Fake it until you make it!

On hard times

Having rescued Pamela C from the boatyard where she had been for almost 2 years, I knew she was going to need some TLC and there are areas of the boat that definitely need attention / that does her a disservice.

Shortly after I arrived in Portland, I met a guy called Dan and we got to talking about things as you do. Dan is a very knowledgeable and charming chap, and one of the many wise things that he suggested was to look at EVA Foam as a possible deck covering. It looks like teak, is soft underfoot and most importantly is quite cheap!

I explored eBay and Amazon listings and found a suitable supplier, they even had a promotion so I ordered enough EVA Foam to cover the tired-looking grey areas on Pamela C plus an extra roll (it was only £63 for a 2.4m x 1.2m sheet) and sat back and waited for the postman to deliver.

Sadly the first order was cancelled by the seller as there was a problem with his supplies. The second order I placed on eBay also had an issue and they cancelled that too. Just as I was about to give up I found a 3rd vendor, who had ample supply and promised next day delivery – so I placed an order for 5 rolls (enough as I say to cover the whole boat and have spare just in case). I had heard that the colours varied between batches so it was important to me to try and ensure I had all the same colour, even in spares.

Finally, the rolls of decking I had ordered arrived, 9 days after I placed the order – sadly not the next day as was promised by the eBay seller (who decided to use Hermes despite advertising Royal Mail on his listing – he won’t be getting 5 stars from me I can tell you!). By the time the decking had arrived, all my willing helpers had departed and I had been left to my own devices. I started sanding (much to the annoyance of at least one neighbour in the marina who didn’t want his shiny new million-pound Gin Palace to get dusty). (I had taken to using an angle grinder with flap discs on them to sand off the heavy-duty non-slip deck paint as a standard sander was having none of it, so there were some thick dust clouds, all being blown away from the boats and the marina – I had checked and thought of this before starting!)

Another week had gone by and I had procrastinated enough, it was going to be time to measure out / template the deck and cut the foam to shape. Just as I was about to try and find another excuse not to do it (on my own) an old friend suggested a weekend of beer and DIY work, which I jumped at – always welcome an extra pair of hands or two – and shortly after he arrived we set to measuring and cutting the templates!

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April Shakedown

The plan for April is simple, get some miles under the keel!

Initially, the plan is to start slowly – there will undoubtedly be work to do on the boat to prepare and trips to the supermarket. I hope I can complete most of this in the week leading up to the departure date (31st March 2023).

Triton 2 Autopilot controller
  • Install additional Lithium batteries
  • Clean the galley and measure up ready to refit
  • Deep Clean throughout (including the shelves I’ve been avoiding for 2-years now!)
  • Replace old window blinds
  • Take out and re-bed portlights
  • Find and fix any additional leaks
  • Install Starlink Satellite Internet
  • Dockside calibration of autopilot
  • Install Triton.2 controller in the cockpit
  • Remove old NMEA0183-2000 translators
  • Install B&G WS310 anemometer, replacing the old NASA Marine unit
  • Put the old bits on eBay and try to recoup some of the costs.
  • Fix the headlining in the fore-peak cabin
  • Clear out the Pilot berth and fore-peak cabin so the crew can sleep there
  • Restore the ceiling/walls in the aft heads now that all the cables have been run
  • Source a rug for the main cabin

Initially, the plan is an easy and simple circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight, dropping anchor in a sheltered bay overnight and checking out the boat’s systems. This may be no more than a short 2-hour sail from Gosport, or it could be further. I would like to explore some of the Isle of Wight again, including a return to the Crab and Lobster Inn in Bembridge if time and fortunes go my way.

After which, the plan is to set sail and head a little further afield – first off to Swanage Bay and Old Harry Rocks, and then perhaps down to Portland to see the Old Reprobates on J-Pontoon. If all goes well, and the weather is kind, I could be there by April 4th. I need to be back at Gosport by Monday 10th, in order to return to work on the 11th so there should be ample time to test new systems and check out old stomping grounds – assuming no tornadoes on the Jurassic Coast!

