 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Guest Register You can either e-mail us individually or sign our guest book and share your comments with everyone. or see below or home page. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
Mike’s Page 1 May/June 2007 - March 2008 Mikes Page 3 April 2009 - March 2010 Mike’s Page 4 April 2010 - March 2011 Mike’s Page 5 April 2011 - Mike’s Page 3 April 2009 -
April 2008 Gibraltar We arrived here on 1st April exactly one year after we left Sunderland. We left Barbate just after low tide, timed to round Tarifa as the Easterly stream started to help us on to Gib. We still had the tunny nets to watch out for and they were busy setting them in place. The wind was fair to start off with but died a little for a couple of hours, but as we approached Tarifa it changed direction and increased, and yes you’ve guessed it, it was now from the east and on the nose again. We rounded Tarifa, the southernmost point of mainland Europe, but still headed southeast towards the traffic separation lane. This is as busy as it gets. We had at least a dozen ships in sight at all times and a lot more showing on our AIS. It took us two long tacks to get us into Gibraltar Bay. There were another dozen ships at anchor within the bay and several others moving about as well as the ferries to Morocco. We tried to raise Gibraltar Harbour on the VHF but got no response. The marina weren’t answering either. So we kept clear of the anchorages and sailed up the bay until we were opposite the marina and then cut across. The entrance is not easy to spot. It is right next to the airport runway but even that is difficult to spot when you are at sea level. To cap it all there was a large cruise liner right by the entrance but working with the GPS we managed to sail straight in. As we approached we managed to raise the marina and they sent a man down to take our lines. This is a bows-to marina so as the man took our lines he also handed us the ‘slime line’ which is attached to the main line which we secured aft. Although it does not have a particularly wide entrance we found that this marina is really badly exposed with an uncomfortable swell especially with west winds. It took a bit of adjusting of line before we were a little more comfortable and able to get off and on the boat without the boat bumping the pier. I have utilised our fender board as a gangplank. It could do with being a little wider and Pat is still a little nervous going ashore especially when the wind is up. It brings back old memories for me though. As a farmer’s son growing up on Sedgemoor and the Somerset levels, most of the fields were enclosed by ditches which were deep and spanned on occasions with narrow planks to get from one field to another. If there wasn’t a plank …….. well I got quite good at the long jump at school! In the end, I lengthened the bowlines and hung an anchor on each line (see photo), which took the jerk out of the swell. Many others had invested in heavy coil springs and rubbers but they were still having a rough time as the springs didn’t need much movement for them to bottom out and snatch at the mooring point. This is probably the worst marina we have stayed in so far and also the worst weather. It is uncomfortable once the winds get over about Force 4 and during our stay we endured no less that four gales, three of them from the west. In these conditions, it really is a case of taking your life in your hands every time you leave the boat. The piers are basically just concrete walkways on top of piles so that there is nothing resembling a wave break leaving us all rather exposed. We had considered going round to La Línea, which is just the other side of the airport runway and in Spain, but it is difficult to get ashore there. There is nowhere to leave your dinghy in safety as theft of anything in that line is almost commonplace. We are right next to the airport and at first you would think that would be a problem, but there are only about a dozen flights a day and none through the night. So we don’t find that a problem.
The Boat The main reason that we went into Gibraltar was to pick up our new wind vane steering and a solar panel, plus a few other bits and pieces we needed and where we could probably save a little as we are entitled to be exempt of duty, being a ‘yacht in transit’. With the Hydrovane steering we did save, but with the rest of the stuff we ordered from UK we were stuffed with delivery charges and so in fact we saved very little. With the weather being as it was it was practically impossible to work on the boat for much of our stay, but you can get a good pint of bitter here! Well the Hydrovane finally arrived at the same time as the solar panel. So now there was plenty of work to get on with. The solar panel was easy enough. I just hung it on the guard wire and wired back to the aft seat with a deck gland so that we can use it on either side of the boat depending on where the sun is. It is a 55 watt panel and should supplement our existing set up well. I made a strut out of a broom handle, a piece of mahogany that was in the log basket and an old dinghy chain plate I happened to have! The Hydrovane was a little more complex but still fairly straight forward. This time I actually read the instructions. Our neighbours said that this act alone depicts that I have lost all credibility as an engineer! I had to remove the bracket that held the old Gunning gear that was well rusted but nevertheless still had a lot of life left in it. Getting it off was an experience especially when working from the dinghy with the wash from trip boats taking trippers out to see the dolphins in the bay. Funny thing is though, we never saw any dolphins on our way in!! The Hydrovane needs just two brackets bolted on to the transom, one at the top and one at the bottom and two bolts in each. Just four holes to drill, easy!? Well three went easy enough. The third, I hit rebar (Remember El Lobo has a ferro-cement hull) and then of course the battery died on my drill. Determined to get the job done I pulled out my mains electric drill (not really ideal when working so close to the water) and worked at this last hole, having to stop every time the trip boats went out and of course. This day of course the customs decided to pay us all a few visits as well. So it was drill a bit and then wait for the waves to die down again and start drilling again. I also needed two pads to take up the shape of the transom and provide a flat surface foe the brackets. I had already pre-empted this (see February) when we were in Ayamonte so it was just a matter of the final shaping of the blocks. Eventually I got it all ready. I had the top bracket mounted and bolted. The bottom bracket then needed to be lined up and angles defined to get the hole positions but the bottom bracket also required someone inside the lazarette. Our mate Phil from the cat Sea Spirit seemed the right size to fit in our lazarette so I volunteered him to give me a hand and he dutifully did the honours whilst I tightened the bolts from the dinghy. Thanks Phil!!! Phil and Paul on Sea Spirit have been having major problems with their Volvo engines. Volvo spares are not quite as easy to get hold of as you might think. They have been waiting weeks for a new manifold and they still don’t know when it will be delivered. I then actually read the instructions again (Will Curry please take note!) and the whole assembly started to look like what we thought we had bought. I have to say that that the unit is extremely well engineered and unlike others I have seen it can be adjusted to different sensitivities depending on the strength of the wind and the balance of the boat. Anyway, the proof of the pudding and all that blah blah blah…….. I will let you know in due course whether I think it was a good investment. Anyway the work doesn’t stop there, I have had to relocate the Dan Buoy and reposition our ensign to allow the vane to operate in all directions. Balance of the sails is vital we are told and people we have spoken to have told us that this type of steering system needs the sails to be well balanced and to work it correctly has taught many sailors how to trim their sails more efficiently. So I am expecting a good lesson in sail trim from this machine! Other work still goes on. Varnishing and painting is a constant source of occupying my time! Pat is also busy battling with the sewing machine. It is an old one and we have at last managed to get hold of an instruction manual! She is making up lace-on pockets for the wind dodgers where we can store the vane for the steering gear and the solar panel when it is not in use …….. if ever!!! Our aft gantry is now nearly at saturation point with antennae and other gizmos. We have to make sure that the wind is not affected in any way that the wind vane steering will be compromised so I have had to reorganise things a little to cope. Time will tell if I have done enough. We also now have a new aerial for Wi-fi. This one is directional but is really powerful at 20 Bdi. We can pick up far more from the boat than we could before. So I am now trying to work out a way to be able to rotate this aerial without interfering with anything else on the gantry. Gets complicated doesn’t it!! Apart from all this I now have the opportunity to do all the regular jobs. The engine is now due for servicing and there are a minor adjustments to do on the rig. So whilst we are here we will be busy.
Bicycles We set off with two bikes which were the folding mountain types. The intention was to be able to stow them in the dinghy when at sea. However the dinghy is still full of other bits and pieces so they have to live on the side deck. This means that they are exposed to the elements and of course the salt water. I have made a point of keeping them well oiled and we have made a deliberate point of using them as much as possible to stop the chains from rusting up. However the springs in the gear-change mechanisms are not stainless steel and as they corrode they weaken and eventually fail. Pat’s bike eventually became too difficult for her to ride so we decided to buy a her a new one whilst we were in Ayamonte. Whist across the river in Vila Real do San Antonio we went to the big supermarket where we knew they had some on display. Pat picked out her bike which had an aluminium frame and front suspension all for €102.00 which was a lot less than we paid for the original ones we bought in UK and we thought we got them cheap! There was another there with steel frame and no suspension so I enquired the price and it was €55.00. So thinking that mine may not last much longer we bought that one as well. We got the bikes back to the boat, we had to push them all the way as the tyres were not fully inflated. That was about two miles and a ferry trip! I removed the panniers and lights etc and fixed them on the new bikes. Pat was not happy with her handlebars so we got a replacement at the local bike shop along with a new saddle. I have now packed the gear mechanisms with grease and keep all moving parts well oiled. My next job is to paint the spokes as they quickly rust in the sea air. With my new regime we will see how long I can make them last this time. However, at those prices, it is not a lot out of our budget for what we get out of them. I really cannot imagine cruising without them now. We have seen a lot more than we would have by shank’s pony and by being stuck in a marina. We have come to see the world and we intend to see as much as reasonably possible. The bikes are also very handy for shopping when the supermarkets are a long way from the marina and for fetching heavier items such as cans of fuel or gas bottles we also have the trailer.
May 2008 After over a month in Gibraltar, waiting for packages from UK we decided to move along the bay a little to La Línea which is basically just over the border into Spain. Gib is not a place I could recommend as a marina or as a postal port. In fact, the postal service is really third world stuff with attitude! We had decided to lift out in Smir, Morocco but were advised that there was no chandlery there and that we should take everything we needed with us. There is a good chandlery in La Línea and much cheaper than the one in Gib. So we stocked up there. However, one thing I should mention is that whilst diving for the water filler cap that my size 11’s knocked into the water in Gib, I checked the anode, and shock horrors, it had been completely eroded away, just a bare metal strip left. So I also made sure we had a couple with us. Also whilst we were in La Línea we met a couple from Sydney, Australia, Peter and Ruth, on a boat called Mudskipper. I had read about this boat a couple of years ago in Yachting Monthly. Pete had designed and built this boat and I was really impressed by his thinking. It is a ‘swing wing’ ketch, best described as a combination between a junk rig and freedom rig in that the sails are on both sides of the mast with internal foils or battens which give the sails an aerofoil shape. But Pete’s thinking went further. The masts were unstayed yet instead of being keel stepped as ours are, they were mounted into a steel frame and pivoted as if in a tabernacle with a winch system for lowering them. He had arranged the system so that both masts when lowered were contained within the length of the boat, ideal for canal travel. Peter really thinks outside the box and there is so much more on this boat that impressed us both, even down to the fact that the whole galley arrangement was gimballed! They are due to start on their way back to Oz soon and we do hope to see them again on our travels, if not then we must look them up in Sydney when we get there. Once we were ready to move we set off across the Straits of Gibraltar to Smir. The wind was westerly, about F5 as we set off so we were looking forward to a good beam reach. Now of course we had our new Hydrovane steering gear to play with and try out. What a toy! We just set the sails and locked off the tiller and set the thing in gear and off we went. It worked perfectly first time and we never had to touch the tiller again until we reached Smir. However as we neared Ceuta the wind increased and turned southwest putting it almost on the nose and the sea started to build along with it. However we still did not touch the tiller and I have to say that the Hydrovane kept a better course that we could have done. We are well pleased with our investment. We were getting quite a bashing it what were the heaviest seas we have encountered since the English Channel with a lot of water coming over the decks. We carry two spare anchors on the foredeck and the lee side one broke loose and was hanging over the side by its chain, banging against the hull. This was a Danforth type anchor with a bar sticking out each side. With the Hydrovane taking care of the steering we were able to recover the anchor without serious damage. When we got into port we found that we had scraped quite a bit of paint but no damage to the hull. Once again, if this had been a plastic boat, I doubt if we would have been so lucky. Once again, insurers please note! Formalities are a little different here. Once we checked in, I was obliged to go round the corner to the Police office where our passports were stamped for the first time since we left UK. They are also stamped as you leave when you have also to inform them of your next port. Bows to mooring again here but much better sheltered than Gib and therefore much more comfortable. Once we had lifted out and back into the water, we spent a day cleaning up the boat and making ready for sea again, and the next day we set off for Ceuta. In Morocco however you have to clear out of the port and get your passports stamped again. This time they wanted to inspect the boat before they granted us clearance. It was just a cursory check; I think they just wanted to see what it looked like inside of this ‘queer looking boat’!! We had been experiencing westerlies for the past few weeks and wanted to get to Ceuta to be ready to head west when the wind changed. It seems like a bit of deja-vu as it was about this time last year when we were stuck in the Channel Islands for exactly the same reason. The wind was WSW when we set off so it nicely on our quarter and we made good speed. A couple of school boats from Gib set off from Smir at about the same time and we all kept pace right to the point when we turned West into Ceuta and they continued North to Gib and Estepona. The wind had increased again and was now more westerly and we had a hard beat into Ceuta for the last three or four miles. Bows to mooring again, and we are getting quite good at it now. When I checked in I also checked the weather forecast and it looks like westerlies for the next week or so we could be here for a while before we are able to head back into the Atlantic.
