New plank

 

The new plank to replace the rotten wood is finally in place. Modern pitch pine sourced ultra-locally.

More rot than we realised

 Robinetta will be going sailing this year, but not as early in the season as we hoped. It is going to take us a little while to replace this plank!

Luckily it is above the water line, but over 7' of planking was found to be so rotten that it crumbled away once the paint holding it together was removed.

We are going to stay in the shed for an extra month, which will take us to the end of April. Hopefully by that time it will be warm enough for us to do the varnishing needed on the mast.

Preparing for the new season

Having Robinetta in the shed so close to home should have meant we were working on her steadily, but in reality that did not happen. I wanted to give the hull a chance to dry out thoroughly, and in the winter temperatures that took a long time. Then there was no point starting until it was warm enough to paint. Now that it is beginning to look like spring is on the way it is time to get to work.

Julian, Alex, and I all went along this morning. Alex worked on the hull above the water line, removing loose paint, and unfortunately discovered a little soft damp wood  just below the rubbing strake. Hopefully with the paint off that will dry out and a little hardener will be enough to restore it.

Meanwhile Julian got on with removing the decayed wood we discovered in the bulwalk last summer. Not a huge job, and he has already replaced this length once. This time we will use better quality timber!

Alex helped me get the anchor chain out of the locker, something I had been meaning to do for a while but needed help with. I also brought the kedge anchor into the light of day. It is not rusted solid, but could do with some TLC, and the short length of chain before the rope rode should probably be replaced. The same is probably true of all the galvanised shackles. We have not been greasing them the way we should to stop them rusting, and many of the pins are worn.

I decided that all the varnish needs stripping off and replacing. I might go all Deks for the bright work, but that will partly depend how much of the old varnish refuses to come off. The heat gun might be seeing some use!

End of a long season

 Robinetta was hauled out at Craig's Big Shed in Rosneath in the middle of October, and she is now safely undercover for the winter. Once she has dried out a little it will be time to get to work on her paint and varnish.

It has been a long hard season for her, and having her inside the shed feels like a huge relief.

We have spent a lot of time aboard this year, with long weekends, 2 fortnight cruises, and a 1 week cruise to finish. We also did get one day sail in our new local area!

Robinetta began her travels at the start of April in Southwold, Suffolk, and reached the Gairloch in the Clyde by the end of September. She traveled 1127nm in 333 hours, split over 42 days underway.

The new engine gave sterling performance over 264 hours, although we have some concerns over the fact that it is burning oil when under high revs.

The latest blog collection will be available under the title "Round Cape Wrath" at the start of December, available from all the usual places. Please have a look at the publishing pages for links when they become available.

Stroul Bay

We had left Robinetta and Worm in Rhu Marina. I’d originally wanted to get her to the house but the weather forecast encouraged discretion.

So we stayed on Robinetta on Sunday night and I got the first bus home on Monday morning.

It felt like commuting to the office! Alison stayed behind and did some tidying and came home around lunchtime.

Mid-week I got a call from the marina. There was another big wind due and they didn’t think Worm looked safe. It was really nice to feel our boats were being looked after. Luckily, Alison was in Helensburgh with her Dad’s car and could pop in on the way home. She brought Worm ashore and left her by the mast store.

Worm at Rhu

The weather forecasts were pretty changeable all week but in the end, Sunday looked like a good day for a short last sail.

The Ferry Inn - Rosneath side of the narrows

I still wanted to get Robinetta to Stroul Bay, so that’s what we did. The forecast was for a westerly wind but there was a little north in it. So we beat across into Rosneath Bay and then got a nice line into the narrows.

Rhu side of the narrows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Two large birds landed on the red channel marker. Far more colourful than I’m used to, I hoped for something exotic, but the later advice is that they were immature cormorants.

young cormorants

Alison wanted to head up the Loch first. The wind was very variable, sometimes we managed nearly 4 knots, at other times we dropped to below a knot.

It was lovely to finally sail the water we’ve seen from the road so many times over the last year.

It was nearing lunchtime before we got anywhere near the head of the loch, so we turned round and headed for Stroul Bay.

The moorings were quite busy, and we got some chain out and threaded our way amongst them. I wanted the ideal spot for photos, and to mark the best place to lay a mooring.

That best place was very near where it started shelving and before we knew it, we had almost run out of water! We backed out into 4 m and dropped the hook.

Anchored in Stroul Bay

 Lunch was a simple affair of wholemeal bread and tinned mackerel. I took a few pictures of the house. Then I got into Worm to row ashore. Alison preferred to stay aboard.

That was fine, I don’t often get to row Worm and she rows beautifully. I came ashore at the new little memorial garden across the road from the house. 

A retired gentleman and his dog have taken to spending their days there. He’s helping tidy up a bit around the new garden. A nice chap. He made the same suggestion we’d heard at the CCC event in Tarbert – ‘DJ’ in Rosneath can lay us a mooring.

