Skullomie

 

Got the drone in the air from Robinetta for the first time. It didn't want to get airborne because the boat was moving on her anchor. But I found out how to force it and after a test flight of 30 cm in the cabin I got her aloft. The camera was fogged again but it cleared. I'm not sure the video quality is as good as when it was new. The lense may have got some dirt in it and the gimbal sometimes lets the top of the drone get in shot.

The wind was quite strong. The drone was coping but as I brought it in to land, it was getting buffeted, or it didn't cope with the shelter from Robinetta. Landing without hitting the boom took concentration.

I need to learn to pan more smoothly too.

Maintenance Day

Keeping a boat working is a never-ending task. When we were in Wick, I fixed the feed from the fuel tanks. When I was alone in Stromness over the weekend, while Alison attended to some tasks at home and spent some time with our son Alex I did a few more outstanding tasks. One was looking at the stern gland, where the back nut had worked loose. We don’t have a good tool for tightening that but I did my best with the mole grips. We need to put that on the regular check list.

When leaving Stromness we noticed something wrong with the jib halyard. With the No. 1 jib, the purchase was block-a-block without tightening the rig. Something had happened to the block at the top of the mast. I had a look and it didn’t look right but I couldn’t see what was wrong. We made do for the trip to Tongue.

Today Alison took a good look with the binoculars and saw that the strop had fallen off the little hound it sits on. It must have happened in Portsoy. It looked OK other than that. It was a calm enough day, so at low water, when we would have maximum shelter from the rocks around the anchorage, Alison agreed to go up the mast.

When Alison has to go up the mast, we usually use the jib halyard, as that has the most purchase. But of course we couldn’t use that to fix this problem! In Portsoy, friends had used the peak halyard. But there were two of them and both likely stronger than I.

We don’t have enough rigid mast hoops at the moment to try climbing the mast with the mainsail up. And the shrouds don’t go nearly high enough up the mast to make fitting rat lines useful.

So it was going to be the peak halyard.

I had wondered how far I could raise Alison using the peak hardener, which has a 4:1 purchase. The answer was ‘not far enough to be useful’. I also tried using the jib sheet winch to haul,  but that wasn’t effective either.

Using the main fall of peak halyard, and with Alison climbing and me pushing against the cabin with my foot, I managed to get her up most of the way. Then she asked for the boat hook and I sent that up on a spare halyard. That was enough for her to get the strop back into place.

As usual, we used the topsail halyard as a safety line. It’s its only function at the moment as we don’t have a topsail. Maybe one day. I had to walk back and forward between the cockpit and the fore-deck to keep adjusting it to minimise how far Alison would fall if I lost control of the peak halyard. But it felt really important, as I was pulling that line with nothing to lock it off and if I’d fumbled Alison would have fallen. Luckily, I didn’t fumble. Letting Alison down was much less fraught, as I could use the pin-rail as a turning point. I still had to adjust the safety line a few times, but it was stress-free, at least for the person down below.

Once that important job was done we had a few other things to look at.

We fitted the plastic mats we had bought in Inverness. We’ve put them on the foredeck where the paint has been most scratched by the anchor chain. Hopefully, that will protect the deck from the chain.

We would like to fit something to keep the anchor in place better. We had a think about what and where we might do that. But while anchored isn’t the best time, as we don’t have an anchor to play with!

When the starboard backstay broke yesterday, we fitted a temporary using a new piece of buff braid-on-braid. We aren’t sure what we bought that for, perhaps the bobstay tensioner. It wasn’t finished off very well but it does feel nice and doesn’t stretch, so it’s a good fit for the job, except that being braid, it is hard to splice a thimble in the end. But I couldn’t find any suitable stranded rope on-board so it’s going to stay in use for now. I served the end that I’d just put tape on yesterday and removed the old thimble. Instead of an eye at the end, there is just a bowline round the stainless steel shackle. The crush load will be higher that way. I’ll have a think.

