Launch Day

 Today was forecast to be much calmer than Monday when we had first booked our launch, although more wind was due in the evening.

Alison agreed with the yard that we would go in the water at 1 pm.

My Gaelic class finished at 10:30 and we got Worm on the roof of the car and went to the yard. Robinetta was already on the hoist but her cradle was still taking the weight so we couldn't antifoul the patches where the props were holding her. We went on board and rearranged the cover and did engine checks.

We took Worm down and left her on the slip.

The plan had been to put Robinetta onto one of the yard's moorings until ours was serviced but they serviced it this morning so we could go straight there. 

The chap from the yard lifted her on the hoist so Alison could complete the antifouling and then went to launch another boat.

Then it was our turn. Robinetta was moved to the slip and I got on board while Alison went out in Worm. Our friendly yard chap asked if Worm was named because a robin eat a worm. Hardly anyone makes that connection!

It was all going fine until I tried backing out of the hoist. We didn't move. There was no prop wash. 

I went down and looked at the gearbox. The control cable had sheared. At least we knew what the problem was. 

After some discussion, it was decided to launch and put her on the yard pontoon while they looked for a new cable. The chap got on board and manually worked the gears from the cabin. Having a wireless remote for the hoist is super useful!

Getting the cable replaced took hours. The throttle cable is easy. I've done it twice myself, once in Cardiff and once in Brittany. The gear cable is harder to change at both ends and in the most inaccessible place. The engineer was great. 

But it was gone 6 pm before we were on our way. The wind was getting up and the tide had mostly run out but was still ebbing. By the time we got near our buoy, we were being pushed south quite strongly.

Of course the pickup was streaming to the south of the buoy. There was very little room between Carraig an Ròin and the buoy. It got really shallow and I was glad Alison was up at the bow with the boat hook and couldn't see the depth gauge.

We picked it up fine. 

By the time we had the covers on the wind was blowing hard and there were 10-20 cm waves bouncing Worm around as we boarded.

Tying the last corner of the cover on Robinetta from Worm as she bounced around was really challenging.

Getting ashore was fine with wind and tide in our favour but low tide meant a long trip across the mussel bed and beach with Worm. I went up to the house and got the trolley and Eleanor came to help.

Robinetta is now safe on her mooring.

Getting ready to go back in the water

The last three months have been pretty wet in Rosneath, making it a pretty typical west coast of Scotland winter. Julian ordered and fitted two replacement oil pipes, and we mopped out the bilges thoroughly, but that was pretty much all we could do until the weather changed. 

Last week we finally got the dry spell we needed for outside work, and I managed to prepare the underwater areas for antifouling, and give Robinetta a complete coat of Lauderdale Blue paint. I also arranged for an engine service (changing the filters e.t.c.). The engineer said he could do this today, although he had not appeared by 16:00 when the rain started and I put the covers on.

With the engine nominally ready to go I asked for a launch slot. It seems that this early in the season there is no need to worry about being in a queue, and my preferred date of 30th March was immediately agreed. I then went back to Robinetta and anti-fouled her with Alex's help before the rain began.

We should be back in the water in a week, relaunching within the 3 months ashore we paid for. Our mooring has not been serviced yet, but the yard offered us the use of one of their own moorings until they could service ours. Now I need to transfer my attention to getting Worm back into commission. She has spent the winter in the garage, and should be ready once the hull has been primed and anti-fouled.

Time for a new book

The last time I pulled the blog posts together and created a book was for our 2021-2 seasons, about bringing Robinetta round Cape Wrath to her new home in the Firth of Clyde. "Round Cape Wrath" is still available to purchase in paperback or electronic form, like all our books, but I thought it was time  to create a 9th book, about Robinetta's exploits from her Scottish home.

The electronic version of "On the Whale Road" is now available for pre-order for £4.99, with the release date being the end of February. The print version will also be available from Amazon on that date, but rather more expensive at £19.99. Unfortunately the cost of printing continues to increase and as the Robinetta books are print on demand I hold very little stock and price increases are inevitable.

Significant work goes into creating these books, which I hope adds value to the record in this blog. They should also contain no spelling mistakes, far fewer grammatical errors and have a more consistent style. They also contain maps to let you see our routes.

 Please have a look at the books, and if you decide to buy, then please leave a review.

End of year totals 2025

 Robinetta was hauled out on 19th December with very little planning, (see previous posts), so it is now time to publish her end of year totals.

This was a long season, beginning in April and not ending until September. In that time she traveled 1421 nautical miles in 420 hours. Only 113 hours of this was under sail alone, with the ratio lower than normal due to our being very conservative in our sailing during the 6 or so weeks that I needed to be careful of my broken elbow. The engine was on for 310 hours.

Safely ashore

 

 

 

 

  

One of the reasons we moved to Rosneath was to be able to moor close to the house. There are also 3 boat yards in walking distance, and a marina less than a mile across the water. Rhu marina told me that their work boat was being serviced, and was not up to the job of towing. Craig's (Gareloch Yacht Storage) is where we have come out before, but we know he does not have a work boat that could move her so did not bother getting in touch. Silver's is the closest, but when I phoned up, the lady in the office did not think they could move her today, which meant leaving her in the water over Christmas. Today was the last day they were working before closing for a fortnight's break.

