Any 'shoestring' sailors?
Discussion
Chimune said:
Will there be parking for pH members? 
I'm in Morpeth and was actually at the club a few weeks back having a chat about joining.
Have followed this thread with interest and some envy...
Good luck!
Which club? CYC? There’s actually a Macwester Rowan there for sale fairly cheap at the moment (no connection). I'm in Morpeth and was actually at the club a few weeks back having a chat about joining.
Have followed this thread with interest and some envy...
Good luck!
Friday:
Plan was my brother and I would head up Thursday evening, spend the night aboard and be ready for launch on Friday.
Like all best laid plans that changed; our mum went into a nursing home Thursday (we knew it was coming but not when). So we didn’t go Thursday night. The marina duly obliged by putting my launch after they had lifted another boat and we were there in plenty of time Friday.
She was in! Unfortunately though the delay meant we had missed the tide and didn’t have enough water to move her to her overnight berth.
My brother and I took off to visit our mum and I then picked up my partner from home then drove back up to the boat, arriving about 6.30. We had a table for dinner booked at 8.30 but that was loads of time…
I fired up the ancient Suzuki… damn it was smokey, and off we went into the harbour. Here’s where we hit a couple of issues.
The engine… even keeping the engine well hatch fully open it was bogging down and choking on its own fumes. Into the wind it was great… but running in front of it I was concerned.
Second issue was the tiller, I hadn’t really noticed on shore but it was massive and totally dominated the cockpit making it uncomfortable for just two. I had a second shorter one though so no drama there.
So we approached our berth, a bit quicker than I’d like for fear of the engine conking but lined up nicely I dropped into reverse and… nothing but lots of noise. We carried on forwards and bounced off the pontoon, luckily someone left a fender there!
Before I could move fast enough to leap ashore (never a great idea anyway). We were on our way back out of the berth, I took the decision to motor back out into river and work out a plan B.
Second time we crept in as slowly as possible and as I’d feared the engine cut. Luckily we had just enough momentum though and we got tied up.
With a couple of lessons learnt and some problems to solve we locked up and went for dinner.
Plan was my brother and I would head up Thursday evening, spend the night aboard and be ready for launch on Friday.
Like all best laid plans that changed; our mum went into a nursing home Thursday (we knew it was coming but not when). So we didn’t go Thursday night. The marina duly obliged by putting my launch after they had lifted another boat and we were there in plenty of time Friday.
She was in! Unfortunately though the delay meant we had missed the tide and didn’t have enough water to move her to her overnight berth.
My brother and I took off to visit our mum and I then picked up my partner from home then drove back up to the boat, arriving about 6.30. We had a table for dinner booked at 8.30 but that was loads of time…
I fired up the ancient Suzuki… damn it was smokey, and off we went into the harbour. Here’s where we hit a couple of issues.
The engine… even keeping the engine well hatch fully open it was bogging down and choking on its own fumes. Into the wind it was great… but running in front of it I was concerned.
Second issue was the tiller, I hadn’t really noticed on shore but it was massive and totally dominated the cockpit making it uncomfortable for just two. I had a second shorter one though so no drama there.
So we approached our berth, a bit quicker than I’d like for fear of the engine conking but lined up nicely I dropped into reverse and… nothing but lots of noise. We carried on forwards and bounced off the pontoon, luckily someone left a fender there!
Before I could move fast enough to leap ashore (never a great idea anyway). We were on our way back out of the berth, I took the decision to motor back out into river and work out a plan B.
Second time we crept in as slowly as possible and as I’d feared the engine cut. Luckily we had just enough momentum though and we got tied up.
With a couple of lessons learnt and some problems to solve we locked up and went for dinner.
Many marinas have a barrel for running outboards or if you have a wheely bin at home they do lend themselves to dual use as an outboard test tank; giving a motor you're unfamiliar with a good thrash and check it goes forward and reverse before relying on it to propel the boat is always a good idea and shows up potential whoopsies before they happen and scratch the paint.
Saturday:
I didn’t sleep especially well, I knew we had some problems to solve and not much time to do it before the tide. If I’m honest I was also doubting my own abilities, my first boating manoeuvres in around 2 decades hadn’t gone anywhere near as smoothly as I’d like and that was on calm day in a marina…
Anyway, it does no good to dwell. I got up and had the tillers swapped before I’d even got out of my PJ’s, and I put my engine plan to the other half… there was a good as new mariner sailmate in the marina office on sale on behalf of a customer. The perfect engine for us, it was meant to be. £850 lighter we headed off for some breakfast and worked out what else we needed to do… reality settled in and we accepted we weren’t making it out before 11:30 at which point we wouldn’t have enough water to leave.
