Hull cleaning

The sides of Ciao Bella have become very grubby looking this year. A brown stain has spread along the hull, rust stains from a previously repaired stanchion add to the overall rundown effect with a good helping of weed just above the antifoul line just for good measure.
A friend of mine provided me with some cleaning products that his company manufactures and supplies.   Before rushing in with the Oxalic Acid, I decided to try a few other suggestions so that I had something to compare it to.  My first effort was with some traffic film remover that I had in the garage.
This didn't touch it at all. I then tried some soda crystals, no joy there either.
Time for the Oxalic acid.. I mixed up a small amount in a bowl of warm water and went out to brush it on.  I was amazed, the first contact cut straight through the stain but only for a short distance.  I brushed over a good area and let it soak.  While that was soaking I stippled the brush on the bits that were covered in weed. Slightly optimistic I suppose, it didn't shift the weed but eventually turned it pink.. like an old lady's hair do. I brushed over the first area again and the stain just melted away.  I was really happy with this. The weed would need a bit more persuasion.  To my surprise it didn't need that much help.  An good scrape with a plastic card (Like a credit card) shifted it easily.  Another brush over and it was clean.  A good swill off with clean water and it's sorted.   It just needs a polish over now. More on that later.

The base of this stanchion had left a streak of rust down the side of the hull.  The oxalic acid just wiped this away.  The extra effort is needed to clear the growth which is between the antifoul and line.

I was really happy with the result here. Even the weedy bits have come up alright.

Another quick fix was the life threatening open topped stanchions.  I spend most of the summer worrying about impaling myself on these.  I have seen Stainless steel end caps which look good but the cost made me balk. In the end I bought some plastic tube caps from RS Components, a bag of 5 came to less than £3 delivered to my door.

As was, sharp top ready to gouge into me.

As is,  a cheap professional looking finish... shame about the rusty guard wire :)


Silky cleaners - http://www.silkyproducts.co.uk/catalogue/products.aspx?pid=0&mid=4&smid=

End caps - http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/tube-stops-plugs/4181535/

What's the buzz

The absolute end of the season is signaled with  taking the tender out for the winter..  I took the opportunity to give the Ole Seagull an outing and a bit of a trial.  My tender is 12 foot and fairly heavy... especially with 4 inches of water in it so I wanted to see if the Seagull had enough guts to push it along.
The first thing I noticed was how light it is compared to my 4 horse mariner.  I can easily manage this engine around the pier ladders and hooking it on the back of the tender is a doddle.
The second improvement is that because it is light it doesn't sink the back of the tender, helping it track better through the water.

The seagull seems to take several pulls to get it going from cold but once warm it starts before the cord has had time to leave the flywheel.  As there is no neutral it took me by surprise and pulled on the painter, spinning the boat on the out-haul.  I reduced the revs and pull along the out-haul to point her nose out into clear water.
The last thing I noticed was the noise and vibration :)  What a rasper!    This was the only downside, it performed beautifully and really the noise is ok.. it's only to get me out to Ciao Bella or get the Mirror home if I run out of wind or tide.

I pulled her up the slipway as far as I could but the clubs trolley is a bit too small making it hard for one person to get this lot up the ramp.

The great thing with  the sailing club is that, even out of season, someone will turn up eventually, and when they did they got roped into helping me drag her out and stash her in a corner until I can get back and pick her up. :o))

New 'Old' toys

I had one of those eBay moments the other day.   I was strangely drawn to an auction for a Mirror Dinghy.  The paint looked poor but the other pictures showing the inside look remarkably good. It had the added bonus of coming with an outboard engine.. I have a Laser dinghy that I keep at the sailing club, I bought it for James but he has since discovered cars and has no interest in sailing, this would give me the drive to sell the Laser on as I am a bit too sedate to be balancing on a those kind of boats, a Mirror is more my style.. Older, creaky, leaky and slow :)   it had to be worth a punt, no pun intended.

UP FOR GRABS IS THIS GREAT LITTLE

MIRROR DINGHY

comes with all rigging

anchor

gaff rig

2 hp motor

all the original paperwork 

(from when it was first built)

the only thing that it hasnt got are sails

she needs a little TLC i.e. rub down and repaint apart from that she is sound .

No reserve

 she must go owing to other commitments

no spare time to use her

This is cash on collection only and winning bidder to make contact within 48hrs of end of auction and collection within 7 days of end of auction.

LOW STARTING PRICE

so grab a bargain.

HAPPY BIDDING

The lack of sails is not a problem as I have two spare sets from previous boats plus mast, boom, gaff, rudder etc. I put in a late bid of upto £200 and I won at £125.. Happy days. All I needed to do now was pick it up from Northampton (£130 miles away), find time to tidy it up, sail it and sell my Laser to pay for it :(

I hadn't asked any questions before winning so I was a little disappointed when I found out the outboard was a British Seagull of unknown condition.  

The next day we set off up country to collect my new toys. When we arrived the couple that were selling the outfit were absolutely fantastic. The chap had bought it as a project but poor health had got in the way. A real shame.  Before going to the hull he led me to the shed where he stored all the accessories.  He pulled the seagull out and I was pleasantly surprised. It looked in good condition and had the nicer looking brass fuel tank.

We loaded all the bits onto my makeshift mirror trailer and headed home.  I was slightly gutted when the mast dropped onto the road and shaved a good chunk of the top in a very short space of time, good job I have a spare. That made me think back to my motorbiking days, how quick would your knees and elbows disappear if you fell off at 60 -70 mph?

Anyway, back home and really happy with my purchase.  There are some mad websites around Cruising in Mirrors and racing with Seagulls. Click on the links below if interested.