We’ve had problems again this year with the gaff saddle getting stuck on the jib halyard when dropping the main. I’ve tightened the parrel line and replaced the string I’d tied from the parrel line to the gaff to act as a guard. It had worked last year but it wasn’t working and it was very tatty. I used a simple whipping with 6 mm rope as the twine to fill-in the gap between the last parrel bead and the saddle. It looks like it should stop the saddle snagging on the wire rope of the jib halyard and it’s much tidier than what we had before.

 

 

Back to Skullomie Harbour

I got back to Stromness on Monday night after a couple of days at home. Julian had stayed with Robinetta, going to a concert on the Saturday night, and a guided wildflower walk round the Ring of Brodgar on Sunday afternoon. I had kept an eye on the weather while I was away, and slightly regreted going. The promised strong winds that would have stopped us sailing did not appear, and we could have made progress on our journey to Stornaway.

Tuesday promised little wind, which was a good thing in theory as it would be on the nose. We are still in avoiding sailing in strong winds mode because of my arm, so motoring makes sense. Julian and I spent Monday evening planning for the trip through Hoy Sound. We decided to leave on the last of the foul tide, as that would avoid any chance of wind over tide, and we could carry the tide for the next 6 or more hours as we headed for the Kyle of Tongue.

As we were preparing Robinetta to leave we discovered something odd. We have not bent on the no 1 jib since leaving Shetland, and now that we did so the jib halyard block, which should have been about 30cm above the deck when the jib was raised, was touching the deck, and we did not have tension on the jib luff rope. We fiddled around as much as we could to make things better, but the no 1 jib will not set properly. It looks as though a trip up the mast is in order at some point.

After filling our diesel cans and paying our mooring fees we got the engine on to warm up at 09:10, and backed out of the berth.

Our timing and routing all came together well, and by hugging the Orkney Mainland coast we escaped the last of the foul tide, and did not encoutner any overfalls. The swell did get up though, and stayed pretty high all day. Julian put his lifejacket on, and used a strop to tie himself onto Robinetta, just to go half way over the cabin top to take off the sail ties. We raised the mainsail, reefed, just to help steady Robinetta in the swell, and continued under motor.

The visibility was too bad to see where we were aiming, so we were steering by the compass. It was a relief when I spotted a tanker heading towards us out of the Pentland Firth. I knew it was not going to come near us, but it was something to look at! There were birds of course, Fulmers, guillemots, razor bills, puffins, skuas, gannets, and common gulls were out in force, mostly resting on the water, but some in flight.

By 13:30 the wind was so light that we decided to shake out some of the reef, and shortly after doing that the starboard backstay rope parted. Luckily we had a good replacement rope available, but Julian did need to go forward again to retrieve the backstay block as it was hanging loose by the mast. The visibility came and went, but glimpses of the coast were as rare as the odd patch of blue sky and sunshine

We got the jib out to help the main and staysail for an hour, but by 14:30 it was furled away, and we lowered the main sail at 17:15 and lashed it down to stop it rolling in the swell. We got a little rain, but more drizzle, and with that and the swell we were not feeling too cheerful. Our arrival time at the Kyle of Tongue was promising to be after half eight, and we were both feeling hungry. Hot baked beans and a buttered roll made a decent light dinner, that was easy to prepare and eat under way. There was no change of eating at the same time; this was not a day George could be given the helm.

When I took the helm at 19:30 Julian could stop looking forward at the mist covered land ahead, and suddenly announced "I can see colours! The clouds are purple and the hills are green."

Approaching Skullomie Harbour

We were glad to get shelter from the swell as we entered the Kyle, and Julian laid out 20m of chain on deck as we prepared to enter Skullomie Harbour. This was not as easy to get into as it had been in April. Our friendly local fisherman had now laid out his crab pots all over the harbour, and we had to steer between them carefully to reach the anchorage.

We dropped anchor in 4.3m beneath the keel at 21:00, and were glad to have reached a protected harbour. I expect us to be here for two nights, waiting for the right time to head round Cape Wrath.

Pentland Firth (again)

Swona and South Ronaldsay

We both felt refreshed this morning and a 1 pm departure felt good. Yesterday, I had put some putty and paint on Worm where some water still seemed to be getting in under the patch I had fitted in Scrabster.