Plan B then… we’d sail to Blyth in the afternoon (about 16nautical miles) and over night there. I reckoned we would be there before dark.
Childcare arranged and I reluctantly (not) pulled out of the Sunderland 10k the next day (at one time I was a slim fit runner, not these days!).
We managed to slip out over the marina bar at 14:30, and thanks to the tiller and engine everything which had felt like a pig yesterday felt just right today.
Chart plotter on we headed out for the northern passage around Coquet Island (not enough water to go through the south) and tentatively I hauled up the mainsail for the first time, then unfurled the Genoa… we were sailing!
Light airs and right on the nose but we were making around 3knots… not enough even before taking into account leeway to mark port before dark.
So Genoa furled it was on with the engine, motor sailing closer to the wind that sailing along would manage we were averaging 5.5knots on about a third throttle. Great stuff!
Beautiful calm conditions, the passage went perfectly and we were welcomed to Blyth by a pod of dolphins. Slipping between the piers into the setting sun was magic and we were berthed by 20:30; 4 hours and 16nm, I was very pleased with that.
Blyth yacht club (or Royal Northumberland as it’s really titled) is based in the south harbour; with dock operations one side of the pier the club has surprising number of pontoons the other with an impressive array of yachts; the visitors berths are right at the northern end among the big boats, the only other visitor was a huge motorsailer of near 3 times out length.
The club has a fantastic bar onboard a very old light ship. We’d missed food though so we trudged off into town and begrudgingly spent money with my least favourite landlord at the local Wetherspoons which was very fortunately serving food until late.
An amazing day and could not have been happier with our first passage.
I didn’t sleep especially well, I knew we had some problems to solve and not much time to do it before the tide. If I’m honest I was also doubting my own abilities, my first boating manoeuvres in around 2 decades hadn’t gone anywhere near as smoothly as I’d like and that was on calm day in a marina…
Anyway, it does no good to dwell. I got up and had the tillers swapped before I’d even got out of my PJ’s, and I put my engine plan to the other half… there was a good as new mariner sailmate in the marina office on sale on behalf of a customer. The perfect engine for us, it was meant to be. £850 lighter we headed off for some breakfast and worked out what else we needed to do… reality settled in and we accepted we weren’t making it out before 11:30 at which point we wouldn’t have enough water to leave.
Plan B then… we’d sail to Blyth in the afternoon (about 16nautical miles) and over night there. I reckoned we would be there before dark.
Childcare arranged and I reluctantly (not) pulled out of the Sunderland 10k the next day (at one time I was a slim fit runner, not these days!).
We managed to slip out over the marina bar at 14:30, and thanks to the tiller and engine everything which had felt like a pig yesterday felt just right today.
Chart plotter on we headed out for the northern passage around Coquet Island (not enough water to go through the south) and tentatively I hauled up the mainsail for the first time, then unfurled the Genoa… we were sailing!
Light airs and right on the nose but we were making around 3knots… not enough even before taking into account leeway to mark port before dark.
So Genoa furled it was on with the engine, motor sailing closer to the wind that sailing along would manage we were averaging 5.5knots on about a third throttle. Great stuff!
Beautiful calm conditions, the passage went perfectly and we were welcomed to Blyth by a pod of dolphins. Slipping between the piers into the setting sun was magic and we were berthed by 20:30; 4 hours and 16nm, I was very pleased with that.
Blyth yacht club (or Royal Northumberland as it’s really titled) is based in the south harbour; with dock operations one side of the pier the club has surprising number of pontoons the other with an impressive array of yachts; the visitors berths are right at the northern end among the big boats, the only other visitor was a huge motorsailer of near 3 times out length.
The club has a fantastic bar onboard a very old light ship. We’d missed food though so we trudged off into town and begrudgingly spent money with my least favourite landlord at the local Wetherspoons which was very fortunately serving food until late.
An amazing day and could not have been happier with our first passage.
hidetheelephants said:
Many marinas have a barrel for running outboards or if you have a wheely bin at home they do lend themselves to dual use as an outboard test tank; giving a motor you're unfamiliar with a good thrash and check it goes forward and reverse before relying on it to propel the boat is always a good idea and shows up potential whoopsies before they happen and scratch the paint.