Worm with Robinetta in the background

I’d taken pictures of the house from Robinetta. Now I took some of Robinetta from the shore and then headed up to the house. 

The view from the terrace

 I took some from the terrace – our first sight of Robinetta from the house! And then indoors and some from the dining room. Being able to watch Robinetta at breakfast will be perfect.

Framed by the dining room window

 But that’s really something for next year. For now, I could relax in the glow of a goal attained. We’d set off a year ago to get Robinetta north. We’d got stuck in Southwold and carried on in April. We’d had a few difficult passages, especially the departure from Grimsby, but everything had worked out.

I wandered happily back down to Worm and rowed back to Robinetta.

It was still early with good wind but Alison was keen to get back. The Gareloch was a little busy with Sunday racing for her taste.

We sailed back through the narrows and sailed around a bit in Rosneath Bay and then headed into the Marina. I made a complete mess of coming back to the berth. It was a lee shore but I could have done better. We ended up with Robinetta pushing against the pontoon in the middle of the pair of finger berths and crushing Worm against the pontoon.

Not much damage was done, except to our pride. I’ll need to repair Worm’s starboard bow again. Exactly the same place I had to mend last winter!

Now we need to arrange for her to come out for the winter.

The final leg

Well, almost.

I checked the forecast first thing and it was still showing 20 knot winds gusting nearly 40 knots from 4pm but the early part of the day looked good.

Alison agreed that we should go. There were plenty of places to stop if the wind or sea-state was too much. Rothesay, Kip and Holy Loch were obvious choices.

We left at 8am. Pretty much the whole CCC contingent left before us, or soon after. Winds were light and many just motored but we motor-sailed as far as the entrace to the Western Kyle.

After that the wind kicked in and we sailed. Alison said "We never checked the tides through the Kyle". This could be a problem. It was now springs. Alison checked and it looked like we would reach the narrows in the first hour of the foul tide.

When we got there I decided that if the tide was against us, then the southern channel was likely to have weaker tides than the main marked channel as it was wider.

I don't know what the main channel was like, but the southern channel was fine. We got through without difficulty. We had made great time to the narrows and it was now about noon. Of course the bigger CCC boats were going up to twice as fast as our 4 knots and were probably near their home ports by now.

Through the Kyles of Bute

As we sailed through the Eastern Kyle towards Rothesay the wind built steadily. As we got to the moorings west of Toward Castle we turned to put a reef in. Alison had forgotten the procedure. A good enough reason for it to be her turn! So we pointed head-to-wind and under instruction, Alison:

• dropped the peak halyard so the gaff was horizontal, 
• untied the throat halyard and re-tied it where the reef should be
• untied the furling line and hauled the sail around the boom until the luff was tight
• made off the furling line
• raised the gaff and made off the peak halyard

One might wonder if the sail would fall down while the throat halyard was loose. In practice it rarely does.

As we had reefed all the way down to the first mast hoop there was one more step. We untie the first hoop so that if we need to reef more, we can.

 That left the helm much easier as we came out of the Eastern Kyle into the Clyde proper and turned north.

Today was a busy day for the Coast Guard and the RNLI. The Campbeltown all weather and inshore lifeboats were tasked to three different incidents and the Troon ILB had to rescue some paddle-boarders from the river (Irvine?). All these were tasked by Belfast Coastguard on VHF channel 16 and we listened intenltly. Two of them started with DSC Mayday alerts. We took down the co-ordinates but they weren't near us so there was no need to try to help. The Campbeltown incidents included a small boat sinking near the Mull of Kintyre and a chartered yacht that had been dismasted in Loch Fyne. They all seemed to end without injury.

It had been a dead run all the way to Toward so we expected a reach in the Clyde. We thought that hugging the Cowal coast would give us the flattest sea with the least fetch. But there didn't seem to be much sea all across to the Ayrshire coast. The gusts on the Cowal side though, were getting rather fierce. We took the helming in turns. Alison set her 'helping hands' - a 2:1 purchase on the tiller. But she still found the gusts pulling the head around too much so we dropped the staysail and carried on with No 2 jib and deeply reefed main.

So after a while, we reset the course to head across the Clyde directly towards Cloch Point, where the coast turns east towards Gourock. The original course I had laid in took us all the way to Stroul Bay outside our house. But given the strong winds overnight, Alison laid in the course to Rhu Marina just the other side of the narrows.

We did get fewer strong gusts on the new course but the wind back around to behind us. It always feels strange when the wind is doing the opposite of the forecast, but local land forms change local winds beyond anything predicted. With the wind behind us, the jib was not helping, so we furled it and put the staysail back up.

 

 

Dunoon

Passing Dunoon we got our first view round the corner of Cloch Point and spotted the TV transmitter mast on the Rosneath Peninsula - we were nearly home!

