Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2019 i Practical Boat Owner

From 1 April 2019, boaters will have to install a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm onboard if they want to cruise certain waterways in the UK. This will affect cruisers using the Scottish Canals, BWML marinas, Bristol Harbour, all Canal & River Trust waterways, The Broads, the rivers Medway, Thames, Blackwater, Chelmer, Cam, Dee, Wey and other waterways run by navigation authorities which apply Boat Safety Scheme (BSS) regulations. The new rule applies to all classes of boats with accommodation and will become part of the four-year BSS examination of vessels – a boat-equivalent of an MOT – which is needed to cruise BSS-regulated waterways. The BSS consulted on its plans for mandatory CO alarms in autumn 2018. It said 84% of those asked supported the move. BSS manager Graham Watts…

Julian Dussek is the new president of the Cruising Association (CA), taking the helm from Judith Grimwade. A former vice-president and a member of the Cruising Information Development Group (CIDG), Dussek was heavily involved in the development of the CA’s Cruising App, CAptain’s Mate. He frequently lectures on behalf of the CA and has recently started to produce a video series for members who aren’t able to attend the CA’s London lectures. Dussek and his wife, Vanessa used to sail a Drascombe Longboat Cruiser before buying a Southerly 115 which they took down the French inland waterways to the Mediterranean where they spent six years, getting down to the bottom of Greece and up the Adriatic to Venice. They came back through the inland waterways to Calais, spent another year…

SOUTH COAST AND CHANNEL ISLANDS INVESTIGATION INTO GROUNDING The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is looking into the circumstances surrounded the grounding of a Russian cargo ship off Falmouth, Cornwall. The 180m bulk carrier Kuzma Minin dragged her anchor in Force 9 winds on 18 December 2018, ending up on the western side of the port entrance between Swanpool and Gullyngvase beaches. There was no cargo aboard, only the 18 crew. A team of five harbour tugs and a salvage vessel eventually refloated the ship before it was brought alongside in Falmouth for a full inspection. There were no reports of any pollution. The operation involved Falmouth RNLI, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Fowey Harbour tug, Cannis. AWARD FOR PETA Ocean Youth Trust South’s Peta Koczy has been…

PART 2 Yacht design by decade: 1960s The 1960s was a decade of huge change in which many earlier developments, including the advent of fibreglass construction and shorter keels, with a separate rudder further aft, finally became mainstream. At the start of the decade traditional wooden boatbuilding still dominated at most yards, but by 1970 virtually all new designs were of fibreglass and even plywood was generally reserved for home-built boats. There was also a huge DIY boom – on which this magazine’s early rise to prominence was built – that helped fuel enthusiasm for economical home boat construction. Furthermore, this was an era of social mobility – far more so than in today’s world – which opened up the possibility of boat ownership to a far larger demographic. It’s…

With boating, like everything else in life, you will find your experiences, ambitions and lifestyle change in tune with family and finances. This is why I have ended up owning a succession of boats from homemade kayaks to dinghies, trailer sailers, yachts, motor-sailers and motor cruisers. One thing they have in common is that they have all given me enormous enjoyment and been right for me at the time. But how do you know what boat, or even type of boat, is best for your future self? Well, start with the logical questions: where do you live, where do you want to go boating, how fast do you want to go and what is your budget? Then ask yourself: what does your heart tell you? Then perhaps there is a…

I suppose the first thing to ask is why change? There are several reasons: while we still enjoyed sailing and retained a great affection for our Leisure 17, her high mast restricted the distance we could travel up or down the River Avon from our mooring at Tewkesbury Cruising & Sailing Club. We could go under the M5 bridge at Bredon (with a little room to spare), up as far as the gas pipe bridge at Strensham. A river cruiser would give me more flexibility to travel for longer without venturing far from home. If the boat is moored at Tewkesbury Marina, I can travel on the Avon as far as Stratford-upon-Avon. The River Severn is a lock away, Stourport is to my right, Gloucester to my left. I have…

The nautical term is ‘anchors aweigh’ which, confusingly, means to lift an anchor not to drop one. Subconsciously I must once have misunderstood the phrase because I dropped an anchor of mine. Well, not quite. I just threw it away, in gay abandon: anchors away! But before I tell you that embarrassing story, I’ll recount another, which happened to me over 50 years ago. When I was a boy of 17 my father owned an old RAF launch which had been lifted from the bottom of the River Leven, the one which runs out of Loch Lomond. With the help of a local mechanic and a John Brown’s carpenter, we refurbished the boat and called it Winkle. We kept it on Loch Lomond for a few years, and my father…

