Innehållsförteckning för May 2017 från Practical Boat Owner

Email pbo@timeinc.com or write to us at the address on page 5. Photos are appreciated, letters may be edited. Foil-wrap brushes so as to contain paint vapours Having read a tip in PBO about keeping mixed two-pack paint and brushes in the fridge, I’d like to expand on this as I think the given advice to ‘double wrap’ pots and brushes is potentially misleading. All two-pack paint and varnish systems cure as a result of chemical reactions which join small independent organic molecules into complex three-dimensional structures that demonstrate the resistance to water, wear and ageing that we all expect of these highperformance products. Such systems are usually based on either epoxy or polyurethane resins. All two-pack polyurethane and most epoxy systems which are intended to be applied by brush…

Got a question? Email pbo@timeinc.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 Q i have a 1982 Fairline Mirage 29, weighing approximately 3,000kg. it is fitted with a Volvo Penta MD21B inboard diesel engine (61hp) driving a 2-1 gearbox on a straight prop. i believe this to be the original engine. The boat is used mainly on inland waterways and occasionally on tidal ones, and i am considering replacing the engine and transmission with a new unit. While the engine runs well, in my opinion it is very noisy – particularly when above 4 knots. i do not want to ‘speed’ on the river, but i do feel that a…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR HENRY BETTLE, 20, has been sailing yachts and dinghies since the age of five. He now teaches sailing at Dell Quay Sailing Club and is studying naval architecture at university. Henry isn’t happy if not near or on the water, and spends all of his free time either sailing round the Solent or working on boats. Like everyone else reading this magazine, being on and around boats has always been my passion. So of course, after hearing about this idea of taking a year out of education after college to travel around and do whatever you wanted, I leapt at the idea! I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do, but the freedom sounded too tempting to miss. I spent the first few months…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rich Morrow learned to sail at summer camp, then at a sailing school on Lake Ontario, and went into competitive sailing as a teenager, crewing a 505. He joined a local racing crew in the mid-1990s, and around then commissioned the build of the hull that became Wabi, an Alan Pape 42. He sailed her from Toronto to Nova Scotia in 2002 by way of Gaspe, the Magdalenes, Cape Breton etc, and has cruised and raced those waters ever since. We left Halifax, Nova Scotia on Tuesday, 25 October with a good sailing breeze on our beam, and averaged 6 knots for the next 24 hours. We were elated to be under way, ticking off the miles on a long-dreamed-of passage from our east coast North American…

Last year, as part of the Westerly Owners’ Association’s 50th celebrations, my wife Camilla and I took the opportunity to go for a sail with WOA Commodore George Pickburn and his wife Jill, currently editing WOA’s magazine. Joining their Westerly Storm 33 Stormbird in Lymington, we headed out into the Solent for a few hours through the middle of the day. The Storm is one of Westerly’s slicker designs, but she is still a well-built boat and a fitful breeze made our first hour’s sailing more a saunter than a blast. Nonetheless, it was a good chance to savour the Pickburns’ excellent lunchtime hospitality in Stormbird’s capacious cockpit, after which we headed off towards Gurnard, where the wind obligingly picked up. Given the right breeze Stormbird took off, picking up…

The chalk hills of the Yorkshire Wolds terminate spectacularly in Flamborough Head, on the North East Coast of England. Cook’s Country; Spurn Head to St Abbs by Henry Irving, published by Imray, advises that at Flamborough, the coast’s fairly slight tidal streams are funnelled and concentrated to give a fierce stream that can exceed 3 knots at Springs. When passage planning, it is therefore necessary to ensure a favourable stream around the Head. In wind-against-tide situations there can be overfalls that are dangerous to small craft, with sailors advised to keep at least two miles offshore. The sheer size of Flamborough allows two possibilities for anchorage, which nicely complement each other. In winds from W round through through S to SE, the North Landing is the one to opt for.…

When you’re looking for a second-hand 34-36ft cruiser (or any other size for that matter), there is one crucial consideration that buyers shouldn’t overlook. Is there an active class association? And if so, does it provide information on repair or replacement jobs, a list of useful suppliers and an active forum where members can ask questions, swap ideas and generally hold each other’s hands when things go wrong? When I was at Hunter Boats, I learned to value the enthusiasm of association members. They organised rallies, regattas and social gatherings, provided invaluable feedback on their boats and any problems, and even acted as unpaid advocates, encouraging others to buy a Hunter and join the fun. A helpful and accessible class association is even more important if the boat’s original builder…

