Any 'shoestring' sailors?

[D1bram]

sanguinary said:

You won’t go wrong at the Fish Shack. I’m from Manchester originally but settled up here over ten years ago. I adore most places along the Northumbrian coast, there are some cracking little eateries up here.

Good to hear! Amble has certainly come on in the years since I used to be there regularly. We've been frequenting the Cock & Bull most weekends

[D1bram]

They’re pretty lovely boats the Drascombes.

Today’s progress is that I have sorted out the boat VHF licence and we have both completed the certificate to take out SRC exam which is booked for Friday night.

I’ve noticed my VHF aerial is missing, but as my brother has just completed a high rope access course I have the ideal candidate for the job!

I’ve also ordered a handheld vhf, a MOB recovery rope, air horn, anchor ball and harness lanyards for us all. On something of a safety trip!

[D1bram]

Cost update - I promised I'd be open about this, as much as for my own sanity check as anything, but it has been a while!

This is how we now stand;

Costs particular to the boat;
- Purchase prices (incl. dinghy and outboards) - £1400
- Storage at Amble Marina (2.5months) - £400
- Cockpit hatch - £25
- Paint
- International One Up Undercoat/Primer (x2) - £110
- International Toplac Plus (x3) - £75
- International Toplac Plus (coach roof and cockpit) - £25
- International Interdeck (x2) - £50
- Hempel Bilge paint (x4) - £80
- Hempel Underwater Primer - £46
- Hempel Antifouling - £39
- Replacement sink seacock (decided to keep it after all) - £70 (including marine ply backer)
- Halyards, 21m x4 - 8mm, Roller line, 18m - 6mm - £150
- Boat hook - £20
- Flag pole - £31
- Replacement of rudder tube (316 Stainless tube, washers, nuts and bushes) - £100
- GRP Repair materials/gel coat filler - £50

- Sundries; sandpaper, small tools, nuts, bolts, screws, glue etc... - £400 (estimate)

Running Total - £3071

Only other cost I now predict is the launch at around £150.

Other costs to get on the water not particular to this boat/optional/nice to haves are...
- Yacht club membership - £250
- Summer Mooring - £140
- Lines 7 buoy for mooring - £60
- New forecabin cushions/materials - £400
- New curtain material - £20
- Life jackets for the family (auto harness crewsavers with lights) - £375
- Sailing suit for me - £130
- Sailing kit for kids - £200
- Sailing jacket for mrs (she has also inherited a decent suit which came with the boat) - £100
- Handheld VHF - £115
- New fixed VHF with DSC - £165
- New VHF Antenna - £72
- New set of docklines - £76
- Safety kit (harness lines, fog horn, anchor ball, throw line, new life buoy and light) - £200
- Secondhand 7.5hp outboard - £100

Total - £2303

So not looking quite so 'shoestring' on the face of it, however our on the water cost is about £3k - for a boat we are sure to be seaworthy I don't think that is bad!

I also reckon most of our second list would have applied whatever boat we had bought (from a point of starting out fresh).

So am I still happy? Definitely!

Proper update of the work we've done the past couple of weeks to follow

[D1bram]

It's been two weeks since my last proper update and as you can probably imagine we've been busy.

First up; the second top coat, on inspection I decided it was looking just a little too orange peel so prior to the third and final coat she had a gentle 400 grit sand all over. Time consuming and not something I had planned, but I think worthwhile.




The finished result I am 90% happy with, I know I could do better with the lessons learnt but that's enough painting for now. In a blind panic I went out and bought another 3 tins of red toplac, of which I didn't need a drop. So she might get a top up next spring.

One of the things I've loved about this project is how friendly and genuinely interested in the resurrection of our small old boat others in the boat yard have been. As I was struggling to get the rudder back into place for example the owner of an almost new and very stunning 41 footer rushed across and didn't hesitate to get stuck in helping me.

Lovely new 316 stainless fixings...



With a small amount of fettling she fit just right, snug to my new bushes.



Whoever said we'd not go far wrong with the fish shack, you're right!



After successfully passing our VHF course, we decided that in addition to the handheld VHF, would would also upgrade our fixed unit to include DSC and fit a new antenna. We ummed and arghed about getting a unit including AIS too, but decided against. Instead, in time we will add a full (transmit and recieve) ais system once we think our sailing warrants it.

