varnish and gunge of 3 wooden trims in the cockpit and applied the 1st coat of varnish.

Tidied up the wiring from the mast in the Heads.

After the tide turned the wind went southerly and was kicking up quite a chop.

Started to rain by 11:30.

Decided to go ashore before it got to wet and rough.

Dropped into Fox's Chandlery on the way home to pick up an chart of our week away at the end of the month.

Back home I checked the Imray web-site for corrections.

I found that the chart I had was an old print and a new chart had been printed this February.

I will be visiting Fox's next weekend!

Still to sort.

Tiller extension fitting.

Complete sail cover

Make cockpit tent

Miles this weekend - 0.

Miles this Year - 42

Saturday

Towing Sirenia is not one of my most favorite pass times especially when she is loaded with all her gear.

Got to Woodbridge in plenty of time to rig and launch.

On the water and underway by 2.00.

Onto the mooring we are using at Ramsholt by 3.30.

Found Roger, who is loaning us the mooring, in the pub.

Spent the afternoon sorting out lines from the mast and other bits and pieces.

Ramsholt Arms for a meal in the evening.

Sunday.

The plan was to meet other members of the YBE.com forum at a beach up-river from the mooring.

We had sort of arranged to meet some of the folks of Harwich.

Headed down river under sail and crossed the Deben bar in 2.2m of water, 3.5hrs before HW.

We had a good beat down to Harwich and a great broad reach across the harbour.

Meet up with Neil, One of the planed BBQers.

He was waiting to lock back into his home Marina as it was to cold and he did not like the forecast for Monday.

Took a couple of photos and headed back to the Deben.

Another storming Reach out of the harbour entrance and once the 3 out-bound and 1 in-bound ships had cleared the channel we ran down wind home.

We managed to get her surfing at times reaching a peak of 7.7 knots on the log.

Back on the mooring to tidy up and collect No. 32 and off up the the beach.

No one there.

Back to the mooring and cooked the BBQ meat under the grill.

Monday

Rain overnight and this morning.

Lazy start, Clear up and head for home.

Job list.

Fix broken Tiller extension.

Finish new sail cover.

Make cockpit tent.

Miles this weekend - 42.

Miles this Year - 42

Sirenia Is all loaded up with gear and ready to go.

A mate  is coming round at about 8.30 tomorrow morning to help with the final lashing down.

Will have to get the son moving about then (He is out at the pictures tonight).

Of  to Woodbridge by about 9.30 to put her on the water.

Spent Friday evening and all Saturday doing stage lighting and sound for the local Ballet School.

Sunday

Pattern made for a new mainsail cover.

To be made from some breathable fabric from e-bay.

Mast taken down.

Masthead wind instrument re-aligned

Some more varnishing done.

Started sorting tools to be kept on board.

Name and home port applied to the stern.

Boarding ladder re-fixed.

All on track for launch next Saturday.

Can't wait.

Been a long winter.

This evening I have been completing the wiring of a new unit in the forward port side of the main cabin.

The unit has a CD/MP3/radio that I got from Aldi, 1 of the speakers for the radio, a switch panel compete with lighter socket.

The switch panel supplies the radio, power for the charger base of the H/H VHF, and power for the H/H GPS that is used to feed the laptop and give lat/long for manual plotting.

The black wire hanging down by the radio has a 3.5mm jack plug that allows a Ipod to be plugged in, much to the delight of our younger crew members.

I have just been tasting the GPS feed to the laptop and seeing if the laptop 12v charger will work off the Lighter socket.

YES in both cases.

The charger is a big plus as the domestic battery it is all running off has not been charged for about 2 weeks and I have been running the radio from it for some while most evenings.

Took the GRP dinghy down to Ramsholt today so that it is there ready for us in 2 weeks time.

The dinghy came from Basingstoke boating lake she was No. 32.

We will continue to call her 32

We meet up with George the Harbor master.

we had a look at the mooring we are going to use.

Quite a lot of weed growth on the top rope.

That will be something to sort wen we get there.

We then headed up river to have a look at a sandy beach we had been told about in the reach called The Rocks.

We hope to meet up with some fellow forumites for a BBQ in a couple of weeks.

Cleaned out the starboard seat-back storage and re-packed all the catering gear.

Cleared out the port storage and piled it on the starboard side.

Varnished the port seat back and shelf.

Will I ever get her sorted in time to launch?

Tuesday

Had a go at making up some Lazy Jacks.

There was a pair of small blocks on the mast at about 3/4 hight.

We ran some 3mm line through them and tied them to a 8mm line at the front of the mast before we raised the mast over the weekend.

Made up some more small line to form the rest of the system.

There was only a light wind blowing from the Port bow so we put the main sail on the boom and mast and tried hoisting and lowering it.

The system worked well.

Now we need some slightly larger line, some hard eyes and some sort of fixings under the boom to set it up properly.

Good evenings work / play.

Saturday.

Had to visit a site this morning to help some of the lads place some concrete.

Called in on the hair dresser on the way back and had the most severe hair cut ever.

Now I don't recognise myself in the mirror!

Moved Sirenia to the back of the house and got the mast back on board.

Threaded some lines to the old Lazy Jack blocks on the mast and stepped it.

More vanishing down below.

Sunday

No work On Sirenia.

All day in Norfolk marshaling on a Stages Rally at Sculthorpe Airfield.

We managed to flatten out most of the orange peel effect this morning.
We tried 240g glass paper but it was not working well.
We then had a go with a green scotch pad.
This worked well.
We ended up putting a pad on the electric orbital sander.
This flattend the rough areas quickly.
2nd topcoat applied.

After a night time drive through Cambridge, Sirenia is now tucked away under my bed again.
Looking quite shiny
 
There are a few areas that could be better but it will have to do for this year.

We managed to burn out 1 sander this morning in rubbing down the undercoat.

The other sander seemed to spend most of the time clogging up the glasspaper and marking the hull rather that sanding.

We did the best we could and then put on the 1st topcoat.

It looked quite good in places.

A light rub over with a scotch-pad tomorrow and a un-thinned 2nd topcoat.

We have got to get her out of the workshop for Tuesday morning.