Photo by Bill Eccles on Unsplash

Following on from this shakedown, the next trip starts on April 28th in anticipation of King Charles’ Coronation. If the initial shakedown went well, then the plan could be to go further afield, perhaps to Fowey or maybe even the Scilly Isles for a couple of days. Failing that, Cherbourg is just a stone’s throw away and would also work for an overnight escape.

Route to Cherbourg (74nm)

Cherbourg is 74nm so just over 12 hours from Gosport (less with favourable winds). The Scilly Isles is a tad further at 205 nm (which would probably take 3-days at a leisurely pace single handed)

As always, I’m not proud and more than willing to accept offers of help and company from anyone who wishes to be involved, either sailing or just pottering on the boat before we set off.

Never been on a boat and wonder what it’s like? Come and spend a day (and maybe a night) on board before we leave the marina. This is a good first step to see if you like the idea, then maybe join me for a day sail as we shake the cobwebs out and if that all goes well then, by all means, let’s talk about you joining me on a longer journey to the Scilly Isles, Isle of Man, Cherbourg, Portugal, Cape Verde or maybe even further! (or part of a leg if not the whole)

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Getting back in the saddle

It has been a few months since I’ve sailed anywhere. Deacons Marina to Haslar Marina was my last trip, which took just over an hour and was fairly benign.

Since arriving in Haslar in October, poor old Pamela C hasn’t moved. She’s been sat, wintering near Portsmouth while I get into the swing of things with my new “Systems Architect” role at loadbalancer.org .. managing partner integration with some large medical imaging and storage companies.

I have 10 days of holiday coming in April, and I plan on getting back in the saddle. Short trips to start with – the new autohelm needs to be commissioned, and the boat checked out after sitting idle for what will have been nearly 6 months.

One of the beauties of the Solent and being berthed where we are is that the Isle of Wight is a short hop away. Whilst at Deacons Marina it could literally take 3 hours to get to the Isle of Wight, which was infuriating. Now we’re based in Gosport, you can almost see the Isle of Wight from the harbour entrance and in 45-minutes, you can be anchored off one of the Island’s many beaches. This seems an ideal proving ground, a night or two at anchor, sailing around the Island, popping ashore in the dinghy and pretending we’re in the Mediterranean or even the Bahamas! (ignoring the wooly jumpers and waterproofs of course!)

I have fond memories of flying to the Isle of Wight many years ago as a PPL (Private Pilot License holder). We would leave Denham aerodrome, fly down the coast, land at Bembridge airfield, and head to the Crab and Lobster pub for lunch. Those were the days; when AvGas was 80p/litre (now over £2/litre), and I had a regular income!

Flying into Bembridge for lunch

Maybe I’ll be able to visit the same pub for lunch, only this time by sea! Even better, maybe I’ll be able to catch my own supper and cook it on board!

The plan then is to sail around the Isle of Wight, spend up to a week exploring, perhaps heading over to Swanage Bay, and who knows, maybe even down to Portland for lunch with the boys before heading back to Gosport, if the weather holds out that long!

Sailing Single Handed

I’m often asked who am I sailing with, who am I taking with me when I go, how can I sail the boat on my own, don’t I need a crew?? and similar questions.

The short answer is yes, I can (and often do) sail Pamela C on my own. She’s a big boat, but she’s forgiving and a dream to sail (she almost sails herself to be honest).

This doesn’t mean I don’t want to or won’t sail with others; quite the contrary – however, my sailing schedule rarely fits in with others, and I’ve already tried to merge my sailing life with my love life, and to date that has proved less than successful – so I now opt to sail solo, and maybe one day I will find someone who wants to sail with me and share in the journey, but I’m not in a rush to find that special someone.

There are times when sailing solo can be difficult. The constant watch-keeping and especially keeping a look out for pots and floating debris when sailing at night, trying to get the sails up and down on your own when the weather is “brisk” can also be fun. Thankfully I have a good autopilot (well I did have until it died) – so I now have a new autopilot which has been installed (at great expense); it now just needs commissioning and proper testing. Difficult, but rewarding and challenging and fun all at the same time!