Built between 2005 and 2008, this elegant yacht has a lot going for it. Rob Humphreys is one of the most reliable and consistent designers and his boats perform well. Out of all his many designs, Rob opted for a 434 as his own family boat. And he still has it. A sweet hull with a 13ft 9in beam, 6ft 3in draught and 24,035lb displacement produces ratios that promise above average performance. Its SA/Displacement ratio of 17.9, DLR of 138 and Ted Brewer comfort ratio of 26.29 all suggest a moderate and balanced yacht that is no slouch. And despite our boat’s tired and aged sails, she was enjoyable to helm and achieved good speeds. A variety of layouts were offered. Ours had a spacious forecabin with en suite shower…

One of my favourite ways to spend a day is on the ocean with friends and finish it off with a meal cooked with the fish we’ve caught during the day – and it doesn’t need to be limited to the finned variety. Shellfish and crustaceans are common enough catches, but what about cephalopods? The word itself means ‘head-foot’, and it’s the genus that includes octopus, squid and cuttlefish. We don’t tend to get that many octopus in the UK, but squid and cuttle are surprisingly plentiful. They’re also easily caught and very tasty. The two main species found in the waters around the UK are the common squid and the European squid. Both are found all around the UK, but they’re more common in the warmer waters around the…

Time taken: 10 days Total cost: just over £1,000 My Westerly Konsort Koto was built in 1980 and featured a loo outlet connected direct to the sea via a 1½in Blakes seacock. But having decided to join the Emsworth Cruising Association summer cruise to Holland, we definitely required some means of retaining black water and being able to dispose of it via pump-out, so a holding tank was needed. I looked on the Westerly Owners’ Association (WOA) website and elsewhere for articles about fitting a tank to a Konsort and found plenty of inspiration, including one owner who ended up fitting his tank in the bow beneath the water tank. That all looked a bit complicated to me, so in the end I decided to design my own. The cupboard…

Got a question? Email pbo@ti-media.com Here’s just a selection of the latest questions from PBO readers. Email or write to the address on page 5 and our experts will answer your queries ANCHORING A question regarding stern holding Q Our Aquastar Ocean Ranger 33 has a 20kg Bruce bow anchor with 60m of chain, and stored below as a spare we have a 15kg CQR anchor with chain and rope. This summer we’re planning to cruise around Sweden including passing through the Göta Canal. From the pilot books it is clear a stern anchor will be required that must be good for both sand and rocky ground. From a practical viewpoint the anchor must be relatively easy to handle and ready to hand. For this reason I think the 15kg…

The method of disposal of out of date flares in the UK is under review. Currently, the onus is on boat owners to get rid of old flares, usually by returning them to the supplier when buying new ones, or by paying for them to be safely disposed of. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) does offer a free 'last resort disposal service' at a handful of locations,but now the Department for Transport (DfT) is reviewing the scheme. This is because the MCA’s contract with the firm tasked with collecting and disposing of flares will end in 2020. The DfT has already met with key stakeholders, such as manufacturers, to look at alternative disposal methods. A wider consultation will be held later this year. The disposal of out of date…

South Coast-based sailing school, Rubicon 3 has joined forces with the Golden Globe Race to teach 10 amateur sailors to cross the Atlantic using just the sun to navigate. No previous experience is necessary and celestial navigation training will be provided. The co-founder of Rubicon 3, Rachael Sprot, said suitable candidates needed to have the ‘right mindset and a decent sense of humour when we haven’t see the sun for three days!’ More information is available at rubicon3.co.uk…

No parking please! The adventures of Gwawr… As in previous years, Milford Marina berth holders Steve and Steph McGrath set off at the end of April in their Sigma 38 Gwawr, intending to sail down the Bay of Biscay. Their first port of call was Sainte-Evette, southern Brittany, just south of the much feared Raz de Sein… On arrival we didn’t see a mooring rope floating just below the surface. There was a loud bang and the engine stopped. The rope had wrapped itself around the propeller and propeller shaft. The engine was pulled off its mountings and moved 105mm to the stern, stopped by the gearbox hitting the shaft water seal. The Societe Nationale De Sauvetage En Mer (SNSM) towed Gwawr into the adjacent harbour of Audierne, and their…

