Our maintenance of Whimbrel has continued whilst I have been ‘popping off’ to Southend Hospital for daily sessions of radiation for my prostate cancer treatment. I finished getting the bad areas around the cabin sides and rubbing band coated a sufficient number of times then on Good Friday afternoon (after doing a Walk of Witness in Hadleigh) we hard sanded the cabin sides and Christobel washed down several times … we were ready to varnish.
Sanding the cabin sides…
A few days earlier we had enjoyed a couple of ‘on the tide’ sails which makes foregoing on sailing on days such as we’ve enjoyed for nearly a week over Easter ‘acceptable’ for one has to, like marriage have some give and take!
They were lovely sails in gentle breezes and sunshine. Sailing out of our creek I spotted a grebe and out across the Leigh Flats a seal popped up behind us and swam along in our wake … I was just too late with the camera. Hey ho. The Brent geese are still very much in residence and won’t be gone until end of May or even early June, but although it is mid April now, I haven’t spotted any terns yet. I expect the next time Whimbrel has the chance to venture forth, they’ll be on ‘their’ favoured perches around the creek’s entrance and atop mooring buoys…
Sailing along the Chalkwell shore towards Old Leigh.
Sailing into the creek … note, old mains’l and new jib set.
The wind being kindly entering our creek on the last of our two trips, we sailed onto the mooring dropping main, just off, and sailed on under jib. I then removed the old mainsail which has been in use since the ‘new’ sails went back for guarantee servicing at and bent on the serviced ‘new’ one. It has still to be stretched in anger though!
Old mainsail spread out for folding and bagging.
Cabin sides washed ready for a white spirit wipe for varnishing…
On the Saturday of the Easter weekend after ‘slaving’ down at our yacht club rebuilding a finger jetty mooring, we motored over to Maldon for lunch and a walk round. I found a fellow Finesse 24 in ‘Cardy’s’ Yard ready for the water – her sides resplendent in new paint, having been stripped back by her owner during the winter. Everywhere one looked, owners were working away round hull sides, under bottoms or around thew decks! Over in The Downs Road yard the new Thames sailing barge Blue Mermaid was in the floating dry dock – a final scrub up and paint before setting off on her sea trials…
The Blue Mermaid in dry dock, rigged and ready to go…
Spring came early in my parts and it’s strange to see the fluffy seed heads of dandelions in such great numbers – even ‘bald’ ones! My good ship mate is certain that my head is much like a dandelion seed head – full of fluff. She loves me really! But although spring has been relatively mild with long dry spells here, around the yards and especially in my own club, plenty of owners have left outfitting late. I’ve always wondered why … work and family commitment pressures, or, just lacking in that ‘let us get on with it…’ spirit.
Dandelions are well ahead of the season…
Now a boating friend who owns a Finesse 24 came out of the water for a wash and brush up with the full expectation of getting back in after three weeks. Well, it hasn’t gone to plan: he found some spongy deck up forward … now he’s thinking of having the fore, side and poop decks stripped off and renewed. I’m sure I’ll have more on this (with the owner’s permission) in good time. While the owner mulls over this for a short while, he has carried out a little research into where to get longer rigging u-bolts from. I tried some while ago and failed to get responses from places.
The standard units available at the diameter fitted to a Finesse 24 aren’t available with a long enough bolt beneath the deck plate. I measured up when I was looking … a firm has come back and said, ‘No problem …’ The cost is about twice that of a standard 8 mm x 100 mm bolt beneath plate unit from a chandlers. My reasoning – I wanted to fit the u-bolts onto hard wood deck pads, thus alleviating problems of ‘crush’ of the plywood decks. I even made up a set of pads for one side and roughed out another, before laying the work aside. So thanks mate…
Even after 35 years of ownership, things can be done to improve the boat!
My sketch of u-bolts needed…
And of course, charts need to be checked, updated or renewed. I knew Whimbrel’s two sets of East coast charts had been superseded by freshly printed updates, so the ‘Kent’ set has been purchased and updated with the few changes that have taken place and the Essex/Suffolk set are on order.
Chart corrections…
Now, here is a plug:
As the various chandlers have closed down in the south of Essex, I have used ‘Barry’s’ at Dauntless Boat Yard for bibs and bobs over a number of years. May ere away, however, I’ve always found that have ‘that’ bit that no one else does. They will order from a catalogue or from wherever Barry gets ‘his’ stuff. I wanted the Suffolk chart, it wasn’t in stock. ‘No worries’ the lad said, adding, ‘when do you want it?’ Telling him I wasn’t in a hurry. He said, ‘One to two weeks and I’ll give you a call…’ Grand!
The beauty too is that the packs are a good £7 less than the Imray price … plus the delivery charge that would have been stuck on.
So, before you order on line, check out with the friendly team at Dauntless Yacht Centre…
See: http://www.dauntlessyachtcentre.co.uk/
I have the corrections ready…
And at the end of this week, tomorrow, I’ll be half way through my external beam radio therapy . Yippee!
Good ‘spring cleaning’, launches and first sails everyone.