I have had my fair share of adventure and mishap, usually when trying to moor up on my own either to a mooring buoy at night in the pitch black or in a marina with dozens of people watching (but very few offers to help or catch lines until you’ve already stuffed it into the side of something).

I recall the very first time I had ever actually caught a mooring buoy (not just on my own, but even with a crew and on the various courses I’ve done) it was pitch black, and I had to lean over the side of the boat to try and pick up a mooring buoy that was designed for a boat 10 times the size of my own (so it was HEAVY), I couldn’t steer the boat and lean over the side so I had to try and get far enough back, gauge the drift and the angle, steer roughly in the right direction, but the boat into neutral and then pile over the side with a pole, a rope and a torch in hand … and a prayer in my heart!

The first time I actually managed pretty well; it only took three attempts. The second time on the same buoy, in twilight but with more of a wind (and the sails up as I was trying to sail onto the mooring just to really make things complicated) I made a bit more of a pig’s ear of the whole thing and then after three attempts I gave up, put the sails away and then had to try and pick the buoy up in what was now just the light of the moon. Still, I prevailed and had a great night’s sleep. As a result, knowing that I was securely tied to a mooring designed for an 80+ foot long Dutch steel cutter which weighs in at considerably more than Pamela C’s 8 tonnes, I had a good night’s sleep on board.

As I venture further afield, I’m sure there will be times when I wish I had people on board to help. Hopefully, I will have friends, both old and new, who join me for trips and share in the experiences as we explore new locations near and far.

In the last year of boat ownership, I have made some lifelong friends already, and I look forward to making many more as I sail “single-handed” around the world!

Lundy Island

Lundy lies off the coast of North Devon, where the Atlantic ocean meets the Bristol Channel with nothing between it and America, a granite outcrop, three miles long and half a mile wide. In the hubbub of the modern world, it is a place apart, peaceful and unspoiled.

https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/lundyisland/

As a child, I recall hearing talk of Lundy Island, but I don’t think I ever truly understood what or where it was until now.

Whilst planning for my trip(s) in May, which I’m hoping will include a stopover in the Isle of Man to see my mum, I noticed this little outcrop of land off the coast of North Devon. After realising it was Lundy, I became intrigued and decided I would have to visit it after I eventually make it to the Scilly Isles.

Apparently, the National Trust charges a £10 per person landing fee, which is payable in the pub (free to National Trust members). With this and the alleged fees for anchoring around certain areas of the Isle of Wight, I am beginning to think it might be worth renewing my annual membership (which sadly lapsed some years ago).

Certainly, some of the images I have managed to find online make the place look amazing and well worth a visit.

https://www.navily.com/mouillage/lundy-island-harbour/34231

Sailing Along the Jurassic Coast

Photo by John Lockwood on Unsplash
Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash
Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash

Sailing along the Jurassic Coast is, to be honest, something I have started to take a little bit for granted. It is a beautiful location, and I could never tire of the awesome views and breathtaking scenery. However, it is something I’ve started to just take it in my stride as I meander backwards and forwards between Portland and Portsmouth.

I recently talked to a Patreon subscriber and suggested they join me for a few days in April or May as we might consider doing a Cornish pub crawl (what could possibly go wrong!), and it was at that stage that an advert popped up on Facebook with almost the exact same itinerary as we had been discussing! (They don’t listen to your conversations, honest!)

The advert was for Saga (yes, I am that old!) and the thing that made us both almost choke was the price!

This was very similar to the itinerary we had discussed, 8-10 nights, down to the Scilly Isle and back, stopping off at some spots of natural beauty on the way (and a few Cornish pubs). All of this for the cost of his monthly Patreon subscription (and a few beers/etc, en route). This just goes to show what great value Patreon subscriptions can be 🙂

If you haven’t yet thought about supporting the channel, then perhaps you should. You can live vicariously through reports of our misdeeds as we navigate the highs and lows of boat ownership, and the more income the channel generates, the more time I can dedicate to creating content – which increases the value even more!

Admittedly the past 12 months have been a little scant content-wise, what with most days feeling like Ground Hog Day in the marina .. I am hoping that this will change as 2023 starts to unfold – and you can be at the tip of the spear as the adventures really start to begin!