We had all morning. It was time to work out why the starboard fuel tank wasn't being used. I tried loosening the pipe fitting by the tap but it was twisting the tap and I didn't want to break the tap joint to the tank so I left it alone. The next place to look was the T-piece joining the pipes from the two fuel tanks and feeding the fuel filter.

I turned both taps off and started to undo the nut on the starboard side. It came lose almost immediately. That was wrong! No fuel came out. I undid the other two nuts. They needed lots of turns.

Getting the T-piece free took a bit of pulling and pushing but I got it out.

The starboard side was dirty almost to the end of the thread. Looking more closely, the end of that thread was broken. I thought I had found the problem.

It can't have been put on correctly. Then air could get in and cause an air-lock, stopping the fuel flowing and the tanks equalising.

I held a carton under the pipe and Alison briefly turned on the tap. Diesel flowed!

I cleaned of the swarf where it must have been cross-threaded, and the grime in the threads and re-fitted the T-piece. I got all three nuts to turn the same amount. It looked good.

I turned on the port tank and started the engine. No leaks at the T-piece and the engine was running fine. I opened the starboard tap. OK so far. Now for the moment of truth. I closed the port tap.

The engine kept running! I left it that way for 5 minutes and there was no trouble. So I opened the port tap and left both tanks working and turned off the engine. With luck, we are back to normal.

There was one more thing before we left. I went to launch Worm and noticed the painter was almost worn through where it was tied to the transom.

I cut the bad bit off and sealed the end and put two bowlines on, if it wears again and breaks it should be caught by the second loop.

We had a lovely trip. There was only enough wind to purely sail now and then. Mostly it was motor sailing. But the weather was nice. There was enough shipping to make it a little stressful but we managed to keep out of the way of the big stuff.

We didn't expect a big ship to follow us into Scapa Flow. It went up to anchor near Orphir.

When we got into Scapa Flow, there was no wind and I went below to cook. We had some lovely haddock fillets given to us by some fishermen in Wick.

It was going well until suddenly the wind kicked in and the boat heeled. The cabbage that was steaming went flying and so did the frying pan I was putting onion and tomato and garlic into. Luckily, the potatoes stayed put in the pan holders. But we only have one pair.

Luckily again, the haddock was still in the bag, so I could slice another onion and more cabbage and carry on cooking. 

We got into Stromness about 11 pm.

Portsoy to Wick

Leaving Portsoy means leaving an hour either side of high water. Isabella Fortuna started to warm up her engines before 3 a.m. and left as soon as the local boat that was acting as a tug to help her off the quay turned up. As soon as they were clear of the harbour Julian got Robinetta’s engine on and we were away from the harbour by 03:30. Both of us were short of sleep. Our guests had stayed until 22:00, and we did not get into our bunks until 23:00 as we were taking bunting down and preparing Robinetta for sea. 

The day started well enough, with bright sunshine and seas calm enough for us to try George on the helm, but the wind was dead astern, and George was not strong enough to keep us on course with the main sail working. We went to hand steering within half an hour as the waves grew steeper, then reefed the main sail only quarter of an hour later. By 04:40 we had given up on the idea of sailing our course, and dropped the main to head straight towards Wick with only the staysail flying. It was a day of taking turns to helm, or trying to sleep in a wildly moving cabin. 

The Murray Firth has two huge wind farms. We were aiming to pass between them, but they just merge together in the middle, so we had no real option but to thread through them. No one tried to stop us. A wind farm work boat passed us by as we closed with towers, and it ignored us totally. The wind from behind filled the staysail, and we managed 5 knots through parts of the wind farm while the tide was with us. The sea state was nasty, and every seventh wave rolled Robinetta violently. The towers meant we were constrained with where we could point, and our straight line course got deflected by half a mile as we tried to keep the rolling to a minimum. 

The sun went in, and we were still ten miles from Wick when it started raining. The tide was now against us, taking our average speed over the ground down to 2.5 knots. We saw a single yacht sail against the land as we cleared the wind farm, but all the other boats were working ones, trawlers and wind farm boats.

