End of Season, 2014

I was on the phone to the boatyard today, to see if Raasay had been lifted out before the gales started.  She's still on her mooring, but should be fine.  It's a more robust setup than last year ...

I had a last sail with my son and grandson the weekend before last.  We visited the Cromarty Firth, and then Fortrose, before returning to Findhorn.  We saw a few dolphins just before we sailed between the Suitors (Cromarty Firth) but none off Chanonry Point (Fortrose).  Plenty of dolphin watchers there, though:

The weather was very light for the whole weekend, which may have contributed to a couple of lapses of attention.  We had a small collision with the Riff Bank West buoy resulting from my failing to take the tidal set into account, or to properly instruct the crew in the cockpit.

Just because someone is outside doesn't meant they are actually looking out.

We also managed to hit the mud beating back up the channel south of the bank - I had set the alarm to four metres, and was tacking each time it triggered.  Unfortunately, the bank was steeper than I expected on the south side & the gap between four metres and one was about the time it took me to say 'Ready About'.  I'll use another method next time.

If the weather hadn't been flat calm and almost windless, we'd have been perfectly safe.  Never underestimate the conditions.

A day away ...

I had a short sail to Portmahomack and back, anchoring off for part of Monday.  I left Findhorn about high tide (16:30) Sunday.

The trip over started with a flat calm, apart from a few promising zephyrs.  I ended motoring more than half way before the promised Easterlies appeared later in the evening.  The forecast was for 4-5.

This appeared the next day, along with a shift to the SE.  I'd been planning to stop in at Balintore and then head over to Burghead Bay to anchor overnight and wait for the early tide.  This looked less attractive as the wind started to build, making the trip from Balintore to Burghead a damp windward slog in failing light and mist...

Instead, I headed straight for Findhorn from Tarbat Ness.  I think I did it in about two hours flat, on a beam reach.

Between Portmahomack and Tarbat Ness I had a very close reach into about 15-16 knots of wind, followed by a tack as I reached the lighthouse.  There was a small chop from the E or SE running.  It was a good opportunity to check the tacking angle in a breeze with a bit of sea.

Surprisingly, the boat tacked through 80-85 degrees of wind, and about 95-100* degrees over the ground.  I was sailing as close as it would go, with the luff of the main just lifting slightly, but keeping the speed up (a steady five and a half knots).  Once I got round the lighthouse and eased away a bit, speed increased to about six and a half, rising towards seven out in the firth.

My impressions of the boat were that it was reasonably close winded so it was nice to have these confirmed.  I guess the 'D' helps.  And I think Raasay's sails are pretty good, although a bit long in the tooth.  I guess I'll have to replace up to the same quality when the crunch comes ... it would be painful to slip back.

I don't think any timely wind shift off the headland would have been in my favour, either - rather against, in fact.

*I printed off the GPS plot and checked it with a protractor later, and got 101 degrees.  I'm not sure whether this is more accurate than the GPS headings from the day, mind you.

A thought-provoking prop failure ...

I took Raasay away for three weeks in July - down the canal and than back to Findhorn via the north coast.

I'll post a bit more on this later - there are pictures on flickr at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajax_pc/sets/72157646308715814/

But they are a bit disorganised.

I had one very unpleasant experience which cost me two or three days and some lost sleep.

I came into Stornoway harbour on the afternoon of Sunday the 19th and tied up at the new floating dock.  I then had to move the boat to get nearer to a shore power point, as I inteded to stay for a day or two.

Just as I dropped the shore lines, I realised that I wasn't getting any thrust.  At first I thought it was something to do with the throttle/gearshift linkage and I spent a frantic few seconds trying to get it to engage as the boat drifted towards other moored vessels.

After a fairly gentle, and fortunately harmless, collision with one of these the harbour watch man took my stern line and helped me to get tied up again.

When I checked the machinery, I found that the gearshift was fine, and that the prop shaft was turning, but that the propellor was no longer locked to the shaft.  I secured it with a line (in case it was about to fall off), and decided to hunt down some professional advice the following morning.

In fact, I was overwhelmed with help and advice - both from other boat owners and from a local marine engineer who provided his services at a very reasonable rate.  With their help, I was able to move Raasay to a place she could dry out, and also get the problem fixed.

What was frightening and dispiriting was why it had happened in the first place.  When I removed the prop, I found that it had been fitted very badly.  In fact, the fitting was criminally negligent, given the possible consequences.

Removing and inspecting the propellor for internal corrosion (it's a J-Prop) was one of the things required by the surveyor who looked at the boat when I bought it.  It was one of a list of things which were divided up between myself and the previous owner, and was to be for his account.

