Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2022 i Practical Boat Owner

Recreational boaters visiting the coast of Scotland, or the east coast of England, have been warned to be aware of potential bird flu cases. UK wild bird populations are currently being impacted by an outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or bird flu. Last year, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) observed outbreaks in seabird colonies and nest sites around Shetland, Orkney, St Kilda and the Flannan Isles. The Solway barnacle goose population has also been affected. This summer, the outbreak has increased with reports of dead birds from the Bass Rock in eastern Scotland, the Farne Islands off north-east England and along the Norfolk coast, and the following areas have been closed to visitors, or should be avoided: Shetland (Noss, Ramna Stacks & Gruney);…

Dispelling the myth I have just heard that the sale of our boat is to complete next week. I was reminded of the adage ‘the two best days of your life are the day you buy your boat, and the day you sell it.’ Absolute rubbish. I realise now that the whole process has been done with a heavy heart – a feeling shared with a number of friends who have joined us over the years for cruises and jaunts to otherwise inaccessible places. It is the only boat we have ever owned, bought in April 2007, and she has taken me, family and friends to many isolated inlets, islands and coastal harbours around the west of Scotland and the Irish Sea. We have travelled 5,750 miles and spent nearly…

Flotsam and jetsam Sam Llewellyn writes nautical thrillers, edits The Marine Quarterly, and is perpetually patching up a 30ft ketch: samllewellyn.com Lucille is 50 years old this year. I bought her in a pub somewhere in the black heart of Wales from a nice man who had owned her from new, and trailed her home, slightly overawed by her majestic size and the beautiful sweep of her sheer. She is an open Drascombe Longboat, no cabin, a gunter yawl 22ft long. She came with a tent, which we instantly stowed in the shed, and a 2-stroke twin-cylinder outboard which when idling purred like a kitten and when throttled up made a handy drone for songs sung on long passages. She sailed like a witch, and once on a broad reach…

Choosing the right second-hand yacht to suit your needs as the years fly by can become ever more challenging. Unlike cars that fail MOTs and finally cease to be worth repairing, well-maintained GRP yachts seem to go on forever. There’s an ever-growing stock of elderly but basically sound yachts. However, the changes in each generation’s new designs can make the selection of a good used yacht more difficult. Do you prefer the handling and motion of a moderate beam yacht with a long keel? Or do the later, wider beam designs with flatter hull lines appeal, thanks to their greatly increased space below… even though their handling and motion can become more demanding as the wind and seas get up? The yacht’s engine will eventually become clapped out and need…

“Swallow is coming up for auction,” my father said, sending me the details of a clinker-built sailing dinghy stored at Twickenham. It was the Spring of 2010. I rushed into our damp computer room, took one look at the online photographs and wept. The letters WK were carved into her transom. There was the 12ft, all-purpose, run-around vessel built by William King of Burnham-on-Crouch that had been purchased in 1973 to feature as Swallow in the original feature film of Arthur Ransome’s classic novel Swallows and Amazons. She looked a bit dried out, but remained an icon of British cinema. I knew the little ship intimately. All those years ago, I’d played the part of Able-seaman Titty, sailing across Coniston Water wearing nothing but a thin cotton dress and thick…

“You’re not going to want to put this in your magazine,” said sailmaker Paul Lees, shaking his head when he saw what I’d done. Not for the first time, I was looking at our Maxi 84 project boat and wondering how much my mistake would cost. So far, these had been fairly small things – like failing to stir the primer, gouging the hull with a paint scraper or antifouling over anodes. But not this time… not only was the headsail shredded, but I might have lost my forestay. During Maximus’s refit, we’d been so busy below decks, that I never tried to rig the sails. When I finally did, the headsail jammed about a metre out from the furler. We ended up motorsailing for the majority of the delivery…

Back In 2010 my wife, Mary, and I bought our first yacht to fulfil my ambition to sail around the UK. We wanted a bulletproof, seaworthy craft which could be sailed single-handed. Mary comes aboard when circumstances and conditions are favourable. With not much effort and a good dose of luck, we found ourselves a Nicholson 31 called Liberty Jane. We’d previously done all our sailing on other people’s boats, or charter holidays, but ownership gave us a new perspective. Over the next seven years, for roughly 13 weeks of the season, I sailed Liberty Jane from our home port of Falmouth, Cornwall, around the UK, Ireland, up and down the English Channel and along the Brittany coast. On each adventure family members and friends came along for short or…

Stowing boathooks is a problem. I don’t want them underfoot, but I do want them handy. I have three boathooks, so I decided to clip two on the shrouds and one on the backstay where I can get to them all quickly and easily. Whether stowing them on the rigging is a good idea in practice remains to be seen, but that’s a different question. Proprietary clips are available for this but they are expensive: search online for ‘Shroud clips for boathook’ and you’ll find them for over €r50 (plus whatever Brexit adds to that). Here’s a solution that costs a fraction of that price. Clip it First get a couple of tube clips of the right size. Get the kind with the holes inside the base of the clip.…