This is exactly what I had done… and again on the pontoon before we set off. No idea what went wrong, but to be honest while it’s money I didn’t want to spend I couldn’t be happier with this new outboard; 2 years old and less than 30 hours on it. It’s a minter and being a sail drive it charges and has a high thrust prop too! D1bram said:
The engine… even keeping the engine well hatch fully open it was bogging down and choking on its own fumes. Into the wind it was great… but running in front of it I was concerned.
Second time we crept in as slowly as possible and as I’d feared the engine cut. Luckily we had just enough momentum though and we got tied up.
Point 1 : Yeah, the one hurley I've been on, many years, ago, if the engine was on, you needed the hatch fully open. I don't recall it suffering as long as the hatch was open though?Second time we crept in as slowly as possible and as I’d feared the engine cut. Luckily we had just enough momentum though and we got tied up.
Point 2 : Part of the fun of boating is to learn to do this smoothly and without lots of engine revving and so forth. Always try to do a "greaser". And if it's not going to plan, back off early and regroup rather than forcing it in.
This sums it up pretty well : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kZloJqOzk4
D1bram said:
This is exactly what I had done… and again on the pontoon before we set off. No idea what went wrong, but to be honest while it’s money I didn’t want to spend I couldn’t be happier with this new outboard; 2 years old and less than 30 hours on it. It’s a minter and being a sail drive it charges and has a high thrust prop too!
The old one will sell on easy enough, pamper the new one and keep it nice with some Aspen alkylate fuel!Arnold Cunningham said:
Point 1 : Yeah, the one hurley I've been on, many years, ago, if the engine was on, you needed the hatch fully open. I don't recall it suffering as long as the hatch was open though?
Point 2 : Part of the fun of boating is to learn to do this smoothly and without lots of engine revving and so forth. Always try to do a "greaser". And if it's not going to plan, back off early and regroup rather than forcing it in.
This sums it up pretty well : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kZloJqOzk4
I was fully expecting to need the hatch open and into the wind it was fine, but down wind I think the hatch lid was sheltering it and allowing the fumes to build up. No such worries with the new mariner, runs fine with the hatch closed. Only 5hp but with a high thrust prop it get the boat moving easily and will do 5 knots on half throttle Point 2 : Part of the fun of boating is to learn to do this smoothly and without lots of engine revving and so forth. Always try to do a "greaser". And if it's not going to plan, back off early and regroup rather than forcing it in.
This sums it up pretty well : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kZloJqOzk4
D1bram said:
I was fully expecting to need the hatch open and into the wind it was fine, but down wind I think the hatch lid was sheltering it and allowing the fumes to build up. No such worries with the new mariner, runs fine with the hatch closed. Only 5hp but with a high thrust prop it get the boat moving easily and will do 5 knots on half throttle
Yeah, I wish I could find a high thrust prop for my aux, I think it'd make a world of differenceSaturday;
We woke up about 8 having slept well despite this being a working port and a lot of noise coming from the cargo ship we followed in being unloaded.
Quick breakfast of coffee and we were ready for the off by 9. Slipped the lines nice and easily then crept slowly out of the basin giving us time to tidy away the fenders and lines.
The shipping forecast said slight to moderate seas, and leaving the harbour we certainly had a bit more of a sea running than yesterday. I got the main straight up followed quickly by the jib; we hit our only problem of the day here with the port side winch coming loose. Not too much of an issue as I could handle the sail without.
Wind right on the nose again we were close hauled and making 4knots in (according to our cheapie hand held anemometer) 7 knots of wind. I had noted the day before but the big genoa couldn't be sheeted particularly flat due to interfering with the spreaders and the sheeting angle. So I left a couple of turns furled: much better!
We sailed for a couple of long tacks, but again we needed to be back and we weren't making particularly fast progress to our destination so it was a bit more motor sailing. Conditions were certainly moderate rather than slight, becoming moderate to rough by the time we got to Sunderland, she performed faultlessly but as expected proved that she can be quite a wet boat!
Again, just outside of Sunderland we spotted dolphins! This time caught them on camera (just)
My brother had the kids on the pier to welcome us home, that was it - we'd done it! Berthed into the marina to give me chance to sort my mooring, by partner took our daughter off for a play date while my brother and I took our son up the river to see his beloved Stadium of Light before sticking on her the mooring. Home, safe and ready for a summer of fun... followed by a winter of lots more work!!!