Lift Out Once in Smir, I spoke to the yard manager and arranged for lift out in a few days. They seemed very obliging. When the day came we were ready for a 0930 lift out but it was 1430 when we finally got our turn. This is a very busy yard and quite large. We were lifted out with a 150 tonne travelling hoist and Lobo looked quite petite in those massive slings. They set us down and chocked us all round and we thought that was it. I asked if there was a ladder I could borrow in a combination of Spanish, French and sign language and they disappeared with a nod of the head. They came back with a flight of stairs on wheels and a mobile scaffold! Luxury! Nothing seemed to be too much trouble for these guys. They tended to our every need with a smile. We felt a little daunted being parked amongst 100 ft plus gin palaces all around. However to Mohammed, the yard manager, we were another boat and another customer who had to be pleased no matter what size of boat. We were. I cannot speak too highly of this yard and would recommend it without hesitation to anyone needing a lift out when in this area. Phil and Paul from Sea Spirit had lifted out here to fit new seals in their sail-drive so we managed to volunteer them to do a bit of scraping to help the work along. We had hoped to just raise the water line a little, but when we were washed off with the pressure washer it was evident that we needed a complete antifoul so I needed to get some more. We had been told that we would not be able to buy it here but when I spoke to Mohammed, he said he could help us out. It turned out that they actually hold massive stocks here along with anodes and epoxies and various sundries needed when lifting out. Another problem solved. The anode situation was the one that worried me. How long had the anode actually lasted? It was fitted when we lifted out in Hartlepool in April 2007 the bolt strip was all that was left. The propeller seemed OK and the anodes on the rudder were just a little pickled on the surface but certainly not needing replacement. Our freezer has a heat exchanger on the outside of the hull and also has two small anodes and when I checked these, they were also just about finished. This heat exchanger is connected to the DC earthing system which is also connected to the main anode. Also connected to the anode is our Galvanic Isolator which we were advised was necessary if we are using a 240v system. I make no claim to be a skilled electrician. But straightforward wiring systems should present no problems especially when you have the instructions in front of you. I now have to ask the question, why do we need galvanic isolation on the AC earth when we should have an earthing system with the marina supply? Can anyone explain this to me in simple English? We have a consumer unit with RCD so in any event we should have adequate protection there. I have spoken to others on this subject and it seems that there are two trains of thought here. One says we need galvanic isolation and the other says we do not in most circumstances. There are also differences in advice in connecting the AC earth to the DC earth. I have to say that the more I look into this subject the more I believe that half the ‘experts’ just don’t know what they are talking about, but which half do we believe? After much thought and consideration I have decided to disconnect the galvanic isolator. The other option would mean lifting the boat out of the water every six months just to replace the anodes. I don’t think so! Anyway back to the situation on the ground (pardon the pun!). I had a spare anode to replace the main one, but the anodes for the heat exchanger were a different story. Then I remembered that I had used the old anode as a weight for the bottom rung of our rope boarding ladder. I would make a couple of disc anodes from this. I used a hole saw to cut the discs and countersunk the central fixing holes to take the countersink screws. A bit of cleaning up with a file and the job was done (see photos). The studs holding the main anode were always a little too short so I decided to replace them with slightly longer stainless ones whilst I had the opportunity. The hull still seems to be in good condition despite our grounding in the Guadiana River earlier this year. A few rust spots had developed in the last year and we did our usually treatment here and filled with epoxy and faired off. Once the antifoul was completed I set about touching up the topsides and repairing a few ‘battle scars’ we had collected over the past year, then catastrophe occurred! I knocked over our last tin of green paint! We have so far been unable to obtain any more of this particular paint so we may have to have some sent out from UK before long. This was also an opportunity to revarnish our spare battens. These we carry lashed to the stanchions each side of the boat and whilst there they also double up and wooden handrails (Pat always wanted wooden handrails!!). They bend easily to the curvature of the boat but we turn them occasionally so that they do acquire a permanent ‘set’. We did not need to book a lift in here, we just told Mohammed when we were ready and within a couple of hours, a team of five men arrived with their massive hoist and polythene to protect the paintwork from the slings and we were in the water again. Once again, I can really recommend this yard. It is kept clean and tidy and whatever you ask for, it is done and with a smile. Security is also not a problem.
June 2008 We went to Ceuta to wait for the right winds to be able to get out of the Gibraltar Straits. There is a particular weather system here. The Straits are only 8 miles wide at its narrowest with mountains either side so that the winds are mainly east or west, with just the very occasional north or south wind, and they are usually quite strong. Coupled with this is also a complicated system of tides and currents. It is the connection between the Atlantic Ocean, which is tidal, and the Mediterranean which is almost non-tidal. Apparently the Med evaporates three times faster than the rate at which all the waters flow into it so that the deficit has to come from the Atlantic. At the western end of this thirty mile stretch, the water is 2 – 3 meters higher than at the western end at high tide therefore making a constant flow into the Med. Add to this the fact that the heavier density water from the Med flows out under the incoming Atlantic water creating a sub flow. The winds also have an effect of the surface water flow depending whether it is the levanter (Easterly) or the ponitente (Westerly). The result is that there is sometimes water flowing in different directions within half a mile of each other. Confused? Well I was, so I decided to wait for the winds to turn easterly and just go for it!!
Tangier We left Ceuta when winds the finally turned from west to east and headed out for Tangier which is about 25 miles west of Ceuta. The winds were a steady F4 and more from the northeast so with the wind on our quarter to start with we were soon catching up boats that had left before us. The wind then veered more easterly and was right behind us. Not always quite so comfortable but we were making good speed and were soon putting in some reefs as the winds increased, in fact we were doing 7 – 8 knots with eight reefs in. Some rig this. However when we got to Tangier there was little room. A French single-handed racing yacht had parked on a hammer head and nobody could get alongside with his rigging booms sticking out. The other hammerhead was occupied by three boats rafted out towards the fishing fleet. After much manoeuvring about in tight spaces in a Force 5-6, we found that there was no one to advise us where to go. Eventually four lads beckoned us in to go alongside an old pilot boat, next to a big sign saying Berthing Prohibited! We were actually allowed to stay. The marina is actually run by the yacht club, which judging by the small number of local yachts there, is probably no more than a posh social club. Formalities were simple. A policeman came down to the boat and checked our passports and ships papers and issued us with a port pass and took our passports with him to be returned when we left, all quite friendly. This is mainly a fishing harbour with ferry terminals out in the main harbour. The ‘marina’ if you can call it that, consisted of a couple of small pontoons with bows to mooring and little room for visitors. On the other side of the harbour was the fishing fleet. I don’t know how many boats there were there but they were rafted out from the opposite wall about twenty deep. It was quite interesting watching them put to sea. I was glad we were where we were. There was a lot of construction going on and the port is quite busy and dirty with a concrete plant just over the wall to boot so there was a lot of dust and grime on the boat each morning. Not a place to take your brand new plastic prized possession. We had planned to go on to Larache and then to Kinitra before going to Mohammedia but we were told that there was a new marina at Rabat and that the first two on our list were mainly fishing ports and a bit iffy for yachts. There is also no anchoring allowed in Morocco without special permission. We had read about developing marinas in Morocco that had been halted and although marked on charts, did not actually exist as yet. So I had a look on Google Earth and zoomed in on Rabat and saw the marina in construction phase with all the pontoons in place and not a boat in sight. The pilot book showed sand banks in the river but they were gone on the satellite picture. So the rumours seemed true. The river had been dredged and the marina was there so we made plans. Rabat, then Mohammedia and then across to Madeira, hopefully with a beam reach all the way across. Rabat-Salé Rabat is about 120 miles from Tangier so it was an overnighter, long time since we did one of them! We decided to leave mid morning to be sure of arriving during daylight hours. Northerly winds were forecast and they turned to north west as the day went on. Through the night it remained steady until midnight when it died to a force 2. We were making such good time that we had hoped that we could sail all the way but once again we resorted to the engine. The entrance to the river was not easy to see at first and the morning mist didn’t help. There are no lights or marks installed as yet so a night entrance would be a little precarious, or out of the question for the faint hearted. We were going in literally blind as we had no charts for the river as it is today, just a chartlet of how it used to be with drying sandbanks and all the sort of stuff that would make me give it a miss, especially with our deep keel. A fleet of small fishing welcomed us, boats with one or two people on board whose entire English vocabulary seemed to be ‘Welcome to Morocco!’ It was quite a welcome. We were then beckoned by a RIB to follow them and it seemed that they were from the marina. We followed them up river to the road bridge and then left into the marina. This marina can take 350 boats but there were only about a dozen other boats there. We were welcomed on the pontoon by a posse of people one of whom introduced himself as the director of the marina and welcomed us here. There was a policeman who checked our passports and took them to be photocopied and returned with them shortly. We felt like royalty! Bit of a change from Tangier. Wi-fi, electricity and water all in the price here. Once again in Morocco, nothing was too much trouble. Although the admin. building was up and running along with the toilet block, there were several small buildings that were to be shops and cafes and the like that were not finished. We then found out that the marina was not officially opened but they presented us with a price list that was a little expensive almost to the price of the South coast of England! Every one there told them that it was too much. In actual fact they seemed grateful for that information and said that all that were there at that time could stay for free till the end of the month! So we did! Well, nearly. Once again, there was a lot of construction work going on here so every day there was a new layer of thick dust on the boat. We had planned to go to Mohammedia and then over to Madeira but Mohammedia looked a bit iffy from all reports we had heard so we stayed at Rabat until we had our weather slot to cross to Madeira. We actually decided to go to Porto Santo first, which is a small island to the North East. The distance is about 480 Nautical Miles, the longest trip we had done so far. I was looking at it as a test for the boat (and crew) for the Atlantic crossing. If we could manage a little over 100 miles a day that would mean about 4 days and that was my target. Clearing out of Rabat was a little more complicated than checking in with trips back and forth to the Police and Customs officials and eventually a visit from a sniffer dog. Well with a junk rig they probably thought we were Junkies! We said our good-byes to friends we had made there and set off. As soon as we had made it out of the marina, one of the officials came running down what may soon be a fuel berth in the river shouting for us to heave to and stand by. Damn, I thought, they want us to pay after all; I knew it was too good to be true! We turned around and went alongside the pontoon and then he told us to wait for the RIB to escort us out as there were dredging operations going on as well as fishing boats with nets across the river. They would clear the way. They also wanted us to hoist our sails so they could take a photograph but I refused here. The wind would have been behind us and we would be racing out of the river!! Eventually we got to sea, but the RIB still wouldn’t leave us until we had hoisted sail! They certainly hadn’t seen anything like us before!