Five people were rescued from a liferaft after their yacht sank following an interaction with orcas. The Portuguese Navy, through the Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center in Lisbon, in conjunction with the Port of Sines, coordinated the rescue of the Portuguese sailors who had abandoned ship about six miles from Sines. The distress call was made around midnight on 31 July. The crew were rescued by fishing vessel Festas André. A Sines Lifeguard Station boat accompanied the fishing vessel to the port of Sines, arriving at 0243.…

Living with the sea Marsali Taylor sails an Offshore 8M, Karima S. She’s a dinghy instructor and author of The Shetland Sailing Mysteries starring liveaboard sleuth, Cass Lynch. This summer’s first session of getting the bairns back again, also known as Junior Sailing, produced a sea of small people in wetsuits. Twenty-eight in total! Did we have enough boats and instructors…? Well, yes; two former trainees had returned as assistant Dinghy Instructors, and we had two Senior Instructors and a Dinghy Instructor, plus enough people with their powerboat certificate to run three guard boats, and experienced parents who would keep them company as they zoomed round the voe. As for boats, well, two instructors took three total beginners each in two of the Sport 14s, the most experienced sailors took…

This tough little boat from Down Under started life as a yacht tender, but evolved into a popular choice for day-hire, fishing and exploring sheltered waters. It found its way to the UK earlier this year via distributor Mareta, who shared it with the public at BoatLife. We thought we’d put it to the test, so I asked my local sailing clubs to give it a (slow) blast in Christchurch harbour. What better way to test its credentials than dragging it up and down slipways, running it into sandbanks and reed-beds, and using it to tow little Optimist sailors – though not a dragonboat, it transpired… The tri-hull boat is made of 100% recyclable polyethylene, weighs 108kg, and isn’t abrasive against a yacht hull’s gelcoat. Though the Tuffy Tender 3.0…

Developing the first boat to cross the English Channel powered directly by solar panels (with no batteries) was a rather circuitous journey. It had started a couple of years earlier when I’d seen a massive, bright orange Tucker Sno-Cat in London’s Science Museum. This had been part of the first convoy of motorised vehicles to cross the Antarctic. Looking at the Sno-Cat, I’d wondered if I could make a solar powered vehicle to cross Antarctica. After all, the Antarctic actually contains the biggest desert on earth and has 24-hour daylight in the Austral summer. So it should be the perfect location for a solar powered vehicle (but for all the ice, snow, freezing temperatures and blizzards). I mentioned this to my dad as a joke and he said he thought…

There’s no denying that my wife and I are the sort of sailors who’d perplex Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey. Neither of us has any intention of braving gales if we can avoid them, and both agree that cold, wet tippy tidal sailing belongs in our distant past. On the more positive side, neither of us has ever caught scurvy or been keel-hauled. And we seem to be among the first people in the Balearics to buy a TEMO 450 outboard motor. Here’s how it happened. We bought our 2004 Bavaria 32, Merly, three years ago. We brought her round from Alcudia to our home port of Arenal, and then suffered separation anxiety throughout the Covid lockdown. Eventually, we had an opportunity to try out the Yamaha 2-stroke perched on…

Step by step…

ENGINES Fuel for thought… but which fuel and engine? Q A discussion in our club bar centred around boat engines and which were better, petrol or diesel, inboard or outboard. Everyone with one or other type of engine on their boat had good reasons why they thought they were best – or in some cases totally unsuitable! – but I’d be interested to know your views? Graeme Bolten STU DAVIES REPLIES An interesting question. In the ‘olden days’ petrol engines were relatively easy and cheap to manufacture, lighter and simple to operate and easily maintained by owners. And 2-stroke versions were even more so. This is why many older boats were fitted with petrol motors – through they then had a reputation of growing cantankerous with age. Diesel engines had…

A conservation project has found more than 27,000 marine animals living alongside its innovative oyster nurseries – indicating that the restoration project is helping more than just oysters. The ambitious three-year Wild Oysters Project, which spans coastal regions across England (Tyne and Wear), Scotland (Firth of Clyde) and Wales (River Conwy), houses more than 140 oyster nurseries and 4,000 oysters across three British Estuaries. One year after thousands of native oysters (Ostrea edulis), housed in nurseries suspended underneath marina pontoons, were returned to UK waters, the project has discovered 65 species, including the critically endangered European eel, the common prawn and shore crab now living alongside the oysters. A partnership between the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Blue Marine Foundation and British Marine, the project aims to help restore coastal…

