Gift of a Day

Last week was half term, but I only managed to get to Robinetta twice since I had other things to do and the weather was not up to much. I took Alex both times though, and he managed to get two coats of underwater primer on while I cleaned up the cockpit some more and washed down the forepeak. I was pretty sure it would be weekend working only until April, but then I heard the school I work at on Wednesday had cancelled for this week. I checked the weather and it was forecast to be sunny.

I headed for West Mersea as soon as I had put a layer of varnish on the gaff and rudder (which are at home), and got there at 0950. The weather was perfect, so as soon as I masked up the waterline I got out the roller and anti fouled the hull. At 10C it dried quickly in the sun and breeze, and it was soon touch dry. That took the morning, then after lunch I sanded down the grey metallic primer on the bulwarks to key it in for the next coat. That makes two, so I think I'll move on to primer undercoat next time...

After that it was into the forepeak to sand down the flaking paint (mask on of course, I have no idea what paint I'm dealing with here!). I'd remembered the vacuum cleaner so I hoovered the dust up then gave the bare wood a coat of grey metallic. The problem with painting is there are so many layers to go on if you want the job to last!

I've booked Robinetta's launching slot at the end of the first week of April. Fingers crossed we're ready by then....

Dry and Sunny!

Every fine day means we should head to the boat to get what we can done, so on Sunday Julian and I drove to West Mersea hoping to get a layer of underwater primer on the hull. Julian had a look at the putty that Paul had put over the bolt heads from when he redid the floors at the bow, and decided that he was unhappy with the slight drip he got when he pressed it. The putty is still very soft. He wanted Paul to check it before he painted it over, so I got him to sand down the cabin sides that continue the white stripe of the bulwalks. The paint there has been flaking off again, so needs redoing.

The bilge pump worked as soon as I tried it, most mysterious, so I did not need to dry the bilges, and since Julian was getting on with what I had intended to do I started rubbing down the bright work in the cockpit ready for re-varnolling. I'd done about half by lunch time. Unfortunately when I went to Marinestore to buy the Varnol they told me they had discontinued it. I'll have to rethink! That left me at a bit of a loose end, since I did not want to take off any more Varnol until I'd decided what to replace it with.

While brushing down the cockpit so my sanded off varnol did not blow onto the grey metallic paint Julian was putting on the bulwark I noticed that the fibreglass sheathing that butts against the cabin edge was pulling away a bit. That led me to tap at it, and my heart sank. An area the size of a side plate on the port side of the cockpit top sounded hollow. I felt around underneath it, and pulled out a lump of fungus that seemed like a fruiting body of some sort.

When Julian drilled into the cockpit top to fit the GPS mount back in April 2009 he reported that the wood seemed a bit soft, but that was on the starboard side, and that all still sounds fine (with no ominous fungus) beneath.

I called Julian, and we decided that we had to find out what was going on, so that meant taking off the locker seat and dismantling the port side of the cockpit.
 
The ply beneath the hollow fibreglass crumbled like wet fibre board when we exposed it, and the support strut for the locker seat also lacked strength. We worked back, and the support strut at the stern of the locker seat was also rotted, with crumbling ply above it. The ply was fine further back though, so it seems that the problem lies with the locker supports.

I got Paul to take a look at it today, and he'll rebuild it for us before we relaunch. I've also asked him to refinish the mast, as we really don't have time to do it with the uncertainties of the weather. He saw no problems with the softness of the putty, so Alex washed the salt off the hull and painted a layer of underwater primer. It will take a while to go off, but the next dry day we get it will be back to Robinetta for more painting.

Windy

It seems like ages since we've been to the boat. It was supposed to be dry in the afternoon but windy. It rained hard on the way but the sun came out as we crossed the Strood and it was lovely when we got to the yard. The boat seemed quite dry but not dry enough to put a coat of undercoat on the hull. We decided to have lunch first and I snapped a few atmospheric shots from the yard and then we walked to the Company Shed. This is the view from the southern end of the yard near the house boats looking south.

The wind was incredibly strong. It blew us all the way to the Shed. We started lunch with a 1/2 dozen native oysters. Lovely. Then Alison had the lobster soup and I had mussels and we shared a salad. For once we were organised and had brought some bread and wine. A truly sumptuous lunch.

We popped in to Wyatts on the way back and bought some paint and bits and pieces. Then Alison go to work bailing out the boat. The bilge pump had blown a fuse at some point and the boat was full of water - right up to the floorboards. At least that means that Paul's caulking is working - there wasn't any running out of the hull! I got to work sanding the bulwark cap-rails in the bow. Once she was dry Alison did some cleaning and preparation in the fore-peak and then we put the covers on and came home. I took this picture of the bolts Paul replaced in the floors in the bow - the ones we didn't get done when we first bought the boat. We had them done just in time!

It was really windy all day - nothing like they are getting in the south west but it howled in the rigging of the boats around us. As the afternoon drew on it got stronger and stronger. On the way home in the car there was one gust on the A120 that nearly pushed us into the crash barrier.

Boat Show Buying

I used to want to go to the Boat Show so I could go on board the yachts and dream of owning one. Now I go to man the OGA stand and buy things we need....

The show seemed smaller this year, and there were far fewer boats on the water. The ones that were there were almost all historic, including the barge Melissa which we had been aboard when she was serving as the Royal Harwich YC Clubhouse.