Passage to Porto Santo We had been studying the wind patterns for weeks on www.UGRIB.com and www.passageweather.com and what we have here is called The Portuguese Trades. They are fairly consistent and blow mainly from the North West round to the North East. There is a constant current of about half a knot running south so we aimed to be a little north of the rhumb line so that we could drift down wind on to the island. There was a swell of about 2 – 3 meters. In normal circumstances that it not too bad in the Atlantic, it would be horrific in the North Sea. But the Atlantic swell is usually long and gentle. However something had gone wrong this day. I think Neptune and Poseidon had been having a bit of a barney down below and the sea was a little confused. There wasn’t the wind that had been forecast so we had to keep motoring for a few hours to get away from the coast where we thought the sea might become a little more settled. The wind was only about F2 and with the swell we decided to have the engine on for a little until we cleared the coast a little more. We then hit fog! Surprisingly enough the wind increased a little and we could sail, but whilst the fog was there we kept the engine on as well as the radar. We cleared the fog after a couple of hours. We had a couple of targets on the radar but none were close. Once into sunnier weather we then could hear their foghorns. Smug satisfaction when we were clear and they were still in fog!! The sea however was still confused giving us a horrible motion on the boat and we both were feeling sick. This sickness lasted the rest of the journey so we cannot say that we enjoyed the trip. Thank heaven for the Hydrovane, which again performed well. Sailing-wise, the boat performed well. The winds were generally around Force 3 to 6 and on the quarter for much of the trip. We had some rough seas and for a lot of the time we were sailing along the swell, not the ideal, with occasionally some big seas, leeward gunnels awash most of the time but no water in the cockpit. We thanked John (The Builder) for our big keel a few times. These were the conditions that a long, deep keel really makes life a little more bearable. We were pitching and rolling but we weren’t being thrown about, we kept snug in the water. When the wind increased we pointed a little more upwind to give us a safer and more comfortable route across the swell. As we neared our destination the wind of course changed round to the North West and increased back to Force 6 and gave us a tight reach for the last thirty miles or so and even when we got into the lee of the island there seemed to be no respite from the wind. Berthing in the marina took a couple of attempts and was successful with the help of a couple of strong Frenchmen who were unfortunate enough to be nearby! Merci Messieurs!
The Boat The Hydrovane wind steering system is definitely the best investment we have made on this boat. Anyone contemplating full time cruising should consider this a priority for their boat. Ours handled the boat in heavy seas better that I could have done even for a short spell at the helm, but when you consider say a four hour watch with a heavy helm and then just a few hours rest (notice I didn’t say sleep!) and then back on the helm. I’ve done it that way and I’ve done it the Hydrovane way. The Hydrovane way is better by a long way! On our trip we set the Aquair generating system going and with our three solar panels we were able to keep our battery bank at a good working level with the freezer going full time (we are waiting for a new thermostat at the moment) and the use of the radar when we needed it a well as the chart-plotter. We also had the inverter on to keep the Iridium phone and the computers charged up. The rig held up and performed well. We like to keep our speed down to around 6 knots and down to a maximum of five knots in heavy weather otherwise we ship a lot of water on board, so this rig is perfect for this sort of control. It is so easy to reef from the cockpit without having to round up into the wind with all the discomfort that entails so that the off watch person is usually unaware that a reef is being performed. The sails never look very tidy once we have three or more reefs in one sail, but they still perform. We are still having problems with the shower sump. My modification has improved things but the problem is still hair blocking the filter. Perhaps we will have to just shave our heads! Does anyone else have this problem? Better still, have you found an answer?? I have had a few e-mails asking what do I think would be the ideal cruising boat. To be honest I don’t think anyone could answer that question truthfully. The first question usually is how deep is your pocket? And don’t forget that whatever you buy, it is unlikely that it will have everything on it that you feel you need, so be prepared to spend a little more money and a bit more work before you eventually set off. Although I have tried to equip this boat with everything we wanted, El Lobo certainly isn’t the perfect boat and I don’t think I have seen one yet, but we have certainly seen a few good ones. The problem is that most production boats are designed with one basic principle in mind. How can we make this boat go to windward better than the last model? Great for racing but an absolutely useless concept when going cruising. Cruising folk plan their next trip to avoid going to windward so why not design a boat that will go better down wind? The more upmarket cruising boats are usually custom built with a specific owner in mind who will have a rapport with the builder as it is being built. The new owner will also have deep pockets and that will be enough to put that type of boat out the reach of many of us. What we will do is when we see a good cruising boat we will try to get all the details and specs and maybe we can and start up another page on this site. Another part of the same question was what are the essentials for cruising? That is a little easier to answer but still depends on what you want to do. If you just intend to swan about the Med from marina to marina then most production boats that will fit your pocket will do, but if you don’t have that sort of income then you need to equip your boat to be able to stay at anchor for some time. You will need to consider your power requirement and to be able to maintain your battery bank. We have a small freezer on board and a TV/DVD player as well as a pressure water system. So the more comforts you want, the more power you will need. Down in these latitudes we have found solar energy to be most effective as well as a wind generator. We also have a small generator that will run power tools as well as charge up the batteries. The REAL cruising boats will have a gantry to carry all this stuff and if designed correctly, will also help to rig a good bimini and enclose the cockpit area, again essential in the lower latitudes. We love getting e-mails and questions about the boat and we try to answer them all but occasionally we are out of internet range and therefore it can be a little while before we are able to respond. So keep ‘em coming, it always great to hear from you all.
July 2008 Only one trip this month, and that was the short trip from Porto Santo to Funchal, which is about in the middle of the south coast of the beautiful Island of Madeira. The trip is just over thirty miles and the wind behind us all the way so no real complications there. We trolled a couple of big lures on the way as this is where you can start to hit the big fish, but no success for us. However Duncan and Rachael on ‘Sinbad’ caught a small Mako Shark which we all enjoyed on a BBQ. Funchal does not really cater for visitors in the usual sense. There is a marina but it is full of local boats. The visitors berth is alongside the wall and there is room for about three boats. Any more and you have to raft out. We rafted three out and against a rather new 52 ft Hanse who rather panicked when he saw us coming alongside and produced some large fenders to insert between us! He left after a few days and we were then against Graham and Joan on ‘Karma’ who we had first met in Porto Santo. They are from Strangford in Northern Ireland. After 10 days on the wall we decided to go out and anchor in the bay to save a few pennies. It is not an ideal anchorage as it is exposed to winds from the Southern sector, but they are fairly infrequent here. We were still exposed to the swell and the boats there all seemed to be lying along the swell which meant that they were rolling quite a bit so we decided to put out a stern anchor to line us up into the swell. This seemed to work most of the time. This is not what I would call a comfortable anchorage but we were certainly more comfortable than the others were. However the swell changed direction and increased so that we had a couple of uncomfortable nights. There was now no room in the marina so we decided to go to Calheta and get alongside for a good nights sleep before doing some more adventurous walking (see Pats page). We set off in the morning once we had raised anchor. The stern anchor had really bitten in so we had to raise the main anchor first and then get right over the stern anchor before it would break free. The trip to Calheta should have been about 12 miles but we managed 27 miles looking for fish and chasing whales, it was a good enjoyable trip. There is one other marina on the island, Quinta do Lorde which is near Caniçal to the eastern end of the island. There are a few other anchorages along the south coast but they can quickly become exposed so we decided not to take the risk.
Fishing Well I had my first serious fishing trip whilst at Funchal. Duncan of ‘Sinbad’ suggested the trip. He is a very keen angler who has fished in many parts of the world and so was keen to have a go at the big’uns! There are a few sport fishing boats in Funchal and we witnessed some big catches so this was too tempting for Duncan. He invited Graham of ‘Karma’ and me along. The best boat to go on was ‘Sinbad’ as it had no gantry on the stern and he was at anchor so easier to get back to his mooring. The first trip of course was to the local tackle shops to get some appropriate gear. To troll for the big stuff, surface lures are the thing. Bottom fishing here would have to be very close in as within a few hundred metres from the shore line, you are in 500 metres of water. I bought some lures and trace line and some big hooks. I stopped short of the rods and reels like the ones that we saw on the fishing boats, big bucks there! After ferrying Rachael ashore for a girls day out, the three of us set off on ‘Sinbad’ to search for the big game. We headed east at first and then south watching the chart plotter for mountains on the sea bed hoping that was where the fish were but no luck there. So we then turned west running parallel with the coast about 8 – 10 miles out. We were trying all different lures but the fish weren’t interested or just weren’t there. We headed west of Funchal before closing the coast and then headed back towards port ready for some derision from the girls. Suddenly Graham’s reel started screaming and action at last. The luck of the Irish! Graham had hooked a Tuna and was giving him a good run. We got it aboard and what a relief. We didn’t weigh it but it fed six of us that night with a couple of steaks each left over for the freezer. What did he catch it on? Well Graham decided not to bring his own tackle, so he had Duncan’s rod and reel and my trace and lure, so I reckon it was an all round team effort. not a great haul but a very enjoyable day with a good barbie on ‘Karma’ to finish it off. Since that trip I have been out in the dinghy a few times without success but Duncan has managed a few Barracuda which we had on the BBQ and are quite tasty. One word of warning here however. Barracuda are OK this side of the Atlantic but around the Caribbean the older fish carry ciguatera which is a disease that can be caught when eating infected fish.
The Boat We had a problem with the forward water tank. We have bladder tanks on board and this one had now split. I took it out and discovered that the split was where there had been a fold in the material. I tried to repair it, twice, but eventually replaced it with a spare that we bought when we first bought the tanks. I just hope that this one will last a little longer! There are still a million jobs to do on the boat, keeping all the systems working. I met a guy once in Alcoutim who had sailed around the world in a Wharram Catamaran he had built himself with just the basics on board. He reckoned he had more time to enjoy himself because there was little to go wrong and not much maintenance to do. I reckon he had a point, but where do you draw the line. We also bought a barbecue this month. We had been hoping to get hold of a gas one but to no avail without a lot of hassle getting it delivered. So we finished up with a charcoal one similar to the one we left behind in Sunderland! Cooking at night down below just heats up the cabin even more and a BBQ in the cockpit is just the job. I have fitted it on the rail of our gantry so that it hangs out over the water. That’s all for this month folks, see you next time.
