Episode 12: It's ....

 

Just hours to go until we head off. Back when we were first discussing the trip, I remember assuring Pole that we would be able to spend a lot of time on the boat and do a few weekend trips to make sure all our systems were working properly. Well, covid properly did for that, didn’t it? However – I’m pretty confident that we have got something that will work better than reasonably well and that should be capable of making it all the way around.

What have we done recently?

Capsize recovery system – We have a 40L Secumar auto inflation blow-up rubber thing attached to the top of the mast. It took a fair bit of faffing to get an arrangement that wouldn’t rattle and bang around up there (it has a sizeable CO2 cannister wrapped up inside it). Version ‘lots’ of the system features a Wayfarer spinnaker pole, wrapped in pro grip and fluffy Velcro that hoists and lowers on two halyards. It has a hook on the lower end which engages into the big spinnaker halyard ring that’s up there. The upper halyard then tensions the whole caboodle into place. The wrapped-up bag itself now has a strip of spikey Velcro sewn into its outer cover which, together with some dyneema, attaches the bag to the spinnaker pole. We have also incorporated the navigation light into the arrangement, 

We could have tied the whole arrangement in place but felt that having the ability to get the inflated bag down again after either accidental or deliberate deployment was important.

The second part of the capsize recovery system is a righting arm. This is the lower section of a carbon windsurfer mast. At the moment it sits across between the bows under the bridle and allows access to the jib tack area. It’s tied in place with a couple of dyneema lines that run all the way to the back of the boat underneath, so if the worst happens we simply have to cut a retaining line, bring the righting pole back to position it under the boat, tie it on to the righting lines and heave. Experiments on the beach indicate that this should work well.

 

Halyard Lock We spent a lot of time faffing around with main halyard arrangements. We had what seems to be a fairly bog-standard catamaran arrangement with the ring on the halyard and a hook at the top of the mast. This was a right royal pain in the flugal pipe to operate. Bearing in mind we not only wanted to have something we could operate easily every day, we also needed some system for allowing us to drop the main some way down the mast for reefing – not something that happens normally in tornado racing.

The 2:1 halyard arrangement we initially tried, just wasn’t good enough, leading us to think that we just had to get the original locking arrangement back onto the mast and learn to use it. Fortunately Eastbourne Sailing Club member and all-round-good-bloke ‘Spud’ Murphy turned his back on his Dart 15 long enough for us to ‘borrow’ his halyard locking ring which turned out to be much larger than ours. This solved our problem …we can now lock and unlock the sail at will and we are using an ordinary cleat to hold the sail at the right height for reefing.

We employed the services of ‘Kingston Marine Fittings While U Wait’ AKA Dave Curtiss to turn down a couple of new halyard sheaves in stainless steel for us. He assures us that the stainless was scrap and the screaming noises we all heard were from the lathe tool being a bit blunt. But I couldn’t help but notice a couple of circular holes taken out of a very upset-looking student’s final project…

Loading Up  - We’ve refined our loading system to just four 100 Litre dry bags. These lash well into each corner of the trampoline and have more than enough space to take Pole’s curling tongs and portable foot massaging machine. Weight-wise, we had hoped to keep all the additional weight (including racks) to less than or equal to an extra crew member as we wanted to avoid having too big an impact on the boat’s performance. We seem to be ok and on target for this although we haven’t accurately weighed everything. Maybe the curling tongs will just have to go…

Departure

We have arranged our own start with the duty race officer at Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club. All being well, we’ll be off at 11:00 precisely. There are rumours that he is going to set us a two-lap course and that he is a bit trigger-happy with the general recall flag ..but these are just rumours.

We’d be happy to see anyone who wants to see us off (make sure we leave) on Sunday. All encouragement is welcome. The forecast looks a bit quiet, so we might be pulling in again for the night at Holywell, but the aim is to get as far as Bembridge for the first stop.

This blog site has a link to our Spot satellite tracker device so anyone who is interested can keep an eye on us and hopefully we can meet up as we go round.

Round Britain Season

I’m sure there are others going round this summer but we would direct your attention to two projects that caught our eye. In no particular order, check out these guys.

https://www.youtube.com/user/luke1000123

This pair are going around in comfort on a Rival 34. We are hoping to catch up with them and blag a cup of tea before they get all the way round. They are up in Scotland at the moment but seem to be taking the lazy way around, so catching up might be possible.

Facing a much tougher challenge are these guys who have featured on the news recently:

https://www.facebook.com/kayak4heroes/

They are ‘only’ going as far as John O Groats but this looks like a real challenge. 

 

Some recent pics of Pole for all of his fans out there

Pole wondering what it was he was meant to be doing. He’s standing on the righting pole in its normal storage position

Pole texting Lindy to ask what it was he was supposed to be doing...