Mostly I wanted to look at cookers, and soon came to the conclusion that there was no way we could fit any sort of proper marine oven/hob combination in the galley as it is. There is no way I want to rebuilt it this year, so I'm still searching for the right cooking option. I've ruled out a diesel stove though; too much like an electric hob and too expensive.

We came across a lovely little pump gizmo. You set it up on the mooring line, and the movement of the boat against the mooring operates the pump. We bought it to use in Worm in the hope that it will pump the rain water out of the dingy while we sleep. Fingers crossed that it works!

We need new fire extinguishers as ours have expired, and while we were on the OGA stand Richard off My Quest stopped by and showed us one he'd just bought. It's rated for flammable liquids and gasses, as well as electrical and kitchen fires, but uses inert gas rather than powder to smother the flames. In other words, it does not make a mess! Its only a little more expensive than dry powder, so Julian went off and bought a couple. The guy on the stand told him that they had bought 1000 to the show, and only had five left. Not bad with only one day of the show to go!

Sail Scotland were there as we hoped, so we raided their stand for local booklets, then headed for the book shop for pilot guides. Julian wanted to get the Orkney Pilot, even though we're only going there if the weather is just right. It will help us decide if it is! I got seduced by a chart holder. It's the same size as our Imray charts and holds them flat and fully visible, being magnetically sealed round the edges. It's also rigid, and as we don't have a chart table and normally work with the charts laid out on the seats it should make that easier. I'm waiting for that to be delivered as they only had the display model in stock.

All in all it was a good show, with members and interested strangers keeping the OGA stand busy all afternoon.

First visit of the year

Finding the right day to visit the boatyard can be difficult in January. There's lots to do on the boat, but its mostly painting and varnishing, so there's very little point in starting anything even when its a sunny day. Its still too cold for the paint to dry before it gets damp.

I talked myself into going today to remeasure the galley since we want to look at cookers at the boat show, and got a nice surprise. Paul has finished the work we asked him to do. All the little bits of caulking repair and re-stopping have been done, and the main hatch looks very smart. There was a letter waiting when I got home, detailing what he's done and with suggestions for what should happen next.

1) He's put three coats of varnish on all his wood, and while it looks lovely this is not enough to protect it through the summer. It will need sanding lightly in the spring, before getting a few more coats.

2) He had to burn off most of the paint from the covering boards on the foredeck before he could caulk the seams, so this will need repainting when its drier. He used sikaflex rather than red lead stopping here, but it can be painted over in the same way.

3) The stopping that had come out was probably because the hull got power washed before the stopping was really hard. This can take  a few years! Looks like we'll be hand scraping our fouling off for a while...

4) There seems to be some weeping from some of the bolt heads in the iron floors visible on the hull planking. This could be a problem in a couple of years, so we'll need to keep an eye on it. It's a shame if so, since the floor bolts were replaced just after we bought the boat!

Collected Blog on Kindle

Once again I have collected the year's blog posts together, edited it, and added a little, (like my side of what happened at Rye). It's now available to buy from Amazon for reading on Kindle and/or Android devices. Since its only about 26,000 words I've priced it at the princely sum of 77p including VAT, so if anyone wants to be able to browse the blog off line, please buy!

Just search for Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log, and it should pop right up! It follows on immediately where the first volume left off.

About 20 people have bought Robinetta: her five year mission to seek out the places everyone else says are good, and we got a 5 star review off one of them in America, which is very pleasing given it is very basically formatted.

I've changed the cover, so it matches the second volume a bit better.

Tidal Surges and ongoing work.

We went to Robinetta today since it was our first chance to check on her after the tidal surge flooding last Thursday. Everything was fine, it almost looked as though nothing had happened until I found fresh seaweed caught in the sail cover which I had wrapped around the boom which is currently stored under the boat. The cover was a bit muddy too, but since there was a 2metre tidal surge we got off very lightly. Talking to people who live on Mersea, and were up overnight to keep an eye on their property, its obvious that lessons were learnt from the tidal surge of 1952; all buildings constructed on Mersea after that had to be raised above the level of those floods. The chandlers made sure to seal up their letter box, and had five layers of sandbags blocking the door. The water got up to the fourth one before retreating. The surge peaked before high water at Mersea, and the wind had dropped too which helped minimise the damage.

It's always difficult getting the winter work under way, but luckily this year it's not just me doing it. Paul has been getting on well with the things we asked him to do, and the boat is looking smarter already.

When Paul took a good look at the sternpost he found the bolts in the lower end were corroded away. He has replaced them with galvanised coach screws that refasten the stern post to the dead wood below the sterntube. He also fitted a stop water, which is a large dowel fitted to intersect the joints of the keel and sternpost. This stops water creeping up the joint and inside the boat. He then used bitumin mastic over the whole area, and fasted copper tingles over the whole thing. This will prevent damage to the area when we scrape off weeds and barnacles, which tends to take the anti-fouling paint with it.

He has also re-caulked the area of garboard seam under the mast which was leaking, and refitted a copper tingle over the engine bed bolt... little things that came make a big difference to the amount of water in the boat.

The rotten iroko capping where the cockpit seats meet the transom has been replaced by a lovely bit of teak, but the most striking teak is the new rubbers to the cabin top. I shall have to work hard to get the teak grab rails and the varnolled pitch pine of the cabin sides shiny enough to match the rubbing strip!

The floor in the forepeak is also back in place, so I'll soon run out of excuses for not getting on with Robinetta's interior.