August 2008 From Calheta we had to go back to Funchal to collect Pat’s computer, so another attempt to catch a big one failed! We went into the marina and moored up once again to ‘Karma’. They eventually moved on and we were against the wall. Bit of a problem here as there are no ladders. I had already made up a board from a plank of wood I had acquired at Ceuta to use as a passarelle to get ashore when moored bows-to. I copied an idea from a few other cruising boats and cut out foot holes so it can now also be used as a ladder as well as a fender board. So no real problem there……. except when a sixty footer moored up outside of us and the ‘ladies’ on board needed to go ashore for a night out, wearing cocktail dresses and high heels! Believe me, trying to assist them up this unusual ladder caused me some amusement!! Eventually it was time to reluctantly say good-bye to Funchal and Madeira. Our destination was Graciosa which is a small island just off the northern end of Lanzarote a distance of about 280 miles. We had intended to leave on the Sunday but there was a gale forecast to be just to the North East of Lanzarote so we delayed a couple of days. The new forecast on Monday was North Easterlies F 4-6 so it was to be a good direction with the wind just behind the beam. We always allow a couple of days after bad weather to allow the seas to calm down a bit. The swell however was a lot larger than we had anticipated and a lot shorter. Instead of the nice long usual Atlantic swell we had a short steep swell more akin to what we had left behind in the North Sea. We made the passage in just over two days averaging just over 120 miles a day which was quite satisfactory for our old boat but it was by no means comfortable and for the last fifty miles or so the wind increased to F7 so we were well reefed down. We approached from the southern end of the island hoping to go into the harbour at Caleta del Sebo, the only harbour on the island but as we rounded up into the Estrecho del Rio the wind was hard on the nose. With the engine on nearly full revs we were still only making 3 knots. As we passed an anchorage at Playa Francesa we recognised a couple of boats so we turned back to drop the hook. Our first attempt failed and the anchor didn’t bite. Then one of our German friends who happened to be snorkelling at the time beckoned us in to a good spot and we dropped the hook again this time in firm sand. We were only in about 5 meters of water but I let out over 40 meters of chain as the wind was still gusting well into F7. We had strong winds in this anchorage all the time we stayed here but the water, whilst not smooth, was still comfortable. And most importantly the anchor held firm. We left Graciosa for Lanzarote and had decided for Arrecife, which has no marina but is the capital town and the main centre of the island. We decided to go around the north of the island which meant going against a strong wind for the first three miles or so but then a good reach down the East coast. Where the Estrecho del Rio narrowed we had a bit of wind against tide with quite steep seas, and I wondered if I had made the right decision. We sailed across the straight close under the cliffs of Lanzarote where the sea was a little less violent and we started to build a little more speed. One tack back across and we were able to tack again and clear the north end of the island. Once clear we eased off the sheets and had a comfortable run down to Arrecife. Arrecife has small harbours, Puetros de los Marmoles, Naos and Arrecife. With the wind as it was we chose Naos as it looked as though it gave better shelter from the wind. There are rocks in the harbour and it has the only buoyed channel in Lanzarote. We dropped the hook in amongst moored boats with the wind getting back up to F6. I was a little unsure of the holding so once again let out 40 meters of chain in just 5 meters of water. I believe this is a good policy in most conditions rather to just let out the bare minimum as directed in all the books you read. However in amongst moored boats you do need to be careful as they will have much less scope in their mooring lines with a much smaller swinging circle than an anchored boat. Sure enough the wind changed direction and we had to adjust our chain to avoid swinging into another boat. The next morning I went ashore to register with the immigration police and harbourmaster but this was Saturday and I could find nobody interested and eventually I was told to report to the harbourmaster on Monday morning. I was not impressed with the part of the town I saw. There were numerous sculptures in what were once pretty squares. What a pity they couldn’t invest in a few street cleaners! The pilot book had quoted one yachtsman who visited here as saying that it was secure but grotty. I’m afraid I would have to agree. When I got back to the boat we decided to leave straight away and head on to Puerto Calero, which is a fairly new marina and just 12 miles down the coast. We were concerned that we were still not officially in the country and didn’t fancy possibly repercussions on Monday morning. So I packed up the dinghy again and we raised anchor. The wind was still strong but in the right direction. We hoisted just 5 panels in the foresail and three in the mainsail and flew down to Puerto Calero. There are no hazards on the way and we entered the marina and checked in. As I walked to the office, I passed Team Ericsson preparing two boats for the Volvo Challenge. There were several tents with riggers, sail makers and engineers and about thirty odd bodies working frantically on their boats. Big mean speed machines!! The marina is clean, friendly and well run with security guards in attendance at all times. We will be staying here for about a week (famous last words!!) and then maybe to Rubicon Marina just a little further along the coast to meet up with friends. The plan is then for Gran Canaria and then Tenerife to meet up with Trev and Shirley from UK. See you next month.
September 2008 We had hired a car on Lanzarote as you will have read on Pat’s page and we visited Marina Rubicon at the south end of the island, and it was one of these new marinas catering for the designer shop ‘yotties’ that we all love to hate, so we decided to give it a miss and go straight on to Fuerteventura. The island runs roughly north to South with a little kick to the west at the southern end. The prevailing winds are north-to-north-west which makes the west coast almost untenable for anchoring and there are no actual ports there suitable for yachts, so our journey took us down the east coast. The northernmost port is Corralejo, which acts as a ferry port to Lanzarote and that was to be our first stop, a trip of just 15 miles. The port lies inside the Isla de Lobos and there is a relatively shallow straight between the islands, which we are warned not to attempt in unsettled weather but the weather was calm so we decided to go in. There are reefs stretching out to sea a little and this is a part of the island that is popular with wind surfers so we were expecting some swell. There are also rocks within the bay where the harbour lies but the pilot book gives leading lines of between 280 and 233 degrees so there is fair room for a little deviation. We were expecting to anchor as indicated but the anchorage is now full of pontoons and we were lucky to find a space. There were security gates at the end of the pontoon that were not locked, but when we returned after a walk around town we found that they were locked. After finding the security guard who let us back in we were also told that we could not have a key. The next morning I asked at the office if we could possibly have a key and the answer was an abrupt NO! So instead of staying for three nights, I paid for the one night and we left. Pity, as it seemed our sort of town. We later learned from an English couple who have spent many of their holidays in Fuerteventura, that the marina had had a few problems there. We set sail down the coast to Puerto del Castillo, another short trip of about 23 miles. Careful pilotage is needed here for the entrance and the pilot book tells of a few yachts being wrecked here. There is a spit of rocks jutting out from the harbour mole to the southwest marked by what was supposed to be a south cardinal buoy. All we saw was a pole until we got close as the main body of the buoy was only just floating. Any slight undulation in the water will make this buoy difficult to identify. We rounded up and followed the buoyage to the marina when Pat panicked and shouted back at me from the bow that we were on the rocks!! I glanced at the depth sounder and we were still in about eight meters of water. I stopped the boat and went forward to her and sure enough there were rocks under us but the water was so clear that we could see them with as much detail as if we were in two feet of water. We tied up to the reception berth and we then indicated a berth opposite. “That is the only berth we have available”, if we can get in there we could stay. It was a little tight but with the help of a few neighbouring sailors (and one of dubious gender!) who mainly seemed interested in this strange rig, we managed to get tied up. After a few nights we left to progress down the coast and the next port we headed for was Gran Tarajal a further 15 miles down the coast. There is a marina here but when we arrived, we discovered that they were hosting a major game fishing competition and there was no room for us so we anchored out in the bay in good holding on sand. We went ashore that night but left the next day to head for Morro Jable, which is the almost southernmost point of the island. There is a marina here but they do not take visitors. So we anchored in the bay off a really beautiful beach. We were in about six metres of water on sand and rock. With our CQR I wanted to avoid the rocks if I could and once again I could see the bottom clearly so we managed to drop the hook right on target and let out about 40 metres of chain. We needed to be especially secure here as this is within a wind acceleration zone. Here the winds can come down off the mountains behind the town with quite a force similar to the type of winds experienced in some coastal regions of the Med. It is said to increase the current winds by 10 to 15 knots. Well our anchor was really put to the test here as one night we were subject to sustained winds of 45 knots, which is well into Force 9!! We didn’t get much sleep that night! But the anchor held and we stayed put where others at the anchorage dragged. Our next trip was to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria, a distance of about sixty miles. Where possible we like to plan our trips to arrive at our destination in daylight so we needed an early start. We raised anchor an hour or so before dawn and headed west dragging a couple of lures behind us. It must have given the fish a laugh because they certainly weren’t biting!! It was a good sail and the boat performed well. How we managed without our Hydrovane before I just cannot remember. I would strongly advise anyone contemplating doing what we are doing to invest in a good quality wind vane steering system. We arrived at Las Palmas at around 1900 hrs but the office was shut so we spent the night on the reception berth and we were allocated or berth in the morning. Our German friends on yacht ‘Narwhal’ were there but on a different pontoon. They warned us that there had been a series of break-ins here so to make sure that the boat was secure when we left but also to be aware that some break-ins had occurred during the night when the owners were aboard. I slept with my machete by my side whilst we were there. Apart from Corralejo, this is the first time we have had reports of this kind of trouble since we left England. We were meeting friends on Tenerife and would have liked to return here for another week or so but they were starting the process of clearing the locals out in readiness for the ARC which starts at the end of November so we may have to give Gran Canaria a miss this trip. The neighbouring islands are also affected as the locals’ boats move to other marinas. Basically if you are not booked for the ARC then getting around the Canaries at this time of year is not always easy and we expect to find limited space in marinas and anchorages. The trip from Las Palmas to Santa Cruz is fairly straight forward, another trip of around sixty miles. We went North for about five miles to round La Isleta which is the small isthmus at the north end of the island and then head almost due west for Santa Cruz. There are two marinas in Santa Cruz that accept visitors. Darsena Pesquera is to the North of the town and quite a walk to the nearest supplies but a newer marina is now situated at Los Llanos which is right near the centre of the town so that is where we headed. The entrance has a highly visible landmark with a white building like a smaller version of the Sydney Opera House at the entrance. You go through a small container port and past an inner breakwater into the marina. Although we didn’t arrive until well after 2000 hrs there was still someone there to guide us into our berth. We were meeting friends here and others are planning to come out to visit so we booked in for five weeks and hopefully will get some more work done on the boat along with various trips around the island. We got a little discount by paying in advance remembering that this now their peak season until the end of December, as this is when most boats come here to prepare for the Atlantic crossing. The Boat Well not much has needed attention lately so I have at last managed to have some leisure time at last and get in some swimming and fishing!! However from here we plan to visit Senegal and Gambia before going back up to the Cape Verde Islands and then to cross the Atlantic. This is probably the last place where we can make sure the boat is ready for the trip. We have so far found three excellent chandlers and we have been told there are a couple of others. These we have found seem to be extremely well stocked and the staff are going out of their way to make sure that we get what we want. So far we have bought another solar panel and a new Wi-Fi aerial. We were so pleased with the performance with the solar panel that we bought whilst in Gibraltar that we decided to get another one. This time it was in stock so no waiting. The reason for more power requirement is that our freezer is water cooled and the water temperature is quite a bit higher here and will no doubt get warmer so the freezer is having to work harder, and we really need the ice for our G & T’s!! This should give us the power top-up we need. The previous Wi-fi aerial was a plate aerial which was directional. It was a 20 dBi and quite powerful but it needed to be constantly adjusted to pick up a signal and the heavy cable put a lot of strain on the connection. I have had to repair it several times, some times more successfully than others!! Araldite is good but not that good!! The one we have now is a fibreglass pole aerial about 5 ft long mounted once again on our gantry which is now starting to look like an outsized shaving brush!! See you next month.