 

It was also the last working day for RB Marine, which is the yard that laid and maintains our mooring. However they did have a boat that could move her, and were happy to bring her ashore for us today. I phoned them at 10, and by 11 I saw her under tow heading through the Rhu Narrows. They thought they might leave her in the slings over the holiday fortnight, but when I walked down to have a look at her they had decided to put her in a cradle instead so the slings were available if needed.

 Robinetta was being hosed off when I got there. They obviously know what they were doing with a wooden boat, as they were power, not pressure, washing her, with an apprentice standing by with a scrapper for the barnacles. They were very impressed with our anti-foul's performance too, saying only the bottom of the keel had any growth to worry about. This is an area that is difficult to get anti-foul onto, and since Tim had added a new strip of wood to protect the keel bolts there was no build up of old layers to help. We use Teamac D, and it had certainly done a good job this year.

Now Robinetta is ashore we can get her covers on to keep out the rain and dry out the cabin. We will be able to relaunch her at any time once we have fixed the engine, but will probably leave her out of the water until March.

 

 

 

What to do

 After yesterday's lucky escape we need to get things fixed. The most urgent things are the battery and the engine. We must hoover out the bilges too and bringing her ashore makes sense.

I found the last battery order and got the dimensions.

Length 258 mm

Width 175 mm

Height inc. terms 220 mm

So I will order one.

I suspect the external oil pipe rotted when the bottom of the engine was submerged. I've fitted a replacement before so I'll order one and see if that gets us mobile.

Not a routine trip to check Robinetta!

 Getting to Robinetta over the few weeks has not been easy. Either the wind was too strong, the rain was too heavy, or high tide (when it is easiest to launch Worm) had been in the dark. Today's forecast was also for F4-5 winds, but when Julian and I went for a walk they were definitely on the low end of a F4, it was not raining, and high tide was at 11:27.

As I rowed out Julian thought Robinetta looked low in the water, but he changed his mind when we got closer and he could see the anti-foul line. However once we were on board and I looked into the cabin his initial thoughts were proved correct. There was about 7cm of standing water on top of the floor boards. I immediately started using the manual pump in the cockpit, and Julian went below and checked if the automatic bilge pump would work. The short answer was no, so he used a bucket and scoop to remove at least 30 gallons of water before the water level was low enough to get at the electric bilge pump and see what was wrong. Once again it was blocked.

This was now a familiar problem. Julian cleared the wire wool from the pump and also had to blow through the pipe work to clear that. The float switch was working, and with the pump clear and back in place it soon emptied the bilge. But the pump kept going. Once I cleared the via between the float switch and the pump the water drained enough for the float switch to go down, and the pump stopped. Problem fixed.

One of the reasons for going to Robinetta was to run the engine. I warmed up the coils, but when I turned the key the engine did not turn over. The cause was obvious to us, so we switched to the other battery and the engine started, albeit after a couple of false starts. Reving up the engine, in what should have been neutral, had Robinetta slowly circling her mooring. Some power was obviously getting to the prop.

We needed to run the engine to charge the battery, and running an engine without load is not good for it, so we decided to go for a short motor up the loch. There was no need to get the stay sail on, or the sail cover off the main sail, so we were soon off the mooring. I helmed while Julian went below to tidy things up. Then two things happened at once. Julian said "There's oil everywhere", and the oil warning light came on, with its associated beeping. I turned the engine off.

We were now about half a mile from our mooring, drifting without steerage in the middle of the Gareloch. Getting the stay sail bent on gave us some sort of control, but we needed the main sail as well before we could make any progress. But where should we go? Our first thought was Rhu Marina, but that was straight into the wind so we would be doing a lot of tacking. We did have the tide with us which would help, but we had only dressed for a row and short stay on Robinetta, and both of us  were already getting cold.

There was another potential problem as well. I could see two tugs maneuvering just beyond the narrows, with a dark shape getting bigger behind them. There was a submarine coming in. We decided that sailing back to our mooring was the best option.

One of the big black Navy ribs came up to check our intentions, and they were happy to leave us be when we said we were heading for the moorings on the side of the loch that did not need us to cross the main channel. We made our way slowly back to our mooring as the submarine came past. I had asked for the main to be reefed to balance the stay sail, but this was probably a mistake as we never made over 2 knots. However it did make picking up the buoy easy once we were close enough, with no need to worry about getting sails down to loose speed on the approach.

Once back on the buoy we tidied everything up again. Taking off the stay sail to store below, lashing down the boom and gaff so the crutches would not bounce out of position in any swell, and tying  down the main sail cover.

We currently have one good battery, which should power the bilge pump unless it blocks again. There is no need to "save" it to start the engine, as we will not be doing that before the oil leak is fixed. Our next task to to arrange somewhere to bring her out. This month has shown us that the weather in December is just not good enough for us to want to sail, and January and February will be no better. The bilge pump problems have shown us that leaving her on the mooring over winter needs us to have totally clear bilges to avoid problems. We need her out of the water, and dry so we can use the vacuum.

Neither local yard answered their phones this afternoon. They had probably gone home early. We need a yard with a work boat to move Robinetta, or a marine engineer who will come out to the mooring. Until then we will try to get out to her at least once a week to check that the pump has not clogged again.