The final slog into Wick was actually enjoyable in a masochistic kind of way. The swell was going down, the wind in the staysail was not directly from behind, and I could see our track on the chart plotter from when we left Wick on Saturday 14th June. Once we joined it I no longer had any worries about the course, and even the crab pot buoys seemed to be in the same place… 

We were directed into the same spot in the marina that we had been in before, and once Julian hooked up the electric we got the heater on and began to dry everything out. Heading outside into the rain again did not appeal, once we were in dry clothes and we had enough food left over from Portsoy to make a tasty dinner. 

It was still raining when we went to bed at 22:00, after a long and tiring day.

Portsoy Traditional Boat Festival

 

There were not nearly as many boats at the festival as expected. Isabella Fortuna was the only big local boat in the old harbour, and the other boat that was open to the public was Nova Spero, a wooden hulled fishing boat built at Arbroath in the 1970s. She still looks like a deep sea fishing boat, with steel superstructure and wooden decks, but inside this shell she is now fitted out to take 12 guests around Scotland, visiting out of the way places in luxury.

Nova Spero

 

There were lots of locally built rowing boats. Banff and Cullen both have schools and it was great to see young people learning life skills by building boats.

The music and food were as good as ever, and the sun shone on both days so no one minded the strong winds on Saturday that set all the flags flying. 

Last time we went to Portsoy Robinetta behaved impeccably while lying against the harbour wall. This time she did not seem to like it much. She dried out bow down on Friday and Saturday mornings, and Sunday was even worse, as she grounded too close to the wall so we had to have help from Isabella Fortuna's crew and a couple of the security guards to tie her hard back against it to avoid her falling over into the harbour. Friday and Saturday evenings were better as we were awake and could position her as she touched the sand although the bow was still low. Our last drying out, on Sunday evening went perfectly. Not only were we on board as she grounded we had three guests in the cockpit, and their weight meant the bow stayed up beautifully. Our guests were the skipper of Salcombe Lass, who had entertained us the previous two evenings, and two young Norwegians who were over at the festival to demonstrate their boat building skills.

Robinetta was awarded the best traditional boat award, so now we have a lovely ceramic clock for the living room as well as the dining room.

Whitehills to Portsoy

Whitehills is around 4 nm from Portsoy. Richard Thorne had said we should be able to get into the Old Harbour from about 12:30.

So I suggested we leave about 11. That gave me most of the morning to work on the toilet pump.  I had taken it off and started cleaning it at Inverness but there was more to do. I just about got all the old gunk off the plastic shell but didn’t get as far as reassembling it.

Getting out of the inner harbour at Whitehills proved even more tricky than getting in had been. Robinetta would not turn at all whilst going astern. We managed to back out straight into the opposite berth and then we needed to do a 180 degree turn around the finger pontoon. We had a little help but we still got nearer than we would like to other boats.

But we got into the outer harbour with only our pride damaged. There wasn’t much wind but I think there was enough to catch the cabin sides. And the Harbour Master had said there was current in there. We got the bowsprit set in the outer harbour and headed out. The tide was low enough to show the rocks marked by the posts. There really is very little room.

Entrance to Whitehills

I shook the reef out as we raised the main and we set off with a full cutter rig but no. 2 jib. It was a lovely beam reach with the wind coming from the shore, so the sea was flat. But it was strong. I looked at the wind farm on the hill and joked “We don’t need them to generate more wind”.

Of course, we were actually in the shadow of the wind farm, and once past it, the wind got even stronger and we needed the reef back in. Then we had a pretty wild and fun sail until we got near the crab pot markers outside Portsoy. We called Portsoy on the VHF and they said there was plenty of water. Although we had been going really fast, 5 ½ knots at tímes, with the stopping to reef, and pot-dodging, it was about 12:15, bang on time.

The rib came out to say hello, and check we remembered the way in. I carried on sailing until we were reasonably close, to try to put on a show. I think we could have gone a bit closer.

It was really calm in the entrance, so we had no trouble motoring in and people standing by to take our lines and be in the right place for the berthing plan.

Once we were settled, I set to work assembling the toilet pump and refitting it and connecting it up. By then, the tide had gone back out and we were high and dry against the wall. We would need to wait until evening to see if the pump worked.