October 2008 Well, we haven’t moved off our mooring this month so we have been busy catching up with general maintenance jobs. This is probably the best place to get things done of all the places we have visited. We are also planning for our next lift-out so this is probably the last chance we will have to get all the bits and pieces together. We plan to lift out in the Caribbean although I’m not sure where as yet. The marina here is quite well protected from the elements as it has its own breakwater and inside a container port. However there is quite a swell that gets in when the wind turns south as we experienced so I have rigged our bowlines with our spare anchors as weights and several strands of heavy bungee cord on a second spring. We are now fairly comfortable when other boats are being jerked about even with their expensive stainless steel mooring springs. The marina is now filling up as a result of the ARC. A few participants but mainly cruisers and locals that have been who have been displaced from Las Palmas for the event. We have heard from friends who had intended to take part last year but found the expense was far too great for the so-called benefits that they would receive. We had already decided that we would not take part because of the timing of the event. In my mind, few serious cruisers in their right minds would plan to cross the Atlantic when, especially in today’s climatic changes, there is a strong possibility of a late hurricane and strong weather as has been proved in the last few years. The emphasis seems to be for the benefit of racing crews and hooray henries who just want to be able to fly home for Xmas to brag about it over the festive season. Our plans have changed a little. We have been waiting for a package to come from UK that has been nearly a month in transit and cannot leave without it. It is a new computer for Pat. So we have decided to make the best of it and stay here until it arrives and to remain in the Canaries a little longer. There are still three more islands to visit and there is a strong swell at the moment so that we are more comfortable here. We also have more friends coming out to see us, Lori and Clive. Lori hopes to sail with us across the Atlantic. It will then be to the Cape Verdes Islands probably for Xmas and to miss out Senegal and Gambia. We have also heard some iffy reports about Senegal. Then in January Lori will join us and sail with us on our crossing. She has friends in Barbados where we intend to make our landfall and they have threatened us with a bit of a welcoming party. We heard from friends who were with us in Gib about the storm that caused serious damage on 10th October. A three-metre swell entered the marina and forced some boats under the concrete jetty causing some expensive damage. In nearby La Línea where we spent a few days at anchor, the new breakwater was breached and at least one yacht was driven on to the rocks. Our friends were in Marina Bay Marina where we were and broke their forward Samson Post. Luckily they saw it happen and replaced it with a pickaxe handle. ‘Strong stuff’ he said, but I still don’t know why he was carrying a pickaxe handle on board!! Pat has been busy painting down below and I have been varnishing on deck. We also decided to replace our hatches on deck. Our main hatch we replaced during our refit but the smaller ones were showing signs of age (well they are over thirty years old!!) We ordered Vetus hatches and they had to come from Belgium but they were here within ten days. Whilst we were at it we also got the fly screens to fit to complete the job. Fitting them however was not as straightforward as I had hoped. For illogical reason the size of the fly screen is a little larger than the hatch opening and in fact the perimeter of the screen is the same dimension as the fixing holes for the hatch. This means that the edge of the screen would have to shut on to the ends of the bolts leaving a gap wide enough for some monster ‘mozzies’ to get through, so I have had to make a frame to cover the bolts and then another frame to edge our insulation and headlining. Another simple job make complicated buy an idiot designer. I have also remove and reaffixed one of the other port lights as we were getting a little water in that area. It needed a good cleaning of the sealing area and a good caulking of Sikaflex. Many chandlers now seem to be stocking cheaper alternatives and I have tried many but I have come to the conclusion that Sikaflex is the only one I will use from now on. It works! Another major job was to renew the gas pipe from the bottles to the cooker. The cooker is now the only gas appliance we have on board but there was a kink in the pipe where it came out through the deck. I have repositioned the entry further aft and made a much better fixing for the external tap. I managed to feed the pipe through from the bottles to the cooker in one piece thus not having to use any fittings that could possibly leak at some stage. The only fittings to the pipe are the internal and external taps. The hull is in need of a coat of paint. The original colour was Blake’s Chodo Green but Blake’s have been taken over by Hempel and Chodo Green is now not on their list. We spoke to the chandler here and with much discussion we managed to find the RAM number and they said that they could get it made especially for us. We couldn’t believe it. Initially they said that it would be with us in a couple of days but they then informed us that they did not have the correct base colour and that had to be shipped out from the continent. We had our paint within about 10 days. We had tried throughout our travels to get this paint without success so it was good to find a chandler who would take the time and trouble to get it for us. They have since received most of our trade whilst we are here. We are also preparing the decks for repainting although it may be next year before we can actually get it done. I have recaulked the joints between the deck and coachroof and several other places but there are still some rust spots that need treating and filling and other aesthetic adjustments! I am also making some new softwood wedges for the mast partners. The masts are of course keel stepped and we have a steel tube that goes through the deck that holds the mast. There is a clearance of about an inch (25 mm for the youngsters among you). To stop the mast from moving about within the partner, we have softwood wedges which over time start to become a little slack. It is a reasonably straightforward job to replace them or even just to tighten them up. Hardwood wedges would last a little longer but there is a risk that they would damage an aluminium mast and also create a hard spot at the point where flexion is desirable. The steel of the partners could also set up a cathodic reaction with the aluminium of the mast and with the aluminium being the least noble, the mast would soon be attacked at the point that takes the most pressure so the wedges also act as an insulation between the metals. We are now also getting into a routine for the prevention of ‘creepy crawlies’ getting on board. So far we have been lucky. We have been bitten by various little critters but nothing serious, but our main fear is for an invasion of the dreaded cockroach. These creatures apparently carry their eggs on their legs so even if you swat them, you may kill the parent but the eggs will be broadcast over a wide area and within a couple of weeks you will be inundated with the little blighters. We have purchased some little traps that not only eventually kills them but also renders the eggs infertile (at least that what I think is says on the packet, in Spanish of course). We are told that especially in the Caribbean there are two types of boat, those that have cockroaches and those that are going to get them!! They have several means of getting on board. They can of course fly but the most common way is within your groceries. Cardboard food packaging is the most common, and it is not usually the insect itself but the eggs that are in the packaging. So we are getting into a routine of getting rid of packaging at the quayside and cartons such as UHT milk and fruit juice are sterilised before coming on board. It’s a pain, but at least we know we are doing our best to keep us bug-free. For those that have them, the favourite solution is to let off special smoke bombs in the boat. It means opening up all the lockers and bilge and setting off the appropriate number of smoke bombs for the volume of the boat and leaving it for 24 hours. This needs to be done once a week for about three weeks in order to kill the newly hatched young. We have also heard of other methods that people have tried with varying degrees of success. One couple we know even had a gecko on board to hunt them down. Last we heard was that they hadn’t seen the gecko for some time so we’re not sure if he had eaten so many cockroaches and got stuck in a small recess or whether he was chased out by them! This boat is now in the Azores and we have heard that it is still badly infested. See you next month.
November 2008 Well, no sooner than we had ‘been to press’ with last month’s page, we discovered that we did indeed have the dreaded cockroaches on board. Despite all our precautions Pat spotted one late one night. The following night she saw a bigger one, probably the African Roach which is a lot larger than the so called German Roach. So we now had to take some action. We had already place a dozen or so traps around the boat. These don’t actually trap them but lure them to walk through where they pick up a chemical which will eventually kill them but also neutralise the eggs that they carry on their bodies. It is not advisable to actually swat them, because despite the satisfaction of knowing that you have got rid of one, what actually happens is that the eggs they carry are then can be splashed over a wide area only to hatch out in a week or so. We had tried locally to buy smoke bombs but we were initially told that we could only get the job done by a professional firm. Chris from the yacht ‘Dream Or Two’ kindly gave us a gas bomb to fumigate the boat. He had got his from the States when he was there. So the routine is to take out all utensils, crockery, cutlery and fresh foods, open up all spaces and voids where possible and open up the bilge’s and then set off the bomb. Then leave the boat for about 4 hours. We went for a walk around town and had a few beers of course and then back to the boat to open the hatches and air everything out before getting the boat back to normal. Everything seemed fine. Graham from ‘Karma’ gave us another type of trap which has a bait in the middle of a sticky substance and we set it low in the galley area. After a couple of weeks we noticed a couple of small brown spots and when we looked at them through a magnifying glass they appeared to be infant roaches, so we decided we needed to bomb again. Meanwhile, Joanie from ‘Karma’ had discovered what she thought were some smoke bombs in a small department store behind the perfume department of all places. However she couldn’t be sure as her Spanish is not much better than ours, but they had guests coming, one of whom spoke fluent Spanish. She was then able to confirm that these should do the trick. Graham then tried one on his boat and it seemed to be fairly powerful so we decided to do ours again. So out with all the utensils etc again but this time we needed to be off the boat overnight and Graham kindly put us up on ‘Karma’. So we had a night of good crack and some of Grahams whiskey! My advice to anyone setting off from anywhere in Northern Europe would be to stock up on a few different means to keep these little critters at bay. It was not something that we had paid much attention to before we left as the problem seemed so remote from where we were, but as we have found, despite all the precautions, it is difficult to keep them at bay, especially if you spend a lot of time in marinas. So stock up with a product which at least you can understand the instructions! We are still not certain how we got them but we suspect that it was when we were in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. They were having a bit of a purge on them along the promenade and there were dead roaches on the pavements, so we could have walked on some eggs and thereby brought them back on to the boat, but that is just a theory. We have resigned to the fact that cockroaches will be a issue and that we will have to ‘bomb’ the boat at regular intervals before we can be assured that we are free of them, and meanwhile the precautions continue. The precautions we now take are :
This all seems like a lot of hassle and to be honest it is a bit of a pain sometimes, especially if you return from a shopping trip and it is raining (yes, it does rain in Tenerife!). Why all this paranoia about cockroaches? Well to start with they make lousy crew and you still feed them whether you like it or not!! Seriously, though, they breed faster than the proverbial rabbits and they can also carry diseases which they can pass on into your food although those that have bred on the boat are less likely to have picked up anything. If they are not checked then they can develop into a very high population on a boat as they are trapped inside the hull. In a house they can exit easily through or under doors but in a boat’s hull there is little chance that they will exit on their own free will especially if you have hatches covered with nets to keep others out. But apart from that, having creepy crawlies on your boat is not why we went cruising.