We woke up about 8 having slept well despite this being a working port and a lot of noise coming from the cargo ship we followed in being unloaded.
Quick breakfast of coffee and we were ready for the off by 9. Slipped the lines nice and easily then crept slowly out of the basin giving us time to tidy away the fenders and lines.
The shipping forecast said slight to moderate seas, and leaving the harbour we certainly had a bit more of a sea running than yesterday. I got the main straight up followed quickly by the jib; we hit our only problem of the day here with the port side winch coming loose. Not too much of an issue as I could handle the sail without.
Wind right on the nose again we were close hauled and making 4knots in (according to our cheapie hand held anemometer) 7 knots of wind. I had noted the day before but the big genoa couldn't be sheeted particularly flat due to interfering with the spreaders and the sheeting angle. So I left a couple of turns furled: much better!
We sailed for a couple of long tacks, but again we needed to be back and we weren't making particularly fast progress to our destination so it was a bit more motor sailing. Conditions were certainly moderate rather than slight, becoming moderate to rough by the time we got to Sunderland, she performed faultlessly but as expected proved that she can be quite a wet boat!
Again, just outside of Sunderland we spotted dolphins! This time caught them on camera (just)
My brother had the kids on the pier to welcome us home, that was it - we'd done it! Berthed into the marina to give me chance to sort my mooring, by partner took our daughter off for a play date while my brother and I took our son up the river to see his beloved Stadium of Light before sticking on her the mooring. Home, safe and ready for a summer of fun... followed by a winter of lots more work!!!
D1bram said:
We sailed for a couple of long tacks, but again we needed to be back and we weren't making particularly fast progress to our destination so it was a bit more motor sailing. Conditions were certainly moderate rather than slight, becoming moderate to rough by the time we got to Sunderland, she performed faultlessly but as expected proved that she can be quite a wet boat!
Worth considering dodgers; a sprayhood would be nice but there's not really anywhere to mount one and they're pricey.hidetheelephants said:
Worth considering dodgers; a sprayhood would be nice but there's not really anywhere to mount one and they're pricey.
Absolutely. I'm waaaay too much of a pussy to enjoy getting wet and cold when sailing nowadays.Both will make a astonishing difference to cockpit comfort - a sprayhood especially is invaluable when smashing your way to windward in a heavy sea and if you have dogers made then you can ask for a little pocket to be sewn in each one that's the same size as a tin of beer.
SpeckledJim said:
No way. I used to live in the second-from-top of those flats! There’s a long, long wish list of things with this boat; how far down we get depends on how we get on this season. Whilst I’ll never skimp on the essentials we don’t want to lash out on nice to haves only to decide we’d like a larger boat before too long.
Dodgers however are something I’m going to invest in, really they’ve always been on the to do list but we haven’t got round to them.
A sprayhood, well that’s quite a lot of cash, they reduce visibility and the ease of moving forward (and I’m from slender). But above all else, they’re a lot of cash! We’ll see.
D1bram said:
Small world :-). Still local?
There’s a long, long wish list of things with this boat; how far down we get depends on how we get on this season. Whilst I’ll never skimp on the essentials we don’t want to lash out on nice to haves only to decide we’d like a larger boat before too long.
Dodgers however are something I’m going to invest in, really they’ve always been on the to do list but we haven’t got round to them.
A sprayhood, well that’s quite a lot of cash, they reduce visibility and the ease of moving forward (and I’m from slender). But above all else, they’re a lot of cash! We’ll see.
Dodgers and sprayhoods aren't complicated, provided you or Mrs D1 are semi competent on a sewing machine although Mrs D1 has already produced a forepeak refurb, so shouldn't faze her at all. And a simple eyelet punch and fittings are readily available.There’s a long, long wish list of things with this boat; how far down we get depends on how we get on this season. Whilst I’ll never skimp on the essentials we don’t want to lash out on nice to haves only to decide we’d like a larger boat before too long.
Dodgers however are something I’m going to invest in, really they’ve always been on the to do list but we haven’t got round to them.
A sprayhood, well that’s quite a lot of cash, they reduce visibility and the ease of moving forward (and I’m from slender). But above all else, they’re a lot of cash! We’ll see.
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