Weblinks

Mirror cruising  

Seagull race day

Post haul out inspection

A chance to assess how Ciao Bella has weathered during the so called summer and start making that never ending list of jobs to do.

Haul out

Today was supposed to be a nice easy day chilling at home, It started off well enough. I was slobbing about in my dressing gown, watching rubbish TV and surfing the net.   I started to plan the end of season haul out for next weekend.   I put some requests for help out on various forums then checked windguru to see what tomorrow would be like for a sail... Hells bells, next weekend was forecast to be F7 & F8.. a change of plan was needed.   Fortunately John was available to help so we grabbed a few essentials and by 2pm we were on our way  to Baiter park with the trailer.

Arjen kindly rowed us out.

We left my car and trailer at Baiter, John then drove us to the club.  Arjen was able to row us out to Ciao Bella which was great, it mean't I didn't need to retrive the tender later in the day.   After a pleasent motor across the harbour we set about dropping the mast and preparing the boat.   

Mast down

 We had to wait for the tide so after paddling ashore we headed for the tea wagon.  In alll the excitement I realised that we hadn't eaten all day so breakfast rolls went down a treat,

Waiting for the tide

I set the trailer up with the docking arms to help position the keels on the runners.  I measure up the docking arms and marked with yellow insulation tape so that I would know how far down the ramp I needed to push it to allow Ciao Bella to float onto.

Coming up the slipway

Then came the part I wasn't looking forward to.  I waded out into the harbour, pushing the trailer infront of me.  I could only tip toe for so long before the inevitable.  Not quite as cold as I thought it would be but cold enough.  When the trailer was in position  I paddled back to the boat and gently motored between the poles onto the snubber.  I swung of the front of the boat onto the drawbar and secured the boat to the trailer. This was shping up to be an absolute doddle.  With a bit of huffing and puffing we got the ropes as far as the waters edge so John, who was mostly dry, could drag her out with the car.

She's out - Yellow tape on dock arms guages depth.

 It was good to have her out while still daylight,  I climbed aboard, got dry and changed into some warm clothes.  I then drove John back to the club to pick up his car... It's a logistical nightmare hauling out. 

Nice sunset

Eventually we had her strapped down and ready to roll.  I took the easiest route back at a very leisurely pace.  No dramas on the way home.  

 Once home I positioned her roughly on the front garden so that we could remove the mast, the mast overhangs along way and won't fit on the garden.  That done I set about manouvering her onto her wheel pads but no joy. The ground was wet and the wheels were starting to spin.    We unhooked her , moved the car forward and attached a turfer to pull he out but even that didn't work.  From behind you could see that she had dug in...

Jaunty angle.


Closer inspection shows how far she has sunk into the lawn.   We conceeded defeat for tonight and pushed the draw bar off the pavement.  I shall enlist the help of someone with a bigger vehcle tomorrow to position her properly.  At least she is out and I can set about the next stage of restoration.

Sunk



Tacking my way back to Wareham

Saturday was a great day, the weather was perfect, F4 occasionally gusting F5. John and I left the mooring at about 11am with a half cocked plan to sail to Wareham for a pint.  The only fly in the ointment was the direction of the wind and tide :o))   The smart thing to do would have been to go to Studland, go out with the tide and back in when it turned, but as I went there last week I didn't want to go there again.

The tacking practise was welcome, we were quite rusty to start with but before long we were working as a team and the tacks became smoooth :)  It took along time but we made it up to Hamworthy before the strength of the tide made it impossible to continue sailing.  We started the outboard and motored around the headland past Rockley park.  The sailing school were bombing about in their Wayfarers shaming us into getting the sails out again.

As the channel got too narrow to sail in we put the sails away again and motored up the river towards Wareham. The keels touched down a couple of times on our approach to the town but as the tide was rising it was only a short delay before we were on our way again.

Eventually tied up on the Quay we went to... The Quay :~)  We now had another decision to make.  Should we stay on the Quay for the night or have a night sail back down the river.  After consulting the tide table we decided to have some food then get back down the river while there was still a tinsy bit of light to see by.

Well feed and watered we hopped back aboard and set our sights for Poole.  There was much more water now so no fear of running aground.  However the light was fading fast, no time to loiter.

While in the river proper, it was easy to keep in the channel, but once out of the reeds we had to try and pick out the stakes.  John went to the bow with the torch and picked out the stakes, not as hard as we thought it would be as they had reflective tape on them. Communication is key, with the torch in the cockpit I was often blinded, with John at the bow the torch was not an issue but hearing his instruction over the engine was, concentration clear instruction was all we needed.  We had one moment on the mud when I aimed straight for the next post when the channel actually curved.  Lots of reverse got us free again. We now had the luxury of lit buoys to guide us.

Always worth giving the Condor ferry plenty of room, even in daylight, at night I decided to keep well clear. Finding the mooring was a little harder than normal as many of the boats around me have been taken out for the winter.  Another successful day, it took us about six hours to get to Wareham, mostly under sail, and only two hours to return on the motor I'm starting to get used to being able to sail every weekend... lets see what next weekend brings.

Autohelm

At last... I have my autohelm. I picked it up last night and I'm well chuffed. It's in great condition with all the bits n pieces. It's even got the wind vane so it can have a course set against the wind direction, this is however still attached to previous boat.
Mike was a star.. Instead of grabbing my measly few pounds and throwing me out of the door again, he spent 20 mins showing me how to take it apart and restring it, apparently the main cause of failure on these. Cheers Mike. I won't gaff about with it until the boat is home as I need to get an extension piece for the arm and set up the electrics.
Today is looking pretty darned good, if not a little chilly, so John and myself will be heading off shortly for a daysail in the harbour.
Cheers for now ;-)