Customs visit

Sorry no picture but I returned to SM yesterday to find 4 customs blokes (1 female bloke) crowding out our little boat. Apparently they wanted to know if we had any 'soporificants'. No - not even any medicinal brandy. they were impressed with our papers, though, in a nice plastic wallet! But here's the scary bit - they were in a plain clothes launch, not a marked customs boat. Never seen that before! Our theory is that they can't afford to run the real thing, although they are clearly keeping themselves in business by going after innocent pleasure yachties 4 at a time! We have a good forecast up until Thursday night when it all goes pear-shaped with a NW 5-6. But we should be able to get 120 M under our keel before then. Where will that get us? Not completely sure - could be Ile de Groix or Glenans. Next big challenge Raz du Sein. BFN shipmates.

Customs visit

Sorry no picture but I returned to SM yesterday to find 4 customs blokes (1 female bloke) crowding out our little boat. Apparently they wanted to know if we had any 'soporificants'. No - not even any medicinal brandy. they were impressed with our papers, though, in a nice plastic wallet! But here's the scary bit - they were in a plain clothes launch, not a marked customs boat. Never seen that before! Our theory is that they can't afford to run the real thing, although they are clearly keeping themselves in business by going after innocent pleasure yachties 4 at a time! We have a good forecast up until Thursday night when it all goes pear-shaped with a NW 5-6. But we should be able to get 120 M under our keel before then. Where will that get us? Not completely sure - could be Ile de Groix or Glenans. Next big challenge Raz du Sein. BFN shipmates.

A Wet Day in Boyardville

Boyardville Mon August 23, 2010

Inside the boat, after lunch. The temperature is around 28ºC, wind 10Kn from the South and expected to increase later, and it’s raining. It’s likely (more than) that we won’t get away until Wednesday morning. There are gales in Biscay and we have to wait for them to pass through. Unfortunately the winds are in the right direction for us, just too much of them! When it lessens in force, it will also swing against us. C’est la vie du marin! Al’s playing guitar and I’m doing this & trying to get my programme proposals ready for Sheffield Docfest.
Al thinks we look very serious in the pix. We are having a good time - promise! We had our first big fight after an impeccable entry into La Rochelle. All stupid stuff and amounts to feeling mis-understood. Not helped by Al being deaf in one ear and my voice squeaking to panic octaves when all I am doing is trying to make myself heard. He thinks: why is she screaming at me? She thinks: why isn't he doing the simple thing I'm asking for. We kissed & made up & went for a sunset drink at our favourite Minimes Bar.

A Wet Day in Boyardville

Boyardville Mon August 23, 2010

Inside the boat, after lunch. The temperature is around 28ºC, wind 10Kn from the South and expected to increase later, and it’s raining. It’s likely (more than) that we won’t get away until Wednesday morning. There are gales in Biscay and we have to wait for them to pass through. Unfortunately the winds are in the right direction for us, just too much of them! When it lessens in force, it will also swing against us. C’est la vie du marin! Al’s playing guitar and I’m doing this & trying to get my programme proposals ready for Sheffield Docfest.
Al thinks we look very serious in the pix. We are having a good time - promise! We had our first big fight after an impeccable entry into La Rochelle. All stupid stuff and amounts to feeling mis-understood. Not helped by Al being deaf in one ear and my voice squeaking to panic octaves when all I am doing is trying to make myself heard. He thinks: why is she screaming at me? She thinks: why isn't he doing the simple thing I'm asking for. We kissed & made up & went for a sunset drink at our favourite Minimes Bar.

Beach Life

21 August Boyardville, Plage des Salmonettes

Great beach with sun umbrellas, beach bat 'n ball, bodies of all shapes sizes and colours from black to lobster red, to delicate white with shell pink patches.

Beach Life

21 August Boyardville, Plage des Salmonettes

Great beach with sun umbrellas, beach bat 'n ball, bodies of all shapes sizes and colours from black to lobster red, to delicate white with shell pink patches.

Back at sea

Boyardville, Ile d'Oleron, France

We arrived in France on Tuesday 17 and managed to leave our 'home' port of Marans on Thursday - fastest ever take-off for us. Things mo0stly working except perhaps for engine everheat alarm, so will have to be vigilant about this. We made straight for La Rochelle, Minimes - had a bit of technology shoppinbg to do after failure to pack XD card for camera (this camera this is so accident prone, I sometimes thing we shouldn't do it!) La R busy as usual. We hire yellow bikes, complete our mission and decide to leave the next day for Oleron. Weather forecasts a bit mixed but generally we are looking at thunderstorms ( last night ), North westerlies (wrong direction) or South westerlies ( right direction but a tad too strong).
Boyardville is a cut holiday destination, very busy, rafted to 4 other boats yesterday but many will leave today. We are going to the beach, reading, relaxing, Al catching up on a huge sleep defecit. Tonight there's a village party! More about this later, maybe.
We plan to head north toward home as soon as we get a decent forecast. Meanwhile luch is ready - bon appetit!!