He had asked a reputable boatyard for a quote for the whole list, but was concerned that the prices seemed very high, and asked me whether I would mind him getting alternative quotes for some pieces of work.  I said I had no objection, so long as he used reputable contractors.

As it turns out, I was a good deal too trusting.  Perhaps he was as well.  I have written to him about the incident, however, and also sent some reminders.  I have not yet had a reply.

Here is how the propellor was replaced:

Instead of lapping the prop to the shaft withe grinding paste, the fitter marked the shaft taper with some hard object - perhaps a hammer - to try to get the prop to engage with it.  This is the result:

Then, instead of fitting a proper key, the fitter used what I think was a old brass bolt, filed roughly square, to fit in the key slot.  The tin had corroded out of this, leaving a copper sponge which finally failed.  This is what I removed from the keyways in the prop shaft and the propellor:

A strange aspect of this procedure is that it must have taken at least as long as doing the job properly.

The engineer who helped me out in Stornoway was Tony Morrison, of Malcolm Mackenzie & Co.  He visted the boat on a number of occasions over the day or two I was working on it, made a new bronze key, helped me to fit the prop, and drilled and re-tapped part of the pitch adjusting mechanism when a sheared stainless steel bolt nearly broke my heart during the final stages of reassembly ...

I re-lapped the shaft as well as I could, with his help.  We managed to get a good 75% contact, but the real solution will involve removing it and re-making the taper on a lathe.  As well as lapping and a new key, a lot of loctite was applied ...

I have asked the owner who did the work.  I will also check through my whole e-mail correspondence with him to find out if I already have this information - I haven't found it so far.  Once I can confirm this, I will publish it here.

I can think of a number of occasions since I've had the boat when this failure could have been catastrophic, and could easily have led to loss of life.  If the person who did this work has been doing work of this standard for any length of time, it seems highly likely that it has already caused fatalities.

Even if it had failed without causing immediate danger, it might have been very expensive and time-consuming to fix.  Rum harbour would have been tricky, for instance.  Or when I was anchored at the top of Loch Shell, with no phone signal, out of range of the Coastguard VHF antennae, and out of sight of any road ...

I was extremely lucky that this happened in Stornoway harbour, in calm conditions, and within reach of help and expertise.  My most sincere thanks to all those who helped me out.

Dolphin trip

I had a day sail with my son and grandson to visit the Moray Firth dolphins at Chanonry Point.  It's hard to photograph dolphins ...

Here are some attempts, plus other photos from the trip.

Radar Mount

Raasay came with a very substantial base for a radar pole bolted through the afterdeck - the mount extended below the deck and was through bolted to the gas locker bulkhead.

It seemed a shame to waste it, so when I decided to fit a radar I wanted to use the mount.

I thought I'd make my own pole, and also thought I'd try making the mount tiltable.  The outcome is robust, but, I'm afraid, a bit ugly.  The first version was just the inverted 'y', plus the tilting bits - the uprights are ash.  Unfortunately this was not quite stiff enough so I put a single iroko stiffener up the back of it.  The result works, more or less.

The tilting mechanism is based on a big bottle screw from a junk box.  It's a bit stiff and slow.  That may be OK, as I mainly had long close reaches in mind rather than a beat.

I'll see how it goes.  Mk II will probably benefit from the experiment ...

Some pictures from the shakedown cruise

I nearly forgot to post these:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajax_pc/sets/72157644149034293/

Shakedown cruise and rigging screws

Came out of Findhorn on Thursday to do a three day Moray Firth circuit, but ran into some bad weather.  I had my son and grandson on board, and with it being the first sail of the season (when things will go wrong ...) I felt a bit risk averse.

We were going to go to Lossiemouth, but the 'dredged to 2m' information in the almanac misled me - we could get in, but not to a berth.  We'd have to tie up alongside in Lossiemouth and lean on the wall.  I'll need to find out what the bottom is like there ...

So we motored up wind to Buckie and spend a night there, leaving at 7am with a F5 SW-W forecast, so tied a reef in the main.  I was glad we did, too, although the early winds were light.  We ended up close reaching across the firth to Tarbat Ness, in increasingly lively conditions (20-25 knots).  I wondered whether I'd got the rig tensions right, as I watch the lee shrouds, but more of that later ...

We dropped sail off Tarbat Ness and motored down towards Portmahomack with a view to anchoring.   On exploring the harbour, and having a fortunate meeting with the visiting harbourmaster, we realised we could tie up alongside and dry out safely.  The forecast was for 30 knots from the W/NW, so we decided to stay for a while.