Building this Secret 20 is a bit like watching a wireframe drawing come slowly to life. This month, we’ve reached the final part of the boat’s structure: from now on we will begin to add the hull panels and turn her into a real boat at last. We’ve managed a good few sessions on the boat this month, and have fitted laminated deck beams, installed some reinforcement for the chainplates and comprehensively faired the hull structure ready for the panels. Laminated deck beams The first job was to fit some reinforcement to the counter stern, as a means of adding some stiffness to the structure and some support to the aft deck. Aft decks tend to be subject to heavy impacts, with crew dancing around when sailing and mooring up…

How we tested them We gathered 16 masking tapes from popular retailers including Arthur Beale and Force 4 chandleries, Screwfix, Toolstation and B&Q, and tried them out by masking up a substrate and painting each tape with a white spirit-based one-pack paint (International Toplac), a two-pack paint (International Perfection), antifouling (Hempel Ocean Performer) and an epoxy primer (International Interprotect). Once these had dried, we peeled off each tape and checked to see how good and sharp the line was, looking for bleed-through of the paint under the tape edge and any residue left behind. The next stage of the test was to see how each tape coped with being left overnight on a rainy day. For this, we stuck them onto painted panels, applied antifouling and left them out in…

Do it yourself and save over £1,000 People who take on boat renovations generally have a certain level of practical skill and know-how: they choose a project boat based on their skills, or so you would think. In reality, a Friday afternoon impulse purchase from eBay can generate infinitely more work than you anticipate, stretch your ability, eat into your spare time and erode your hard-earned savings. Early on in the renovation of my Foxcub 18, I realised that some parts of the project were just way beyond my capabilities: one such job was the replacement of the pushpit and pulpit rails. When I purchased the boat, it was little more than a hull and mast – everything had been stripped off ready for renovation or the scrapyard, I wasn’t…

Beaulieu Boatjumble Sunday 23 April Now in its fourth decade as one of the biggest and best onestop shops for boat enthusiasts, Beaulieu Boatjumble 2017 is offering free entry to children under 12. To mark the landmark event, organisers are also offering teenagers special reduced price tickets. The treasure trove of nautical bargains will be returning to the New Forest country estate on Sunday 23 April. PBO will also celebrate its 50th birthday at the show: and, back by popular demand, we are once again holding free practical talks and demonstrations on a range of boating topics in our Ask the Experts Live! marquee. BHG Service, which has just opened a new chandlery at Buckler’s Hard Yacht Harbour on the Beaulieu river, will also be celebrating its 70th year. New…

Sailing over the horizon to distant lands, whether it is to the Faroe Islands, St Kilda or the Azores, is a dream that has one major drawback. Who in their right mind is going to strap himself or herself to the tiller watching a compass hour after hour to realise their dream? Who is prepared to miss the pleasure of the journey itself merely to keep the boat on course? The solution is to connect an autopilot that steers for you (until the batteries run out of power!) or to spend big money on a windvane that is precision-engineered, neither of which appeals to many people these days. Battery power is a scarce commodity on boats undertaking long journeys, just as money can be to boat owners with mooring fees,…

Original Boat Owner’s Sketchbook volumes 1 to 5 are now available to download from www.pbo.co.uk/sketchbook priced at £4.95 each. A limited number of printed volumes 3, 4 and 5 of the original Sketchbook series are still available from the PBO Editorial office priced at £3.75 each, or all three for £10. Order yours by calling tel: 01202 440830 or email: pbo@timeinc.com CROSSWORD SOLUTION: ACROSS: 1, Tosher; 7, Fairlead; 8, Centaur; 10, Defaced; 12, Xebec; 13, Jackyard topsail; 16, Cross Joburg; 18, Katabatic; 20, St Mary’s; 21, Maids Of Bute; 22, Dodger; 23, Oakum; 26, Lee shore; 28, King plank; 30, Dyneema; 31, Eddystone Light. DOWN: 2, Horse Sand Fort; 3, Microballoons; 4, Binnacle; 5, Hank; 6, Traveller; 9, Quant; 11, Ardnamurchan; 14, Sugar scoop; 15, Gooseneck; 17, Transducer; 19, Baggywrinkle;…

