Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Sunday 25 May 2014

Rain stops play.....

It's a conspiracy.......but with a silver lining I guess.

Plans to sail today up the Lynher are postponed to the end of the week.
A number of reasons...........

Torrential rain overnight has flooded the boat through the tarps and its taking some pumping out!
The winds are around 17 knots for much of the day......which is fine; nothing like a little bit of heel.....won't be the first time.

However, and its a big however........the 'popped hatch'.........well that's a different issue.
Basically there are three things that irritate me about Arwen.

1.  The centreboard case top on my version of plans stopped half way along the centre case so she used to ship water through the open section when going to windward........fixed by using some camping sleeping matt foam
2. The hatch in the forward bulkhead is directly behind the mast and when I built Arwen I was too inexperienced to spot the problem!!! Makes it almost impossible to use as there is only 7 inches access either side of that mast
3.   My biggest bugbear! Two 8 inch circular hatches in the vertical walls of the forward thwart. Hindsight, a wonderful thing would have put hatches in the actual thwart seat top!

And one of the hatches has not only leaked so that the under seat area is full of water but it also jammed being screwed back on.

And I mean seriously jammed.......half on, half not on, threads exposed, jammed. Don't know how....I was so careful screwing back in but something suddenly clicked and that was it. Grease, Vaseline, WD40, gentle heat, ..........nothing shifted it. Left it for a while............nothing.

Now going to sea with a hatch on hatch is not an option, not with 17 knot winds gusting to 26 knots. Well not going to sea in any circumstances actually.

So so we are shore bound having missed the tides!

The silver lining? Mum and dad can call in and see us on the way back from their holiday in Cornwall.......and dad will have a solution. He's an engineer. He'll have a solution. He always does.

In the meantime, I will sail with my good friend on Thursday, all being well and then sail the Lynher Friday and Saturday instead.

By then normal service will have been resumed. Sorry folks!

Steve

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howdy Steve,
I fashioned a key with a couple of legs which fitted the detents in the round hatch cover, which I used to undo recalcitrant inspection hatch covers.
Regards
Hylton

steve said...

hey Hylton
Good tip - thanks. It was a frustrating experience I must say. Love the idea of a hatch removal tool - next project - thanks for the tip

Steve