When the rig was replaced last Spring, the rigger left the bottle screws without split pins.  I thought this must be OK (he was a rigger ...) and thought that locking them was something I could do later when I was happy with the rig setup.  I sailed up from Ireland with them like that.

In Portmahomack, I found the starboard cap shroud (the leeward one from our reach across) very loose.  The turnbuckle had unwound itself several turns.  This explained my concern at how it had looked when we were sailing.  (!)

I set it up again and checked all the others, which seemed fine.  Then I put split pins in them all and taped them.  I haven't done the forestay because I can't presently get at it - it's inside the reefing system.  I'm worried about this.  I've written to the rigger to ask whether it had been split pinned (since it is out of reach) and to ask for advice about getting at it.  It looks as though I have to remove the drum to adjust it or service it ...

We'll see.  I won't feel secure until I know what it's doing.

I'll post some more cruise photos when I get back on a faster connection, but here we are in Portmahomack:

The wind drops to single figures tomorrow, so we'll possibly end up motoring back.  Although we've plenty of time for a slow sail, so maybe we'll do that.

Launched and on mooring

In the boat lift on the slip:



On the mooring:

Final Spring refit visit ...

Photos can be found here.

I was up over the weekend, plus Friday and Monday, doing all the usual stuff - anti-fouling, hanking on sails etc.  Also some minor repairs - fixing the fuel lines, reinstating the reserve water tank, epoxying the toe of the keel where I clipped it carelessly in Pierowall, making a new place to keep the life-raft ...

I also added another notch to the J-prop.  I think another half knot or so is available without pain.

I should be launching on Thursday morning.

I jet-washed the hull before anti-fouling, and found evidence of reasonably sound looking Coppercoat under the flaking paint (see the photos).  A longer term plan might be to clean back to this and refurbish it.  But it's nice to know there really is an epoxy skin in there.

I've put the liferaft in the forward end of the cockpit, under a removable 'bridge-deck'.  This is a bit experimental - I'll make something prettier than a sheet of 18mm ply once I'm convince it works.  It gives me a nice place to sit under the sprayhood with my feet up, is a handy platform/worktop within reach of the companionway, and puts the liferaft in a really accessible place that it would float out of automatically in extremis.  It makes it very slightly more awkward to get in and out of the companionway, because I have to duck under the sprayhood.  At the moment I think this is a reasonable price to pay, but we'll see.  I'll post a photo later - I forgot to take one.

Radar Pole - First Stages

Radar Pole - First Stages, a set on Flickr.

A free standing radar pole may not offer quite the range of a mast mount, but it keeps the scanner within reach if things go wrong.

Also, I'm going to try to make a scanner platform which can be manually tilted.

The main pole - not a pole but an inverted bi-pod that will fit in the existing deck mounting - is a pair of ash runners. The spacing pieces and tilting platform are maid of 25mm marine ply - maybe a bit heavy, but it's what I had.

Once I've made up the parts and placed the guide screws I will epoxy the whole thing together - and also coat the exterior with epoxy (especially the base). Ash is nice for strength and flex resistance, but not very rot resistant ...

Once in place, the pole will also be stayed.

Further developments to follow.

Raasay - Sprayhood Windows

Raasay - Sprayhood Windows, a set on Flickr.

Raasay's old sprayhood is worn, but still functional (after some minor repairs). It's biggest defect was that it had no windows.

Given that I will probably be getting the fabric part remade sometime in the next few seasons, I decided to install some windows using a sort of 'tape sandwich' method.

To keep the shape of the sprayhood, I wanted to fix the vinyl in place before cutting the original material. I did this by sticking it to the underlying fabric with double sided tape, but I needed to mask the bits of tape I didn't want to stick to the vinyl (that's what the paper pattern is for).

After sticking it down, I taped the outside with sail repair tape.

I had some help, as you can see.

Then, from the inside, I cut away the original material up to the edge of the pattern (you can see that I accidentally left one or two narrow strips behind in some of the pictures ... I may cover these later.)

Finally, I taped the inside.

It's all a bit of a hatchet job. I kept the windows fairly small and left a space between them - this is where the old compass mount bears on the sprayhood, but it also leaves a useful bit of the original material in high stress area.

The effect from the outside is a little lurid, with the compass mount reinforcement patch making a rather fetching red nose.

But now I can have a look forward from the companionway steps. Quite a luxury ...

I'll report on how strong this turns out to be. I can see some potential problems, but the critical issue will be whether they can be resolved with running repairs (i.e. stitching and more repair tape.)