The Boat As far as the boat is concerned I have still been busy. There always seems to be work to be done. Gradually I have been preparing the decks for painting. The new hatches are finished and surrounded with primer. There were also a few rust spots that have appeared over the last two years so we have the appearance of a patchwork quilt at the moment. But the weather here has not been so good for painting for the last month as we have had quite a bit of rain, although not as much as the UK has been suffering! The north of the island seems to have quite a different weather system than the south. The land here is fairly verdant whereas the south is very arid and sunnier which is why they built the holiday resorts there. I have fitted a couple of fans within the boat to help circulate the air. Initially we had fitted a couple of solar powered vents that seemed fine back in Northern Europe but in these latitudes, they are just not enough. So another project now is to build some dorade style vents. Someone kindly dumped some cowls by the rubbish area and a couple of them were just the right size for the job (the skip rat strikes again!) and they have cleaned up OK. Also from the skip area I found hat someone had dumped a set of stanchions and rope for a handrail from a passarelle, or gangplank for the uninitiated, which will convert our ‘fender board’ into something a little more refined. This plank of wood now acts as a fender board, a gangplank, a swim ladder and a boarding ladder and when tied to the stanchions, makes a good place to lash our Jerry cans on deck. With the remaining problem of our lower fuel tank I decided to try to rig up a fuel transfer system to pump fuel from the bottom tank to the top tank. I have been doing this by hand so far and it is not a job I fancy doing at sea. So I bought a small pump which is supposed to be suitable for fuel and using tee pieces tapped into the lines so that I could draw fuel out via the outlet pipe and pump into the upper tank. However, this pump, being centrifugal, could not overcome the little leak that was in the pipe. So back to the drawing board for that one. I left the unit in place until I could think up a Plan ‘B’! Generally we have been preparing for our Atlantic crossing. Provisioning being the main theme. We have bought various tins of different types of food to try them before deciding which to stock up with. A difficult job, but somebody has to do it!! We initially thought that we may have a storage problem but gradually we are finding more nooks and crannies and filling them, as long as we remember where we have put things. Communications are still a little bit of a problem. I have checked out the main VHF, which was a little iffy and found a dirty connection for the aerial. I have an aerial tester on board and this is a fantastic little tool. I am not an electronic wizard so I need all the assistance I can get so this little tool is a great help. It not only checks out the aerial but also measures the transmit output power and the receive side as well. We still haven’t got good wi-fi reception on the boat. The wi-fi here is a little intermittent but others who are further away from the aerial are picking up OK whilst we are not. We fitted a new aerial last month, which is rated at 15 dBi but still retained the cable which was 12 meters long, and although this was a heavy ‘low loss’ cable the general consensus of opinion was that we would be losing too much power with this length. So I have cut it down so that now have the connection at the nav station instead of the saloon table. Reception is slightly better but still disappointing. So a little more thought is needed here. We have an old style Iridium phone which we bought for emergencies and to keep in touch with home whilst making long passages. There are also ways of downloading weather information on to your computer from an Iridium, which we have been investigating. There seem to be several different views on the best way of doing this as cost seem to vary immensely with different providers. In any event we need to source a data cable for our phone, which may be difficult considering its age. So we are not sure how far we will be able to take this as yet. We have an SSB receiver which is capable of downloading weather faxes on to a computer and also can be tuned in to audio to listen to ‘the weather nets’ such as Herb whilst on our Atlantic crossing. We have spent more time than we intended here in Tenerife basically because of the failure of Parcel Force to deliver Pat’s new computer. They have revealed themselves as a right shower who could not or would not be bothered to trace a package once it leaves the country. So we waited and waited and waited but eventually we had to buy a computer here. They still haven’t been able to explain why the package took 10 days to actually leave England! However, as far as getting things done on the boat, as I have said before, we couldn’t have been in a better place. Well the ARC has set off now, leaving a few spaces in the marinas. However there are still many more boats here than when we arrived. Those that remain are either here until after Xmas or will be leaving shortly for Cape Verde’s Islands. This is still the high season here so marina costs are higher than normal. Our next port of call is San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera where hopefully we will meet up with our friends on yacht ‘Miti’ and then sail together down to the Cape Verde’s Islands for Xmas. We will then collect Lori who will hopefully join us there to do the crossing with us.
Sailing Although the trip to La Gomera is only about 60 miles, we split it and anchored for the night. That way we left in daylight and arrived in daylight. We set off from Santa Cruz having said our good-byes. There were 10 of ‘em on the pontoon to see us off, plus others waving from their boats, good friends all and some we know we may not see again. We sailed along the coast to the south and to the southern airport where a small headland juts out into the sea for about a mile but offering sufficient shelter for the night. It was a sandy bottom and good holding. The winds were strong through the night up to about F7 so an anchor watch was prudent, but we held well and left at dawn the next day. We were in a wind acceleration zone which means that the wind is generally reckoned to be about 10 - 15 knots stronger than the wind in the surrounding areas, but once we rounded the corner of Tenerife towards Los Cristianos the wind died. With the engine on we set a course for a little north of La Gomera to allow for the wind acceleration zone that comes round from the north of Tenerife. About halfway across, the engine died! There was a strong smell of diesel and we used a lot of fuel. I transferred some fuel by hand and felt I had done sufficient to get us to San Sebastian on La Gomera. The wind got up again and we sailed toward our destination. As we neared the breakwater, we dropped the foresail and the engine died again. This time the top tank was dry. So I transferred more fuel but then realised what had happened. The fuel return should have been pumped back to the top tank, but was connected also via the transfer pump to the feed pipe of the bottom tank. Of course the centrifugal pump had no non-return valve and offered little resistance to the pumped fuel and the tank being lower was where the returned fuel went. The lower tank was then filled to the brim and leaked out through the leak at the top of the pipe into the bilge’s!! However we arrived safely and now I have more work to do before we set off for the Cape Verde’s.
December 2008 - January 2009 We left San Sebastian on La Gomera on the 8th December to head down to the Cape Verde Islands with our initial landfall being Palmeira on the island of Sal. The wind had been quite strong for the previous week so we waited for a gap in the weather and set off. When we got to sea there was very little wind so we gently motored out and thought we might be ghosting for a day or so, but the wind picked up after about six hours and we were sailing, heading almost due South. The wind was northerly so right behind us and through the first night we had winds at about F4 –5 and made reasonable progress. By the evening of the second day the winds increased to F6 and 7. The swell also increased with breaking tops that shipped a lot of water on board and then there was the danger of being ´pooped´ - that is a wave breaking over the back of the boat and flooding the cockpit. Our ´bimini´ is a canvas ´roof´ that ties from the back of the doghouse to the gantry, and we use this to offer shade and weather protection when we are in port or at anchor. On this occasion I rigged it to drape from the doghouse down to the back of the cockpit with the intention of preventing as much water as possible from entering the cockpit from the stern. As the winds increased still further as well as the swell we received a few breakers over the stern but our canvas certainly did the trick. We are now making some alterations and some side pieces to totally enclose the cockpit. However we were still getting vast quantities of water along the side decks and around the aft deck in much greater volumes than we had experienced before. We still had the original hatch to the lazarette which was fairly flush to the deck and when water flooded the decks, this hatch was totally submerged. We soon discovered that the bilges were filling up rather rapidly with the water leaking through the hatch and that the electric bilge pump was not working. We have a manual pump in the cockpit which requires a 1½ inch hose to be slid on to the outlet and diverted over the side. It’s a bit of a bind but the system works well, usually. When not in use I was keeping this hose in the pocket on our side dodgers, but the boat was rolling badly and one wave just washed it out. So now we had no bilge pump. In a desperate situation we could always just pump out into the cockpit and let the water drain out through the cockpit drains but that would have made the cockpit a little slippery. I always carry a few spares of bits and pieces and have a few different pumps for various uses. The handiest was the pump we had just bought for the fuel transfer system which I had now abandoned. So I fixed it up with some water hose that we use to fill our water tanks long enough to reach from the bilge to overboard. This is not a high volume pump but we were now able to cope with the ingress. Meanwhile I also checked the original bilge pump and found that it was the float switch that had failed, so I bypassed the switch and we worked the pump by manually switching it on and off as needed. The winds kept up at F7 and for the fourth day we were well into F8 which was starting to get a bit worrying as the swell was now a good 5 meters. We were now reduced to just three panels on our fore sail and the main lashed down into the gallows. We were still getting pooped on occasions but only a little water got into the cockpit but enough to get us wet. We were still making about 120 miles a day. It was uncomfortable and wet, and although we were now officially in the tropics, we were cold! After nearly 800 miles and six nights at sea we arrived at the island of Sal. Palmeira is the only harbour on the island. It consists of a small breakwater at the north west corner of the bay. The holding is good with mostly sand and a few rocks with the northern end being a little more muddy. We held well in steady F7 winds. It is well protected from the prevailing winds and winds from the north west, east through to south. The swell there can be a little uncomfortable especially the further away from the breakwater. We had heard that there was a problem with theft in the Cape Verde’s, but here we left the dinghies on the beach and we didn’t hear of anyone that had a problem. In fact we found that the Cape Verdeans were a happy and easy going people who also knew how to party! I inherited a few more tasks once we arrived there. Most important was to sort out the bilge pump situation. However on Sal there are no facilities for yachts whatsoever. So we have had to wait until we got to Mindelo before I could finally resolve that situation. More important was the problem of the lazarette hatch, as we will be facing similar conditions when we cross that Atlantic. Much to Pat’s chagrin I rarely throw bits of wood away, so amongst the scraps I have accumulated I managed to build up the hatch opening about 100 mm above deck level. This brought the level of the hatch above the level of the gunnels, without interfering with the travel of the tiller. I put an extra thickness of ¾ inch ply around the outside and with my router and coving bit I cut a groove round the perimeter of the opening and a corresponding groove in the lid and glued in some water hose which now forms a good watertight seal. Hopefully that problem is now solved! The other major problem was that the freezer had decided to go on the blink. Bit of an emergency now as it had our Xmas lunch in it! A nice juicy duck! It is a water cooled unit and now we are in warmer waters it had been running almost constantly. On checking out paperwork I realised that we had the smaller unit and considered that we needed the larger one. I contacted Penguin Refrigeration from whom we purchased the unit thinking we would need a new unit. I spoke to Ian and told him the problem and was prepared to order a new unit to be delivered to Barbados. He advised me to hang on and he would email me a check sheet. These units rarely go wrong he said. When I received that e-mail, I went through the system and found a voltage problem. I rewired the unit directly from the battery bypassing the switchboard and just using an inline fuse. Lo and behold it started up again and has been running ever since. Many thanks to Ian and Penguin Refrigerationfor your help. We still had to eat our Xmas lunch early but we managed to purchase another duck so we had two Xmas lunches. You don’t hear me complaining! After we got over the New Years celebrations, we watched that weather for a few days before setting off for the next island Sao Nicolau. Sao Nicolau is the next island west and the anchorage we were headed for, Tarrafal, is on the western coast, a distance of about 90 miles. We left around 1415 local time on the Saturday so Pat was able to keep in touch with Sunderland’s football score and also to be able to arrive at Tarrafal in daylight. We headed to go south of the island to give us a bit of a break from the swell which was coming from the north but of course we also lost the wind. We also lost power from the wind to generate electricity and as the freezer was still trying to get down to temperature, we had a drain on our battery bank which then effected our instruments so we were obliged to start the engine. Up until then we had been using our Hydrovane wind steering but of course without sufficient wind it was inefficient so we had to hand steer. It was then, under power, that we noticed that we were getting a hell of a kick to port and had to put the tiller over to compensate. I initially thought we had rudder problems and was thinking that this was about the worst place that this could happen, with little or no facilities to repair it. However we made it for the last 12 miles or so and anchored in the bay at Tarrafal. Once settled I dived under the boat to check the rudder but it seemed OK but the propeller looked like a sanctuary for a variety of shellfish and barnacles! I scraped off as much as I could to get it to look a bit more like the shape it was when we bought it and that has certainly improved things. I have always used Vaseline on propellers in the past but I was persuaded to try some special prop antifouling. It may be OK in European waters but it didn’t work down here. The anchorage was similar to the one at Palmeira, with a small breakwater at the south end of a shallow bay. The water was clear with good holding. We had been advised to let out plenty of chain as the winds can sometimes accelerate down through the ravines in the mountains and build up to quite a force. We stayed for 4 days and then set off for Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente. This is where we will set off across the Atlantic. At distance of about 50 miles so just a day sail. We set off a little later than we intended and while we were still in the lee of the island there was little wind and a calm sea. Once we cleared the point however that all changed and we had F6 winds and the swell to accompany it. The swell slowed our progress a little and by the time we arrived at the channel between Sao Vicente and Sao Antão the sun was already quite low and we were heading into it. Whilst the tides are minimal here, about 1 meter at springs, the tidal streams between the islands can be quite strong. In the Canal de Sao Vicente it can reach 2-4 knots at half tide. We had arrived at the bottom of the tide so we were not affected. However when we arrived at the bay, the sun had disappeared and it was dark. My up-to-date pilot was on my computer which, if you have read Pat’s page, had refused to start up. There were no lights to mark the marina and the whole bay seemed to be crowded with ships at anchor. The marina is a recent addition here and we just couldn’t see it. So we went to and area marked on our chart as a yacht anchorage and dropped the hook in amongst a fleet of fishing boats with the intention of finding the marina in the morning. There are wrecks marked all around the bay and I was also a little nervous about wrecks that were not marked. Certainly none of them had lights marking them. In any event we are also warned that lights marked on the chart are not always maintained. It was bad planning of our part; we had left later than we should. We usually plan our trips so that we can arrive in daylight. The next morning we could see where we were and the marina was just about 500 metres further on. We had breakfast and moved up closer to the marina and re-anchored. The ‘marina’ itself is just a collection of pontoons jutting out into the bay from the north shore. There are no breakwaters other than the port to the west and the swell can be uncomfortable. When the swell is active and the winds get up, it can be difficult to walk along the pontoons. There is a very small chandlery next to the marina office and I managed to get another float switch for the bilge pump. Also with the help of Orlando, a local Mr. Fixit, I also managed to secure a 10 meter length of 1½ inch hose for the manual pump. We only needed about two meters for the pump but now I have a good back-up supply. Orlando is one of a few guys that hang around the marina offering assistance. He speaks good English and of course has good local knowledge. If you need anything and it is available on the island, then Orlando will probably know where to get it. We were not the only ones to suffer damage on the trip down from the Canaries. It seems that most that did the route had a rough time and many sustained damage. One French boat has cracks at the bottom of their mast, and a Swiss boat lost the use of their rudder. Others have discovered various leaks that were not there before and miscellaneous breakage’s that often occur as a result of a rough passage. Believe it or not, the pilot book states that the winds are usually around F3-4 and gales F8 ‘only occur three to four times a year and are unheard of between July and January.’ I think everyone has been taken by surprise at the weather here. Water here is metered but they only have one meter for the whole marina so you have to wait your turn if you want to fill your tanks and it costs about 5€ per 100 litres. It sort of makes you appreciate the abundance of water we have in Europe, despite the total inefficiency that leads to hose-pipe bans, when on these islands much of the water has to be produced from desalination plants and is a very precious commodity. We are at present riding out a gale in Mindelo. There has been some damage to the pontoons which, I have to say, that the marina staff were on to right away despite the conditions. Our dinghy was flipped over with outboard still attached so there’s another job I had to do. As soon as the wind dies we will allow a couple of days for the sea to subside a little and then we will set off for Barbados.
