They"ll do

Here are some of the new cleats for Arwen. Made from scrap wood, some of which has been reclaimed from shelving being thrown out at school. They have been oiled and although marked in one or two places I do think they will look better than the black plastic ones!

A room with a view

Her wot must definitely be obeyed.. ..... I.e. my mother-in-law came to stay for a few days and she wanted to go visit Brixham. Still a major fishing fleet port, I found it a bit tacky as far as tourism goes. However, there are signs of regeneration, namely the new crab quay restaurant and excellent new fishing quay; and a nice coffee place right at the front of the inner harbour.
Then there is the replica of the Golden Hind and what will soon be defunct but wrongly so.......the Brixham coastguard station.

However, what really grabbed my attention was the gents toilet at the new crab quay restaurant. These toilets over look the new fishing quay, all the trawlers loading and unloading, part of the public  quay walkway and the corner of a coffee shop terrace. And yes these really are buckets, and yes those windows are completely see through .......un-nerving does not describe the experience. I can only hope that they are tinted one way glass!

Sorry......

About the spelling mistakes and grammar in the last post. Using the iPad drives me mad. When you come to proof red the draft blog won't scroll down and so much of what you have typed remains out of view...........really frustrating. Stick in a photo and it makes the situation far worse!

The above shot shows the stern of Arwen. The outboard seems to be performing well although I still haven't quite got a feel for how far I can go on one tank of fuel. There is one of the black plastic cleats which hopefully will be replaced by a nice oiled iroko one in the next few weeks. Just in the top right on the coaming is one of the newly installed 'tuff bag' plastic pencil cases. One on each side they have proved really useful for camera bits and pieces, hand held compass, GPS and spare batteries.     I also installed a plastic tray thingy under the port rear transom deck. I fashioned a sliding lid from scrap ply. It holds sun cream, lip salve, more spare batteries, notebook and china graph pencils etc. Binoculars sit comfortably on top, wedged in the upper part of this plastic tray/bin affair. And, as I discovered on Sunday, everything works. Everything is now close to hand and I didn't need to scrabble in my rucksack once. Wonderful!

Steve

Precious days

I've just been reading Steve's blog about 'Spartina', his Welsford Pathfinder. He was out sailing with friends on Sunday too and clearly had a lovely time. You can read his blog here at
http://logofspartina.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/one-fine-day.html

He talked about 'precious days' out on the water and he's right
. Days like Sunday with blue skies, steady breezes and sunny skies are rare indeed.

Strangely perhaps, I love the whole rigmarole of rigging Arwen before the sail. It is an opportunity to check rigging for wear and tear; plan though the voyages in my head; check the weather conditions and muse on life in general. Sunday started well with a chat to one of the marina yard crew about his family, heir progress in school and life in general. A couple of 'real' sailor salt types came by and admired Aren (thank heavens I'd cleaned her up on Saturday!). Of course, the downside of these little chats is you fail to spot he mistakes you've made. I discovered this in Jennycliffe bay when I went to use the lazy jacks. I'd managed to raise he mast in such a way got he sails fell to one side of the lazy jacks and not between them. No amount of fiddling was going o sort hem and o you will see in the most recent videos that he lazy jacks are loose and twisted...........

.....frustrating!

On the water boats will often sail past Arwen. She always gets a wave and a yelled compliment. I think it is a combination of graceful design by John and the tan sails. Tan sails bring out the old 'salt dog' in Briish sailors.......well certain sailors........over here we call them 'old gaffers'. I also think experienced sailors of a certain age would wistfully like to 'downsize' but don't quite get around to doing so. Maybe they are envious of the small boat s ability to crawl up mud lined creeks. I think American friends call it 'gunk holing'?

A couple of shots

Of a slightly cleaner Arwen........

playing about with a gopro hero 2

I love this camera. Mount it on the top yard; on a mooring pole and send it overboard; on a tripod in the cockpit. It is versatile although I haven't yet managed to sort the water on the lens effect or the salt left as it dries out in the sun. It leads to irritating salt deposits.

After sailing across to Cawsand, I returned to Jennycliffe, where I spent an hour or so sailing up to one of the large moorings and coming alongside......to a full stop! These are skills I very rarely practise and I need to do more of it. Out of six attempts I only failed once and I'm pleased with that. Mind you most of those attempts were towards low tide when it was barely running.

 The one I am most pleased with was picking up the mooring buoy off the north side of Drakes Island. It was tricky because it was between a boat and a floating pontoon with little room for error. On the first attempt I pinched too close to the wind, cleared around the stern of one boat and knew immediately I wouldn't be able to reach it as the wind veered slightly further south. I sailed past, gybed and came back into a close haul tack holding about 40 degrees all the way up to the buoy where a quick turn head to wind bought it neatly alongside. Having already furled the jib, the main fluttered and filled nicely on the approach. The mizzen, well I left that slack. It is a lovely feeling of smug satisfaction when the mooring buoy comes amidships with barely a bump and Arwen comes to a standstill so that you can walk the buoy for'ard and tie off the bowline.

And there is never anyone around to witness it is there.......whilst any miss is witnessed by crowds. Funny that isn't it!

Steve

Sunny days are here again.........at long last

Perfect sailing weather so it was frustrating to get out on the water to discover that the lazy jacks had mysteriously crossed over and the only way would be to drop the mast......so I just carried on instead.

And it was wonderful. Blue skies, spring tides, 10 kt winds, and things to see.......here is the first of a few videos and reports. I hope you enjoy them

Steve

An old marine pool life jacket

As I was cleaning out Arwen on her annual spring clean, I managed to accidentally pull the toggle on an old life jacket that I bought in 2000. And amazingly, it worked and inflated instantly. I took the opportunity to test it for leaks in the bath and there were none. I am genuinely impressed. Well done marine pool. Now I have ordered a Halkey roberts 33grm rearming kit and clip which I hope will fit.

It's always good to test manual inflation life jackets once every so often but maybe thirteen years is a little too long!

Steve

Making cleats

Our office in school is being refurbished and all the very old shelving is being ripped out and binned. So imagine my horror when I discovered lengths of Brazilian mahogany and lovely iroko being chucked out.

So yes I have done the decent thing and through the help of the caretakers recycled some of it. Not much , because lots of it can be used in technology but there were odd bits of no use to anyone but perhaps a boat builder with an idea about replacing the horrible black plastic cleats on his beloved welsford navigator with lovely oiled iroko ones!!!

And guess what? It's Half term! Holiday time! I have time to make some cleats. Yippee!!!!

Steve

Some other videos of navigators.....

Every so often I try to search YouTube for more videos of navigators in action.

Joel posted " mast handling made easy!" And on his own blog rightly extols the vitues of hollow wooden masts

Then there are these as well. Enjoy.