At this point, we recognised that we had put the launch off twice already and enough was enough; we fixed the date - 6th May. Reluctantly, I have accepted that I've not enough time to get the deck sanded and properly painted so she's going in as is.

Instead we have concentrated on the small but time consuming jobs which are essential.

Fitted, fettled and refitted (still not a great fit, more work tbc) the new to us (but very old) suzuki 7.5hp we picked up for £100 in place of the 4hp.

changed all halyards...




Bec finished reupholstering the forecabin, and has painted out much of the main cabin with a few nice touches - still need to get more photos of it


|https://thumbsnap.com/C9UkRv5m[/url]

The Maggie B thing is for our daughter

I improved upon the battery mounting, making sure they are held tight and secure. They are located below the cockpit and a sod to get to, though I have the knack of it now. I reinforced the floor board they were strapped to with 18mm ply, add retaining pieces all round and then put two proper straps over each


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Perhaps most importantly we had the renaming and a drink or two to celebrate! And yes, too busy on the boat to shave




In reality there's still a lot we want to do, long and short term, but for now she's about ready. I'll go up Thursday night (Bec is in London this week) and be there for launch, get the sails put on and give the cockpit and decks a good scrub before Bec joins me Friday evening; a last beer in Amble and then set sail Saturday morning.

Edited by D1bram on Wednesday 4th May 13:20

[D1bram]

Bill said:

Too much so! I keep scoping out Gumtree...

Do it! Just be prepared to work hard. Where are you? If your anywhere near me I’d be happy to advise, help out and loan tools

[D1bram]

timbo999 said:

Its perhaps a bit of a long time to wait to launch her on the second Tuesday in October...

???

[D1bram]

sanguinary said:

Great to see you're there with it - that's a huge amount of work in a short time.

I don't know what my plans are yet for Saturday, but if I'm near the coast (probably Tynemouth), I'll be keeping one eye on the blue stuff to see if I spot you.

Good luck with her maiden voyage.

Thanks, and hopefully the red hull will help distinguish her should you spot us

[D1bram]

timbo999 said:

Being obtuse. Its Ada Lovelace day.

I see! We didn't actually name her for Ada Lovelace; Ada is my mothers maiden name and the title of a track by one of our favourite bands. However Ada Lovelace is not a bad association to have at all - certainly beats the connection to golliwog books the previous name had!

[D1bram]

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).

[D1bram]

Short update…

She’s home!





Full story to follow!

[D1bram]

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.

[D1bram]

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.

[D1bram]

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]

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

[D1bram]

Saturday;

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]

SpeckledJim said:

No way. I used to live in the second-from-top of those flats!

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.

[D1bram]

Petrus1983 said:

Congrats OP - you should be really proud of where you’ve got to so quickly.

Thanks, I’m really pleased about it all! Must say though my partner who has never sailed before coped amazingly. Especially Sunday when conditions were a bit lumpy.

[D1bram]

So we’ve had Ada afloat a couple of months now, all going well, few jobs here and there but sailing as much as possible!

But the pressing issue is needing a trailer for winter. A new one would be circa £5k which is ridiculous. So we started looking for a second hand one…

Being thin on the ground, I put up a few wanted ads; offers came in but they were either too far or not up to the job, until I was contacted by a guy 30 minutes away.

The trailer sounded perfect, but the catch was it came with a ‘free’ unfinished project.

So today this landed on our drive. No idea yet what I’m doing with her….

[D1bram]

[D1bram]

Arnold Cunningham said:

Man maths at it's best.

What is it - not a hurley? Looks fairly solid though? And similarly nice lines.

I did buy a boat just for the trailer once. It was an old Glastron on it - but it was also absolutely shot to pieces. So I just weighed it in at the nearby recycling centre. Was easier to dispose of than I expected, but I didn't have a keel to deal with - just a lot of broken grp and rotten wood. I did have to do it as a "commercial" disposal though - so I think might have cost me 50 quid to dispose of. Can't remember now.

Great man maths eh? Sad thing is I'm selling my MX-5 though!!!

It's an Iona 23 - we weren't sure when we bought her but had it since confirmed. Slightly bigger than the Hurley and MUCH more spacious inside, she feels very different. But yes, nice lines I'd reckon a good sea boat.

Plan had been to simply break her, but within 2 minutes of viewing we'd both decided she's far too good for that (not to mention what the previous owner has done so far is decent work).

So we're going to get her finished, then decide what we want to do!

Happy to update on progress with this one (and the hurley come winter) if there's still interest.