February 2009 The Atlantic Crossing Well we didn’t break any records, but we broke nearly everything else! Before setting off from Mindelo we waited for a weather slot along with about a dozen other boats. Meanwhile we spent most of our time there checking everything on the boat and finding space for our provisions. Pat had also prepared meals and put them in the freezer. By this time, our bikes were pretty well knackered so we gave them away which made more space and accessibility on deck. The winds were strong whilst we were in Mindelo sometimes making it difficult to walk along the pontoons. I had the dinghy in the water so that I could remove the rudder of the Hydrovane and clean it up and re-antifoul it. It looked as though someone had planted a nursery coral reef on it! One morning we were alerted by the crew of ‘Miti’ who were moored just in front of us that the dinghy had overturned, with the outboard still attached; another job to do! Unfortunately the retaining pin for the Hydrovane rudder was in the dinghy along with a spanner that I used to check the mounting bolts for the Hydrovane. Fortunately we had a spare pin for the rudder, so I was still able to fit the rudder back on. However I still had the outboard to ‘dry out’! A few boats left on Friday 23rd Jan but the winds were still quite strong so we left on the Saturday with the wind lessened but still fresh. There were about ten other boats leaving that day with about five of us heading for the Caribbean, the others headed for Brazil. The sea was still lumpy with a 3-4 metre swell and that night we had our first calamity. One freak wave knocked us over a little more than usual and the sea caught one of our solar panels and took it away. So we were going to be down on power, not a good start! The next day we had lost contact with all the other boats that we had set off with, so we were now on our own. Then Pat noticed that there was no power coming in from our trailing generator. When I checked, I noticed that the ammeter was melting. There was a short, just what I needed!! I cut the wires and then rewired direct from the unit back to the bus bars. We had power again. On the Tuesday another freak wave gave us the same old treatment and took away half our deck cargo of fresh water. Just three days out so we decided to be even more careful with our water usage. The major calamity however was when I noticed that the Hydrovane was a little loose. I leaned out over the transom and saw that one of the bolts on the bottom bracket was hanging out, it had sheared off! We immediately dropped the sails and hove to. A squall was building up and if the sun had been out, it would be just about setting so we decided to lie a’hull for the night. The wind was pretty strong so I decided to deploy the drogue. The drogue however had other ideas. I wanted to try to get the boat head to wind, and so attached the line to the forward bollards, but as it streamed aft, I was also concerned that the line would also foul the Hydrovane rudder and compound the problem there. I had three panels of the mainsail up and sheeted in hard but as we were gradually coming round into the wind, another wave would knock us back again. I decided to start the engine to power into the wind. As soon as I put it in gear, the drogue seemed to come alive and swam like a giant squid straight for the prop. Thunk!! Now we had no motive power, and still 1200 miles to go. We lay a’hull for the night, and the next morning the sea had lessened a little. Meanwhile I discovered that I had no 10 mm studding left on the boat. I had 12 mm or 8 mm. 12 mm would not go through the holes in the bracket so I had to make a bolt from the 8 mm studding. If 10 mm had broken, the 8 mm would obviously not be sufficient. We cleared out the lazarette and Pat got in with spanners and nuts and washers. First she had to remove the broken bolt. Then I had to climb down over the transom into the water to feed the new bolt through to Pat who would put the washers on and screw on the nut. As the bolt broke, the whole bracket was loose - the sealant had parted, and as the boat was plunging up and down, water was coming in through the bolt holes. With the boat moving up and down, it didn’t make my life easy either. I only had a rope ladder to hang on to and my feet were in the air one moment and my head under the water the next. But somehow we managed to get the bolt in and tightened up. We now had to give this bolt some assistance. The design of this bottom bracket, in my opinion, leaves a bit to be desired. All the pressure of the unit bears on this bracket. Our transom has a reverse sheer so whilst the top bracket is bolted directly to the transom, the bottom bracket has a single strut over a foot long. I believe that the leverage from a four foot long rudder with a 13 ton boat slipping sideways down a wave is greater than just two 10 mm bolts can withstand for any length of time but that was a problem to solve another time. To try to take some pressure off the bolts, I rigged lines from the back of the post around the hull to the forward bitts and made up a couple of sets of block and tackle and pulled in tight. This looked good, so we hoisted sail again and set off, rather gently at first and as we saw that this ‘jury’ rig was performing OK we increased the sail area a little more. Whilst all this was going on, I was personally not too good. I had picked up a bug back at Mindelo and was suffering from sickness and diarrhoea so that every time something had to be fixed, I finished up exhausted. Meanwhile, one of the battens on the foresail snapped. It happened when I was trying to gybe the sail. It just broke in my hands, ‘Honest Guv! We carry spare battens, but this was no place to try to replace it. Luckily it was the bottom batten so it just meant that we could not use the full foresail and in these winds we were unlikely to need it. After a couple of days when I was checking the bracket again and noticed that the other bolt had snapped on the same bracket. This time, after another series of dunking in the water and several cuts and bruises, I was unable to get another bolt into the bracket as it had moved down too far. Had I a scaffold and two hands to work with, the job would have been easy, but when hanging on for dear life with one hand and trying to work a spike into the bolt hole with the other, it becomes a different story. It was no good, I just couldn’t get the bolt holes to line up. I rigged up a couple more lines to the actual bracket and then up through the stern fairleads and tightened them up with Spanish windlasses and the whole job seemed firm. Sails up again and off we went. This went well for a couple of days until suddenly the boat gybed. I looked at the wind vane and it was hard over and we were going in the wrong direction. I looked down over the transom and saw that the rudder of the Hydrovane had come off. It was tied on so I managed to retrieve it, but the pin was gone. There is a stupid little hairpin which is supposed to stop the pin from sliding out, it also is not sufficient. This now was a serious situation. After all that we had rigged to keep the bracket in position, we were let down by a stupid pin. You can imagine how frustrating it was. When I retrieved the rudder and brought it on board, we both knew what this meant. We were still 840 miles from Barbados and we were going to have to hand steer all the way, and El Lobo is not the easiest of boats on the helm! I looked at Pat and she burst into tears and said, “Don’t ever ask me to do an ocean passage again!” She meant it! I lashed the rudder to the deck although I felt like throwing it into the ocean, and we hoisted sail again. After the second day of two hours on and two hours off watch we were both tired and by midnight we decided to heave to for the rest of the night and get some rest. The next morning we hoisted sail at first light and just kept going. We were still tired so then instead of just doing the two hour watches we decided that we would do 10 mile watches, much the same thing in a way but it was a way of boosting our morale as the miles slowly ticked by. On our penultimate night we hove to again so that our arrival would be in daylight. It was just over a week of hand steering. In all that time Pat managed to cook our meals and very little from tins I have to say. As if we hadn’t suffered enough, there was a sting in the tail of our journey. The last night the wind got up to around F7 and when we sighted land, we discovered that although we were spot course for the North of the island according to the GPS, when we actually sighted land, we were in fact heading for the middle of the island. So we had a bit of a beat to claw away from what was now a lee shore as the wind had backed round nearly to the north. We made it round the North Point and were heading down the west coast with Port Saint Charles in sight, when we were stopped by the coastguard who, we learned later, were on a bit of a drugs purge. They boarded us and took our details. Meanwhile we were drifting and passed the point where we needed to anchor. I was unsure of the seabed here and as we closed towards the beach, we dropped anchor in about 8 meters of water, about ¾ mile from the marina entrance. The outboard still wasn’t working so I had to row this distance against the wind to check in with customs and immigration. The weather for the crossing was fine, we couldn’t really have hoped for better. A little more sun would have made life a little more pleasant although to be honest I doubt if we would have appreciated it! We had a few squalls and the last 100 miles were a little more lumpy, but we were never in any fear of the conditions. The crossing took 19 days, if not for the problems we reckon that we should have done it in 16 days but a lot can happen on a 2,000 mile trip!! Lori’s friend Martin rowed out to see us. He had his snorkelling gear with him and kindly checked our anchor and had a look at our prop. The drogue was on fast. He then arranged for a diver to come out to remove it. Many thanks to Martin and Dwaine. However our troubles were not over. We had had more water in the cockpit than we ever had before and we discovered that we also had more leaks. The driest part of the boat had always been what would have been on other boats the port quarter berth. I use this space for tool storage and is also where I have mounted the main electrical gear amongst which is our Sterling 40 amp smart charger. This got wet, so now we had no charging system other than the sun and the wind as our generator has also decided to give up the ghost. This means that at the moment we don’t have enough power for the freezer. Also the main engine had now refused to start. At first I thought it was the battery. It had been on the boat for five years now and I had to jump-start a couple of times from the domestic bank when we were in the Cape Verde’s. So now however it seemed that we had an electrical problem, so I checked the obvious such as bad connections and wires etc. with no avail. Then one morning one of the locals came out to us at the anchorage to warn us that there would be strong winds approaching and advised us to head down to Carlisle Bay at Bridgetown. The wind was just a little north of east so I felt that we could make it under sail. However as we neared Bridgetown the wind veered to the south east and gave us a problem. We tacked back and forth but with the swell that was now upon us, we could make no headway into the bay. Others who were also approaching were dropping sail and motoring in. Oh how I envied them at the time. We eventually had to request a tow and so the coastguard’s came to our rescue, the same ones that had stopped us on our approach to the island in the first place! In the anchorage also was the yacht ‘Modestine’ who had set off with us from Mindelo. Steve came aboard and helped check through the electrics and eventually we found the cause. The main positive cable from the battery to the starter had chafed itself under the engine and was shorting out intermittently. I had already checked the terminals which were OK but the faulty part was out of sight. Anyway, I replaced the cable and now we are functioning again. We had some sail damage on the way across, but not enough to stop us sailing. The boom to the mainsail broke when we gybed when the Hydrovane rudder fell off. This also meant that the sail catcher slid forward along the rest of the boom rendering it almost unusable, but with a bit of string we managed to keep the sail up. The lazy jack on the foresail snapped but I managed to hoist that using the spare halyard. A few lashings came undone or chafed through but they were mostly fixed on the move. The rig itself performed very well despite the damage. It is doubtful that we would ever have needed full sail on the crossing. Before the damage to the Hydrovane we were averaging around five and a half knots with speeds up to seven and a half knots, plenty fast enough for this boat. Jobs to do? Well now we have sorted the engine, the Hydrovane needs some serious consideration. There is no doubt that it is an excellent tool, but the mounting system leaves a bit to be desired on our boat. I do not believe that a single strut for the bottom bracket is sufficient for a transom with reverse sheer and will be taking this up with Hydrovane. I would not feel confident even replacing the 10 mm bolts with 12 mm as that would only transfer the stress to the transom. If I do not get any joy from Hydrovane then I will be looking to get an ‘A’ bracket made to brace the unit laterally. As for the stupid pin, I will be getting a couple of bolts made up. I have to get into the dinghy to get at the pin so there is no point having a ‘quick release’ system. How long does it take to undo one bolt with a spanner? We still have a few other minor issues with the sails and need new sail catchers, but we intend to take the masts out this year and so will have to opportunity make friends with a local sailmaker and grease his throat with some rum punch! I have repaired the boom and sail catcher for the main and have replaced the broken batten to the foresail. A few lashings need replacing and we will be as good as new, well almost! We will be staying here for about a week after the Test Match and then down to Tobago and then Trinidad. We are told that Trinidad will be the best place to lift out, but we will wait and see,