Back at sea

Boyardville, Ile d'Oleron, France

We arrived in France on Tuesday 17 and managed to leave our 'home' port of Marans on Thursday - fastest ever take-off for us. Things mo0stly working except perhaps for engine everheat alarm, so will have to be vigilant about this. We made straight for La Rochelle, Minimes - had a bit of technology shoppinbg to do after failure to pack XD card for camera (this camera this is so accident prone, I sometimes thing we shouldn't do it!) La R busy as usual. We hire yellow bikes, complete our mission and decide to leave the next day for Oleron. Weather forecasts a bit mixed but generally we are looking at thunderstorms ( last night ), North westerlies (wrong direction) or South westerlies ( right direction but a tad too strong).
Boyardville is a cut holiday destination, very busy, rafted to 4 other boats yesterday but many will leave today. We are going to the beach, reading, relaxing, Al catching up on a huge sleep defecit. Tonight there's a village party! More about this later, maybe.
We plan to head north toward home as soon as we get a decent forecast. Meanwhile luch is ready - bon appetit!!

A Meditation on Servicing Winches

A Meditation on servicing Winches

Well hi there, shipmates. I’m not quite sure what a literary meditation should look like (or read like?) but here’s what I thought when I was servicing the starboard sheet winch. What’s a winch, I hear? It’s a big hunk of metal full of moving parts, large and small – an assembly of cogs, shafts and bearings, and tiny bits called er, I forget what they’re called but they are extremely important! Wait a minute, I’ll look it up – yeah, ‘pawls’. And what does it do? It is a modern day replacement for block and tackle. It’s shaped like an old-fashioned cotton reel, with flanges top and bottom. You wrap a rope around it 3 times, clockwise, put a pull on it so there’s some tension, pop a handle thingy in the hope at the top and wind away. As if by magic, sails are lifted, jibs sheeted. Ours even go at 2 speeds (different amounts of mechanical advantage, like bike gears). And once a year they need servicing.

When we bought Snork Maiden I was so terrified of the job that I didn’t do it all the first year. The second year I convinced myself of the necessity, photocopied the relevant bit of Nigel Calder’s Boatowner’s Practical & Technical Cruising Manual (sic), put it in a plastic ring binder and got to it. It’s actually one of the most enjoyable jobs on the boat. The parts are beautifully engineered in bronze and stainless steel, and they appear remarkably simple. But the really amazing thing is that the really chunky, heavy-duty parts are held together and operated by tiny things. The clip that secures the whole thing only weighs a couple of grammes, and the pawls are held in by hair-like springs that a small butterfly could lift.

All the bits have to be cleaned in lamp oil to clean off the old grease – I use an old toothbrush. There’s something very satisfying about this. Then re-assemble with brand new winch grease, applied delicately with bare hands (I wear gloves for the lamp oil bit) to the cogs and bearings. Now comes the tricky bit, putting back the pawls in the right orientation and without the tiny springs leaping overboard. Now I am on my 5^th season of winch maintenance, this bit goes a lot faster than it used to, and I haven’t lost one overboard for a quite a while.

The whole thing takes me an hour for the first one and probably about 10 minutes for the 4^th! The spinnaker winches are hardly ever used, so they only get the treatment every couple of years. I think this might be one of those years.

Well, this was written because a thunderstorm stopped play! It’s still very hot, but now humid as well. Totally tropical.

PS Recently discovered fact about winches: the standard winch derives from helicopter gearboxes a similarity spotted by a farsighted chap called Henry Shepherd in 1959.

A Meditation on Servicing Winches

A Meditation on servicing Winches

Well hi there, shipmates. I’m not quite sure what a literary meditation should look like (or read like?) but here’s what I thought when I was servicing the starboard sheet winch. What’s a winch, I hear? It’s a big hunk of metal full of moving parts, large and small – an assembly of cogs, shafts and bearings, and tiny bits called er, I forget what they’re called but they are extremely important! Wait a minute, I’ll look it up – yeah, ‘pawls’. And what does it do? It is a modern day replacement for block and tackle. It’s shaped like an old-fashioned cotton reel, with flanges top and bottom. You wrap a rope around it 3 times, clockwise, put a pull on it so there’s some tension, pop a handle thingy in the hope at the top and wind away. As if by magic, sails are lifted, jibs sheeted. Ours even go at 2 speeds (different amounts of mechanical advantage, like bike gears). And once a year they need servicing.

When we bought Snork Maiden I was so terrified of the job that I didn’t do it all the first year. The second year I convinced myself of the necessity, photocopied the relevant bit of Nigel Calder’s Boatowner’s Practical & Technical Cruising Manual (sic), put it in a plastic ring binder and got to it. It’s actually one of the most enjoyable jobs on the boat. The parts are beautifully engineered in bronze and stainless steel, and they appear remarkably simple. But the really amazing thing is that the really chunky, heavy-duty parts are held together and operated by tiny things. The clip that secures the whole thing only weighs a couple of grammes, and the pawls are held in by hair-like springs that a small butterfly could lift.

All the bits have to be cleaned in lamp oil to clean off the old grease – I use an old toothbrush. There’s something very satisfying about this. Then re-assemble with brand new winch grease, applied delicately with bare hands (I wear gloves for the lamp oil bit) to the cogs and bearings. Now comes the tricky bit, putting back the pawls in the right orientation and without the tiny springs leaping overboard. Now I am on my 5^th season of winch maintenance, this bit goes a lot faster than it used to, and I haven’t lost one overboard for a quite a while.

The whole thing takes me an hour for the first one and probably about 10 minutes for the 4^th! The spinnaker winches are hardly ever used, so they only get the treatment every couple of years. I think this might be one of those years.

Well, this was written because a thunderstorm stopped play! It’s still very hot, but now humid as well. Totally tropical.

PS Recently discovered fact about winches: the standard winch derives from helicopter gearboxes a similarity spotted by a farsighted chap called Henry Shepherd in 1959.