Dick Carter was a key figure responsible for moving the mainstream of yacht design into an entirely new era in the middle of the decade. Having won the 1962 Block Island Race in New York’s Long Island Sound, in his Bill Tripp designed 33ft Medalist, he was asked to sail an identical French boat in the 1963 Fastnet Race. The owner had to drop out before the race, leaving Carter as skipper and he was again victorious. However, he noted the boat was very hard to steer downwind in a big wind on the way back to Plymouth from the Fastnet rock, especially in quartering sea. ‘I didn’t think twice about it,’ he says. ‘It was obvious to me at the time that what was needed was a rudder well…

When I was new to sailing, many, many years ago, it didn’t take long to learn it was far better to anchor securely, than to be stumbling on deck at 0300 on a blustery, rainy, dead black night, trying to haul in and reset a dragging anchor. I soon devised a drag-proof method of anchoring and on my present 45ft schooner I still use the same system. The normal method to avert dragging is to lay a good length of chain rode, about five or six times the depth, but this in itself doesn’t guarantee a single anchor won’t drag – and if you have to haul in about six times a 40ft (12m) depth in order to re-set the anchor, (in the above mentioned conditions), that’s an awful lot…

I’ve never been keen on deliveries because chances are either that the boat has problems or you can reckon on bad weather. There is a third case: where the owner has insufficient experience. Perversely it was this that persuaded me to accept when Pat asked me to bring a boat he had just bought at the bottom end of the South Island, back north to Whangarei. Fortunately, he didn’t want to come along, too. In truth, though, I only agreed because I didn’t think anyone else would. The boat in question, at that time the only junk-rigged Wylo (designed by Nick Skeates) around, hadn’t been used for several years and needed so much doing to the rig that only a junkie would have been able to put it together and…

Built by the Ackerman Boat Company of Lido Island, California, in 1943 Harbour Defence Motor Launch 1348 was one of 16 boats built for the New Zealand Navy. It is generally acknowledged that these craft were better built and assembled from superior quality Oregon timber than their UK counterparts and she remained in commission until 1967. She then joined the New Zealand Fisheries Protection fleet as Pegasus 3563. Later, her role changed again to that of a survey vessel and her name became Kuparu 3563. In 1994 she was sold off into private hands and the veritable old lady lay unused for many years ending up looking very forlorn on a hard in Auckland and would have finally decayed had it not been for Scott Perry. Sadly, he had recently…

Understanding propeller design can help solve performance problems that occur when a boat is being driven under power. The wrong prop may be wrong in a number of different ways including diameter, pitch, blade shape or blade area. Your prop may suffer from cavitation, ventilation or slippage – your boat may be burning too much fuel or lacking acceleration or top speed. But how can you tell if you have a propeller problem and how do you know gear which of these issues might be affecting your propulsion? A propeller is usually designed with two to five blades (though sometimes more). In the first instance, the number of blades is decided by the weight of the vessel: the greater the weight, the greater the blade area required to push it…

We had finally arrived in South America! We dropped anchor at 2130 in the mouth of the Suriname River, after 2,019 miles and 15 days sailing from Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands to Suriname (formerly Dutch Guyana). Due to extensive coastal shallows our final approach began 15 miles out at the fairway buoy; from there we followed the buoyed channel (IALA ‘B’) but couldn’t see land until almost upon it as Suriname is so low-lying. The coastline consists of soupy, muddy tidal flats backed by rainforest. Much of the crossing had been lumpy with numerous squalls and a huge Atlantic swell, so it was a relief to be on flat water at last. With a celebratory nightcap in hand (our first drop for two weeks) we sat in the…

Spares for an engine water pump, namely an impeller, are one of those ‘must have items’ most boat owners would probably label as essential. Also when it comes to general electric bilge pumps, many craft will also typically have manual options as a backup should there be a problem. However there’s one little pump on board which can get overlooked by motor boat owners or in fact anyone with a wheelhouse steering position. I’m talking about the windscreen washer pump. It’s one of those minor things you take for granted but as soon as it packs up you miss it pretty quickly. It happened to me on a choppy day when it wasn’t raining but there was lots of wind-driven spray. It was the sort of conditions where you need…

German sailor Susanne Huber-Curphey has become the first Longue Route skipper to cross their own track. Unlike the Golden Globe Race, the Longue Route isn’t a competition, and has no regulations. Instead, it is a pilgrimage in tribute to Bernard Moitessier, who took part in the original 1968-69 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. He famously abandoned the race to ‘save his soul’, deciding to continue sailing on his 40ft steel ketch Joshua rather than return to England. Moitessier eventually made landfall in Tahiti, setting the record for the longest nonstop passage by a yacht – 37,455 nautical miles in ten months. Huber-Curphey, who holds the record for the first woman to navigate the Northwest Passage single-handed (west to east), started the Longue Route from Portland in Maine, USA, on 14…