March 2009 Once we got settled in Bridgetown there was work to do. The Hydrovane was the most important. We still had all the ropes of our jury-rigging to hold the thing in place. Then we needed to temporarily replace the bolts that had sheered off. I wasn’t going to replace them with the standard 10 mm bolts so I got some bigger bolts at the local chandlery. Here of course we have an American influence. No 12 mm bolts, but ‘we have half inch’ was the reply in broad Barbadian patois. Our 240 generator has also decided not to cooperate which meant I had no drill. So I had to file out the holes to the bracket and the teak packing pieces. Pat got back into the lazarette whilst I worked from the dinghy. There was of course a bit of a swell and I was bounced about a bit, which made me wonder how on earth I managed to do what I did to try to repair the unit in mid-Atlantic. The rudder I fitted with the last of our locking pins with rope through the outer eye and mousing wire at the other end, I was determined that this time I wasn’t going to loose anything! We have since heard from friends of ours that they had had a similar problem with their Hydrovane and I would be pleased from anyone else with similar concerns. The sails were needing attention. I repaired the boom to the mainsail and replaced the broken batten to the foresail. One of the downsides of the junk rig is that you do get a little more chafe with all the lines and lashings and the Atlantic certainly took its toll in that direction. So it was a matter of picking a fairly windless day and hoist the sails, batten by batten and renewing the lashings where necessary. We intend to lift the masts out when we get to Trinidad so we will be renewing all the batten lashings when we bend on the sails again. The only other real problem is that we have gained a few leaks where the wooden coach roof joins the ferro-cement deck. The worst one of course is over the nav station! I have caulked along this section a few times with little improvement so may need to strip out the quadrant and replace it with a few tubes of Sikaflex into the bargain. Anchored in Carlisle Bay you are about a 15-minute dinghy ride from the Careenage where you can leave the dinghy tied up alongside and you are in the middle of the town. There is a fishing harbour just to the north of the entrance into the Careenage where you can get water and fuel. There is a beautiful beach with a cordoned off area where there are wrecks with fish and coral within a snorkelling depth. The main downside is the night clubs on the beach. I think they are dedicated to the hard of hearing, at least those who attend soon will be! And the problem is that they don’t start until around 2300 hrs and usually end around 0400 hrs the next morning. We were advised by our ‘man in Barbados’ Martin, to check in at Port St Charles as there is much less hassle there, which we did. However on leaving we checked out at Bridgetown. It was a different story there. We were directed first to the Harbour Master’s office. He was out on the dock but he duly arrived after a radio call from his colleague. We were then directed back into the main building to the customs office, which was closed. The guy had gone to lunch. It was 1100 hrs. We waited for about well over an hour and when he arrived he studied our papers for about 10 mins and then asked for our form from immigration. I said that we hadn’t seen immigration yet. He then told me I should see immigration first then come back to him. We found the immigration office and guess what. It was closed. He had gone to lunch! We waited for another 20 mins and the guy eventually arrived. We filled in a few forms and then went back down to the customs office, where we filled in exactly the same forms again with carbon copies. The guy also made a big deal about the fact that we had checked in at Port St Charles and tried to call them a couple of times to confirm but without success. I resisted the temptation to suggest that they also may be on a lunch break!! We finally left Barbados and headed for Tobago, a journey of about 120 miles. So we left just before midday hoping to arrive during daylight. The trade winds would give us a nice broad reach all the way. Got it wrong again! The wind died and came round almost to the North. We had around a F1 – 2. It takes a little more than that to send Lobo on at any speed so we had the engine on at tick over. Then we noticed that we were pushing a current, which was something we had not expected. I searched through all the books I had on the area and all I could find was that there was a west going current, which was more pronounced as you approach the island. This of course slowed us down even more and we didn’t have enough fuel on board to motor all the way. So we cut the engine and decided that if it took a little longer then so be it. At one stage we were making about 1 knot over the ground with the usual heavy roll that you get going downwind. As we approached the island we suddenly had a current in our favour and we were then doing 5 – 6 knots over the ground. I don’t have a tidal atlas for the area as there is usually sufficient information in the pilot books, but I think I will be investing in one as soon as I can find one, if only to solve the mystery of the north going current where none was mentioned. On the plus side, it should make our trip going north again a bit speedier. We arrived at Charlotteville exactly 48 hours after we left, twice the time we anticipated. Charlotteville is a small seaside village in Man-Of-War Bay, which is also a port of entry. The bay is deep and it is only possible to anchor around the perimeter. And even then you need to expect to use a lot of chain. We managed to find a spot within 100 meters of the shore, which is basically jungle. Check-in was comparatively straightforward for a small village. Few facilities here with diesel and water available ashore only in jerry cans. There are a couple of small supermarkets but the bread is locally baked and is great. There is a small pier which is not viable to berth against but there is an ‘attachment’ at a lower level for dinghies, but at low water it is within the breaking waves so that going ashore requires planning and a sense of adventure. It also means weaving through the pirogues, the local fishing boats, at their moorings. I was impressed by these craft when we came into the bay. They are a little bit like the North East Cobles but are around 23 feet long with a 40 hp outboard engine. They are usually rigged with two bamboo outriggers and troll at speed for Tuna and Kingfish or Wahoo, as we know them. As I was going ashore one day for diesel one of these guys beckoned me over to give him a lift ashore from his mooring. That was how I first met Joe. I dropped him ashore and he directed me to the only filling station. When I got there, there was a piece of cardboard pinned to the door saying ‘No Gas’ (petrol in English!). I walked back down the road to the pier and there was Joe sitting by the roadside. I told him there was no gas and he said that he also needed gas and the only place that we could get it was in Roxborough, which was about 12 miles away. I was welcome to share the transport to get fuel if I wanted. We sat for a while waiting for the taxi. He practically told me his life story and the bar on the other side of the road got some good trade! He had lived in Charlotteville all his life. Eventually Joe spotted the tanker coming down the hill to the filling station so we wouldn’t have to make the journey to Roxborough after all. It took another couple of beers whilst the tanker deposited his load and we eventually got our fuel! We met Joe a couple of times when we went ashore. When he met Pat he just introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Joe, Michael’s friend.” He then invited us to a Thanksgiving party but more of that on Pat’s page. Eventually he invited me out for a day’s fishing, which of course I jumped at. I had heard how these guys’ fish and in a way I was a little anxious, but I wasn’t going to back down. Joe picked me up from our boat off we went, at one hell of a rate of knots. The bamboo poles were ingenious gadgets. We dropped the lures over the side and they trailed out behind us and we attached the lines to a leader from the bamboo poles. The lines were specifically measured and attached to their specific poles so as not to get entangled. Once we rigged the two outriggers I thought that was that. Oh no! Joe set another line to the back of the transom with another lure. So wow! I thought, three trolling lures on the back of a 23-foot boat. I was struggling to stay on the boat at this speed. So now Joe is setting up yet another line. This one is all single strand wire with 1 lb weights tied in at about 5 metre intervals. He told me the line was about 30 fathoms long, it certainly took a long time to reel it in. Sorry got that bit wrong, no reels on these boats, we had to handball it in!! All the lines were 250 lb breaking strain, no finesse here. These lads are doing this for a living. We entered the channel between St Giles and Tobago, which was against the wind and the tide, so it was rough. Joe kept the speed up but there were no handholds on this boat, I was struggling to hang on and not wanting to appear a bit of a sissy!! We rounded these rocks to come back down the seaward side and as we got to the end of the chain at a rock called London Bridge we hit the fish. Both outriggers were twitching and we were fishing. As I said, no reels here. We had to pull the fish in by hand. Joe had warned me that it could be hard on my hands if we got into a lot of fish so I was wearing my sailing gloves. Trying to haul in a good fish with line also coming in about your feet was quite an effort. The line was slipping through my hands as I was pulling in and Joe told me to trap the line with my feet as I pulled in. We were still doing about 5 knots in a heavy sea, my feet getting more tangled as I pulled in more line, the fish fighting back at the other end. Joe of course got his in first and just flicked the 20 lb plus Kingfish into the front of the boat. I think there was a smile on his face as I still struggled with my fish, but it kept on coming and trying to jerk me into the water. I eventually got the fish alongside and Joe got the gaff and landed it. It was a 30 lb plus Kingfish and with a rod and reel it would have been a good fight. Hand lining it put a lot of things into perspective. We circled the rocks a couple more times without further success and then headed back to El Lobo where Pat was ready with the camera of course. I really have to take my hat off to these guys. The gear they use is simple and very basic. They go out in all weathers in these small open boats and they are usually successful. The fish are plentiful in this area I am told, but they still have to be caught. It is hard work. We only caught two fish that day, but I have seen boats come back in with their holds full and now I have to think about the graft that had been put in to achieve that sort of catch.
Mike’s Page 1 May/June 2007 - March 2008 Mike’s Page 3 April 2009 - March 2010 Mike’s Page 4 April 2010 - March 2011 Mike’s Page 5 April 2011 -
|
|
|
| [Home] [About Us] [Our Route] [Guest Page] [Archived Guest Page] [Mike's Page 1] [Mike's Page 2] [Mike's Page 3] [Mike's Page 4] [Mike's Page 5] [Archived Photos] [April 2007] [May 2007] [June 2007] [July 2007] [August 2007] [September 2007] [October 2007] [November 2007] [Dec 07-Jan 08] [February 2008] [March 2008] [April 2008] [May 2008] [June 2008] [July 2008] [August 2008] [September 2008] [October 2008] [November 2008] [Dec 08 - Jan 09] [February 2009] [March 2009] [April 2009] [May 2009] [June 2009] [July 2009] [August 2009] [September 2009] [October 2009] [November 2009] [December 2009] [January 2010] [February 2010] [March 2010] [April 2010] [May 2010] [June 2010] [July/October 2010] [November 2010] [December 2010] [January 2011] [February 2011] [March 2011] [April 2011] |