With a new central heating boiler taking up time last week, never mind the tides being down towards neaps, I took the opportinty to fetch our cockpit floor boards home for dishing up. They’re back on the boat now (more on this later…) So, sailing wasn’t on the agenda at all, however we fully intended…

The Medway & Swale Boating Association (MSBA) is the organisation which took over the roles largely held by the Medway Yachting Assciation, which operated for some years. The organisation has a very reliable and well informed web site offering all sorts of advice and general news. Look them up… http://msba.org.uk/ Two years ago they held…

The last Finesse 24 to be completed (not last number: that is No.70) is seriously for sale. She is boat No. 69 and has been owned in Northumberland for a number of years based at the RNYC in Blyth. Peter, her current owner, is moving abroad permanently so needs to achieve this. His asking price of…

After the sadness of our first leaving of Faversham the second going was a happy affair, other than the mate not being aboard to enjoy a fabulous twenty-four hour window of opportunity… Unfortunately she had a pre-booked pre-paid trip with her U3A group on Thursday last. Alan Staley and his young shipwright had stripped out the…

A few days ago another ‘blast from the past’ hit me. An email winged its way into my post box from a chap who had read something about my meeting John Prime’s cousin aboard the Edith May last February. John owned the spritsail barge Gipping during my childhood and I’d met him when May Flower was…

My good mate has been on a post retirement (it being a short while since, now…) exercise in looking at things stowed away in the loft… Working on the general theory that stuff that gravitates to that section of one’s abode, hasn’t any real further use, that is, except for boating stuff that is in…

Last week I went went over to Faversham  with the good mate to board our good ship and bring her home. Our ‘boy’ kindly delivered us on the Sunday afternoon. After the boat’s launch there had been a leak, but it had ‘gone’ the yard told us, and that appeared to be the case… We spent the…

During the week our good little ship was gently lowered down the slipway at Alan Staley’s yard in Faversham. The mast was up with just her shrouds needing to be tensioned. We had been over to take the final bits needed for our passage back home, when the weather permitted! I must say, it was…

Copied from The Sea-change Trust Site… Contract awarded to build new sailing barge The Sea-Change Sailing Trust works with young people with learning difficulties, vulnerable adults, those suffering social exclusion as well as young people interested in learning traditional sailing skills. We are a RYA Training and Sailability Foundation Centre and an Approved Activity Provider…

Well, wonders will never cease: my kid sister, a pleasing young lady of good disposition, called and asked if I was gong to the London Boat Show… She was going up with friend Steph for a chat with two flotilla organisations, in readiness for September and next year when my little sister hits 60 too!…

In my last post I raised some keel bolt thoughts: Whimbrel is currently out of the water at Alan Staley’s yard in Faversham, Kent, undergoing some planned maintenance. http://nickardley.com/keel-bolts-sobering-thoughts/ The boat’s centre plate box casing and plate are now in… Starboard side of new casing… Port side of new casing… We spent last weekend cleaning,…

Keel bolts whether there to hold a boat’s structure together, as with a traditionally constructed vessel, or in the fashion that most now think about as for many modern yachts are an area of our craft that must always sit in the foregraound of our thoughts: at some point they need to be inspected. Keel bolts…

The year has ticked round to its last day and foremost in many peoples minds is the upcoming London Boat Show. The ‘great and the good’ will be talking sales speak, spouting off the virtues of ordering a shining new craft with smiling sales personnel lurking ready to clutch at any interest a punter might…

The Essex based charity that works with disadvantaged, less able and socially excluded young people, as well as the wider maritime industry, is about to achieve its first aim in the furtherance of its excellent community work – that is the build of a new spritsail barge hull. This, once fitted out, will allow whole year…

After my piece about the spritsail barge Dawn and her tiller steering, I received a communication from Gerard Swift, a key member of the trust caring for the barge. He kindly offered to talk me through what the trust were doing and to look at the tiller itself. Previous blog: http://nickardley.com/ditch-crawler-visits-maldon-to-see-dawn/ Today I went back…

On a visit to my good ship, currently being worked on over in Faversham, I spotted one of Alan’s staff, Alison, working away during her lunch break… She was adding a plank or two to what looked like a large model of a sailing fishing craft of the late 1800s. Alison by her model… In very…

Oh yes, I went to see Dawn, the sweet little stackie barge that is, currently berthed in Maldon… Actually I went to see the ladies in the Salty Dogs Christmas Shop to sign a clutch of books: customers have been asking for it. At the same time I needed to visit the chandlers near the…

Den Phillips and her merry crew – a handful of hard working ladies – have managed to ‘build’ a fine shop again for the festive period. It is situated in Maldon, down the high street fairly close to the town car park by Wenlock Way. Address: 103, High Street, CM9 5EP. It is full of…

The rotting hull of the Cornish Fruit Schooner, Rhoda Mary, has sat on the edge of a Hoo beach for well over 70 years. She was built in Restronguet Creek, Falmouth in 1868, and came up to the Medway for conversion into a ‘yacht’ and like many of those projects it failed to materialise. When…

This is something I have been dreading (my family say) since it was first mooted. It has been on the cards for a little while: this summer we found that two of Whimbrel’s keel bolts either side of the centre plate box had very minor weeps … bubbles of ferous oxide. It first came to…