A new code has come into effect which should make it simpler and cheaper to use recreational boats for temporary commercial purposes. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency launched the Intended Pleasure Vessels (IPV) code on 10 January 2019. It is divided into two parts – the first for temporary commercial use for business purposes at sea and the second for temporary commercial use as a race support boat at sea. For race support, the code is intended for open boats such as RIBS and decked vessels under 8m/26ft 3in. Vessels can be used no more than ten times a year as a race support boat in UK coastal waters. The IPV Code allows the UK marine business sector and owners to use a pleasure vessel at sea on a single-voyage…

Over the years I’ve chartered throughout the Med and northern Europe aboard a fleet of different yachts as part of a motley crew of semi delinquent OAPs that now included a retired film-maker, an ex brewer and a farmer. Greece is still top of my list for good-value, laid-back holiday cruising in the sun. We ventured up to Marstrand another year and dodged around the fearsome Swedish rocks littering that coastline. We also tried Sardinia, but flinched at the eye-popping mooring prices. Never again. On another occasion we pottered from Malta up to the delights of Sicily, finding Syracuse in particular to be very special. And latterly we took a punt on Croatia (testing the Hanse 415) and reckon this is well worth another visit. So what about 2018? After…

Any mention of Coastal Forces craft usually elicits images of racy motor gun and torpedo boats making a splash at around 40 knots. In fact, these craft were just a part of a larger command, which included round-bilge Motor Launches (MLs) and Harbour Defence Motor Launches (HDMLs). Of 464 HDMLs eventually built, only one, Medusa, remains fully operational, although there is a well restored variant of the design in New Zealand (see page 58) and numerous other hulls still afloat, mostly as houseboats. So how and why were they built and what are the obstacles to converting and maintaining them? With the advent of hostilities in 1939 the UK was woefully ill-equipped. A major marine development and building programme was quickly initiated involving many yards around the country and abroad.…

I bought my three-year old Jeanneau Merry Fisher 855 in November. After a full survey I sailed her back to Emsworth a few days later, with no problems. She sat in her mud berth over the winter without being used, apart from some maintenance. In April I decided it was time to get the outboard engines serviced and a stopcock changed, on the advice of the surveyor, for which she’d need to come out of the water. I arranged to take her 500m to Emsworth Yacht Harbour, on a Friday evening. As the boat floated off the mud I started the various checks and noticed that the steering was very light. Further examination revealed no movement of the engines when the wheel was turned. Looking at the hoses it became…

In 2003 our faithful Finnsailer 36 was replaced by Linga Linga, a 1990 Moody 376. She was kept at Yat Lift boat yard in Bodrum, Turkey, so in May 2004, my partner Rose and I flew out of Malta for Bodrum via Istanbul. With excess baggage distributed in our clothing, we looked like Michelin Man tyre advertisements! Inauspicious start Upon arrival, things started to go wrong. The engineer told us Linga Linga was not ready, despite having had nine months to prepare the boat. His remit had been to replace all standing rigging including the forestay, to ensure the engine was fully serviced and to replace any component as required. We also enhanced Linga Linga’s seaworthiness with new sails, a new anchor and a further 35m of chain. We paid…

We have a Drascombe Lugger called Aunty Peg that we have taken to the Isles of Scilly for two weeks each year for the last 15 years. She is ideally suited to exploring the archipelago with a shallow draught of about a foot, when rudder and centreboard are raised. While visiting the islands, we often lay a couple of pots and do a bit of fishing. Both these occupations require knowledge of the depth of the water, which can change from a few metres to a few tens of metres in a very short distance. In the past we’ve used a lead line to measure the depth but that was cumbersome and with such rapid depth changes the result had often altered before the next swing of the lead was…

A. One of the joys of being afloat is eating outside, and a cockpit table makes life more civilized. B. Often, a basic picnic table is all you need. C. A combined ‘table and chairs’ model can be used in a large motorboat cockpit, and some yachts use them with the legs folded up so the seat part rests on the cockpit seats (D) and the crew’s weight holds them in position. A locked tiller (E) can sometimes be used to support one end of a table, and either shaped wooden legs (F) or spring-loaded ones (G) will take care of the other end. Also, if the table is tapered it can stow above a quarter berth (H). I. Cockpit gratings have been used for pop-up tables. J. On one…