Rosneath Peninsula

We got round the corner by Gourock almost bang on 4pm and so did the stronger winds! Sometimes punctuality feels like an overrated virtue. The strong winds were coming from the West blowing right up the Clyde towards Glasgow. Suddenly the sea state became much rougher too. The waves weren't big but there was a lot of spray. The helm became very heavy and it was time to reduce sail. We put the engine on and went head to wind and pulled more of the mainsail around the boom. It helped a lot.

Back on course, we left the engine ticking over in neutral so it was there in case we needed it in a hurry. We put our life-jackets on too. Robinetta was coping with the conditions fine but it was very hard work.

There is a sandbank between Gourock and Kilcreggan called the Rosneath Patch. Our course took us north of it and the seas and wind were pushing us even further north towards the Rosneath shore. Trying to keep on course against that I pulled the helm over a bit too far and the boom went crashing over.

An accidental gybe is the one thing all sailors will try to avoid. It can damage the sail and the rigging and worst case, it can cause dismasting. This one, given the conditions, was not bad at all. Thank goodness we had so little sail up.

We put some power on from the engine and got back on course, bringing the boom back over in a controlled way. I said I thought it was time to drop the main. I was thinking of carrying on with the staysail on its own, as had worked for us between Loch Eriboll and Cape Wrath. But as I was thinking about going head to wind again, the sea state was starting to calm down.

We couldn't tell if this was a lull in the wind, or if we were getting some shelter from the Rosneath Patch.

But it did get smoother and smoother and the wind did drop a little. We turned off the engine.

We eased around the red bouys marking the channel into the Gareloch and things just got easier and easier. After a while our speed had dropped to under a knot and I was thinking of shaking a reef out. Then I realised we still had the jib furled and we got that out and the sailing became quite delightful.

We got within a cable or two of the entrance to the marina under sail and then dropped the main and staysail and motored in to a berth.

We were still 1 nm from our final destination, but we were 99.9 % of the way there from Southwold!

We decided to spend the night on Robinetta rather than going home.

Rhu Marina

CCC Closing Muster

We joined the Clyde Cruising Club in the spring. CCC produces the cruising guides for Scotland and has events and log and photographic competitions. We didn’t know if it would be something that would work for us. None of the events earlier in the year fitted our availability but the Closing Muster looked possible. We registered earlier this week. The event consisted of a race from Rothesay to East Loch Tarbert and an invitation for any boats not wanting to race to converge on Tarbert for a reception and prize giving. The event started on Friday with a get together in a pub in Rothesay.

When we thought we might get into the Clyde on Wednesday the pub event looked possible, but a day later meant we would only be able to get to the Saturday reception.

Getting to Lochranza was perfect. If we didn’t go to the CCC event we were in the right place to head for home. If we did, we were only 10 miles from Tarbert.

Then we looked at the weather. There was a force 8 gale due Sunday afternoon when we would be on our way from Tarbert to Rosneath.

I was keen to meet the people from the CCC so we decided to go to Tarbert. If we got stuck there I could work from the Marina on Monday, or even for longer.

As we came out of Lochranza at 10am there seemed to be very little wind and all of it in the wrong direction. After trying to sail for about 5 minutes I put the engine on and headed straight for Tarbert. Alison had other ideas. She took over and got

Robinetta sailing nicely over to the Kintyre shore on a course that would allow us to beat up Loch Fyne.

Sometimes, one of us is just having a better day than the other.  In this case, I think the wind had picked up a bit and it was taking me a little longer to get going for the day than it was taking Alison. It’s great if when one person isn’t feeling on top of things that the other one can take the lead.

We did one long board over to the Kintyre coast and then another one towards the western end of the Kyles of Bute but the next tack went badly wrong. I was helming and discovered that after the tack we were going exactly back on our track. The wind had back to the west. We couldn’t work out if it happened just as we tacked, or if it had happened a little earlier and I hadn’t noticed.

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So I tacked again and found we could go due north. Before it had been north-east. This new tack got us out of Kilbrannan Sound and into Loch Fyne proper.

There was a race coming down Loch Fyne. They turned near the entrance to the western Kyle and came back across our path. We had to give a couple of yachts water and then we were following this fleet up the loch.

Soon we were joined by another race coming from the southern end of Bute - we thought “this must be the CCC race.”
 

Of course all these big modern yachts were faster and could point nearer the wind than Robinetta. We persevered and made several more tacks and got to within 3 miles of East Loch Tarbert before deciding that we would be late for the reception unless we motored.

When we arrived, the area allocated to the CCC had just one spot left Robinetta could fit in. A space on the long pontoon which would not have been big enough for many boats, but was just right for us. We tied Worm alongside and slid gently into the available space.

We just had time to tidy the boat and go to the Co-Op to get some drinks and snacks to bring to the reception.

We had a great time and made some really useful contacts.