The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) will be phasing out the manufacturing of paper charts with the aim to end production by late 2026. Plans to withdraw the UKHO’s portfolio of ADMIRALTY Standard Nautical Charts and Thematic Charts are in response to more marine, naval and leisure users primarily using digital products and services for navigation. The UKHO has said that the ADMIRALTY Maritime Data Solutions digital navigation portfolio has the added benefits of being updated in near real-time and therefore greatly enhancing safety of life at sea (SOLAS). The decision follows the sale of paper charts dropping from 80% of sales in 2018 to 16% in 2021. The UKHO has confirmed it will be developing viable, digital alternatives for users who are still currently relying on using paper chart products.…

A National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £58,000 will be used to restore Severn, a yacht built in 1912 in Arnside, Cumbria. The charitable project, coordinated by a Friends Group set up by Arnside Sailing Club, aims to get Severn sailing again by 2023, and includes funding for volunteers and young people to learn to sail gaff rigged boats. Severn will be restored to her original appearance without a cabin and her internal framework will be replaced by David Moss Wooden Boat Builders Severn was one of 10 Rivers Class yachts built by Crossfields of Arnside for the Royal Mersey Yacht Club. She sank in a River Mersey race on 23 July 1914, just 12 days before Britain entered the First World War. In 1927, Severn was raised to the…

Mad about the boat Dave Selby is the proud owner of a 5.48m (18ft) Sailfish, which he keeps on a swinging mooring on the picturesque Blackwater estuary in Essex Land, as explained by RYA courses to those who failed them, is without doubt the number one hazard to navigation and can with a little practice be identified by looking at it. Beachy Head, Brighton Pier and the infamous Needles on the Isle of Wight – not to mention the Isle of Wight itself – are but four examples. These are marked on charts of the South Coast which, to be fair, do have some limited use on the south coast, but aren’t much help on the East Coast. Come to think of it charts of the East Coast aren’t much…

Having sampled a prototype version of this French foiling RIB three years ago, I had to reluctantly admit it wasn’t quite there yet. It had, and still has, roughly L-shaped main foils about level with the front of the console, and in the early version I tried these had the habit of suddenly losing lift, usually only on one side. It’s hard to explain exactly how disconcerting this feels, but a forward tipping and decelerating motion is not something you want to feel at over 30 knots in a choppy Solent. The difference now with the SEAir is in the work that has gone into the foils and control system, and the test of this first production version confirmed these improvements with us foiling whenever we wanted and not making…

Bottlescrews should be able to move and should be free from cracks and discolouration. Never force a jammed bottlescrew as you run the risk of stripping the thread. Instead, leave some penetrating oil to seep in first. ■ Check the mast wall for cracking or deformation around T-terminals and other fittings. A crack will show that something is bearing where it shouldn’t. ■ Check that all rigging wires are in column throughout their length, especially where they enter an end fitting. If there’s a bend or the wire doesn’t line up with the end fitting, you may have a problem. Swaged end fittings are particularly prone to breaking – “the wire tends to go just inside the fitting, where the rig’s movement chafes it against the harder end fitting,” says…

Two of the most dangerous things you will do on a boat? Get on it. And get off it. You are at your least aware and most distracted. There is much to trip over and fall foul of. Even more risk than of a badly placed preposition. Bad enough should you slip into that dreaded no-person’s-land twixt pontoon and boat in full daylight, warm water, and your nickname is The Thorpedo. My experience is that it doesn’t work like that. The casualty, for casualty they are, usually takes the plunge into icy water, late at night, has been well fed and watered, has not recently seen the inside of a gym, and is eagerly awaiting their next pension payment. In the two incidents I have been involved with, one person…

Looking for a better way to pick up moorings I’ve come up with this home-made grapnel device. I have it attached to a line from my bow and just run up to a swinging mooring then toss the device over the pickup line. When you then fall back on the tide or pull it back manually it grips the pickup line firmly without sliding down to snag the buoy on the end. It also hangs on to the line really well, unlike a standard boathook which can allow the line to slide off unless under constant tension. With a boathook you also have to get near enough to the buoy to reach over to the line and then have a tug of war to hold onto the thing and bring…

Despite having had my share of adventures worth telling over a cold pint, I don’t consider myself to be much of a seaman, somehow I don’t feel I fit the mould. I sail a boat. I live on a boat. I raise my kids on a boat. I transit oceans by boat. But seasoned seaman? I don’t think so. But for the first time I felt like I’d earned that status as I sat sipping a frothy pint in Peter’s Bar, with decade upon decade of captain’s hat (and the occasional captain’s bra) above my head. Peter’s Bar is as old as the volcano it is built on, currently run by its third generation of Sr Azevedo, who continues to supply transiting mariners with more than just ale: for generations…