Send us your local news stories. Email PBO news editor Laura Hodgetts at newspbo@timeinc.com, tel: 01202 440825, or write to the address on page 5 SOUTH-WEST WESTERN BOAT SHOW The Northern Boat Show organisers have launched a Western Boat Show to form part of the Bristol Harbour Festival, from 21-23 July 2017. The three-day event will showcase the latest RIBs, sailing boats, canal boats and powerboats, plus a land-based exhibition on Bristol’s newly developed Hannover Quay. Meanwhile Bristol Harbour Festival, which regularly attracts 250,000 visitors, will include two miles of vessels, food markets, circus acts, live music and performers. www.westernboatshow.co.uk CHANNEL ISLANDS Marine ManageMent plan for alderney The Alderney Marine Forum has embarked on a consultation to engage the community in the development of a marine management plan for Alderney.…

We haven’t published a spring checklist for a few years – but it seems that some of you have missed a timely reminder of what needs to be done to get the boat back afloat. And so, due to popular request, here is PBO’s guide to making sure your boat will go back in the water in fine fettle. While most boats have a few weeks left before they go back in, this is the perfect time to run through this quick checklist to make sure you won’t have any last-minute surprises. You should be able to rattle through and tick off the checks in under an hour – although as with anything on a boat, any remedial work could, of course, take much longer. Once she’s back afloat, it’s…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tony Smith sails the rivers and creeks of the Thames Estuary in his 16ft 6in miniature wooden gaff cutter Shoal Waters, which he keeps on a drying mud mooring in a picturesque creek in the River Blackwater. For those with an amphibious calling, the Walton Backwaters – a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest in north-east Essex – are a haven. It’s an enchanting, seemingly endless watery world of small creeks, rills, nooks and old wharves, all set in rural splendour. As the last of the tide trickles away from the far corners of the lonely marshes that make up this haven, what is left becomes a gurgling expanse of exposed mud where curlew, egret and redshank wade in search of a meal, and seals are sat…

After 20 years as a yacht broker, Nick Burnham embarked on a marine media career, quickly rising to the position of boat test editor for Motor Boats Monthly. Nick is now a freelance writer and photographer covering all things nautical. Pop onto a Seaward down on the pontoons and ask for some literature for the Seaward 35, and you’ll get a slim folder with a photo of a work boat on the front, a pilot boat on the back, and a quick breakdown of the company history on the inside front cover. Lodged inside you’ll find three loose-leaf A4 pages covered on both sides with closely-typed and extremely detailed technical information about the boat, supported by explanatory imagery. You won’t find a single bikini, but you will find an entire…

There’s a trend for any running rigging on board, be it a line, cable, sheet, halyard or hawser, to be referred to as ‘string’. Lazy and colloquial perhaps, but maybe in some way it’s a reaction to the sheer complexity of the ropes on offer today. Counting through the Liros catalogue reveals 77 different ropes, and the other brands have a similarly large selection. So how do we know we’re using the right rope for the job? By the time we get to the chandlery the selection has been whittled down to about 10 products in different sizes, which makes choosing easier, but the range of technologies and prices can still be bewildering. Rope materials If we discount traditional fibres such as manila, hemp and sisal, the go-to materials for…

About the Author Paul Radcliffe is a retired university lecturer who took up sailing when his knees began to prevent him mountaineering. His boat, Wavelength, is a 9.7m Pionier 10, and for the last four years she has been moored at Barcaldine in Argyll, exploring the west coast of Scotland. I had long wanted to visit the Shiant Islands, so arriving there in my own boat on a nice day was magical. The sea was full of seabirds – puffins, guillemots and razorbills – the sun was shining, the sea was fairly calm, and there was only one other boat there, a commercial boat which appeared to have brought a research team. We dropped anchor in the bay and admired the view. It felt even better for the fact that…

Readers’ cruising destinations, near and far We pay for your published cruising stories and harbour updates. Email pbo@timeinc.com or write to the address at the top of page 5 Before setting off on our cruising life in 2008 we spent many an hour poring over Google Earth, looking for good anchoring spots in which to spend the winter. One spot we earmarked at an early stage was in Spinalonga lagoon, anchoring near the village of Elounda. We had family who had visited the area who had made friends with ex-pats living nearby so we were able to ascertain that there was a fresh water supply, some life (many holiday areas in Greece are completely deserted out of season), a bus to the nearest town and a weekly market, all essentials…