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It Is Alive!

Following on from my previous posts about the autohelm (go read them if you have time!)

We now have a working (but not yet calibrated) drive unit installed! This is very exciting!

The next steps are

I will be looking for volunteers to join me and help me not crash the boat while I’m messing around above and below decks with the various bits of electronics! I’m hoping to be able to do this the end of March if not sooner (subject to surgery and recovery).

The overall cost of the new autopilot has been not short of eye-watering. £7,600 in parts and another £1,500 in labour for the glass work, welding and fitting. It looks like I am going to be working this off for many months to come!

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Curve Balls and Lemonade

For a while now, I have been experiencing excruciating pain in areas of the male anatomy that should not feel pain under any circumstances. It comes and goes, it isn’t a hernia, it isn’t an STD, it doesn’t seem to be cancer (thank God!), the quacks have poked and prodded a great deal and have a long list of things that it isn’t, but none of them (until today) have managed to work out what it IS.

That all changed this weekend just gone. After another painful week and calls to my GP in Portland (I had moved there last year after the Doctors in Hertfordshire had let me down one too many times) who said “as you’re 100 miles away go to a walk-in clinic near where you’re staying” .. I ended up in Watford General at their walk-in centre.

I had only been there 30 minutes when they came out to me and said “your test results are back, you need to go to A&E immediately. They then walked me past a 3+ hour queue and straight into a queue of ambulance drivers waiting to deposit patients in A&E” (December 2022, vast portions of the NHS were on strike and ambulances were taking over an hour sometimes much longer, to hand over their charges).


When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

Elbert Hubbard

Within another 45 minutes I was being assessed by several nurses in A&E and they took yet more fluids, blood pressure readings, and more. And there I waited for 11 hours whilst they normalised my levels. They then said I needed a CT scan, but that would be another 6 hours or so – after some negotiation, I convinced them to let me walk the 500m to my home so I could get some sleep and I promised to return just as soon as they could slot me in for a CT scan (which was just after noon) – it was 4am when they let me escape, so I at least managed a little sleep in my own bed – with the aid of pain killers prescribed by the attending physician.

Back I wandered at noon, and proceeded to climb into the CT scanner – odd that when I looked up I saw it was one of the ones that we supply parts for at my new job at loadbalancer.org! (we supply the loadbalancer which takes the HL7 image traffic and routes it to various back end databases – basically haproxy on steroids).

I then had to wait another 2-3 hours to see a specialist who diagnosed kidney stones … one of which is over 2cm (20mm) in size. It needs to come out, not immediately … “We can do it tomorrow” (this was now Saturday evening, I had originally walked in at 5pm Friday night).

They proceeded to admitted me, and prep’d me for surgery – Nil By Mouth from 2 am. Surgery should be first thing, 11am at the latest, they said. Great .. but I have to pick my mum up from the airport in a little over 24 hours … “No, you won’t be able to drive for at least 2 days after the General Anaesthetic”. Christmas was looking more and more complicated by the hour.

After a relatively good night on a ward (they have improved somewhat since I was last in Watford General probably 10 years earlier) the proposed time for my surgery came and went, I started to wonder if I had been forgotten about, as did the nurses. They found the surgeon, a urologist and an anesthesiologist (sounds like the pre-cursor to a joke!) who surrounded me in my bed, and said they probably couldn’t operate today after all – but if necessary, they could fit a stent to drain the affected area – which would maybe buy me 3 months but would mess up my quality of life. After a short discussion, we agreed that painkillers and rest were just as good, and they would reschedule me as an outpatient early in the New Year.

My 11 hours in A&E had now turned into 3 while days, and I hadn’t actually been operated on .. but at least we (hopefully) now know what is causing the pain (akin to stabbing red hot pokers). I’m discharged by 5pm and wander home – where I then sleep for 2 days!

Subsequently, I have been given dates of Jan 3rd (more tests), Jan 17th (surgery – cancelled) and now Jan 31st for surgery. Fingers crossed this actually happens and I can start to heal and be ready for the sailing season that it just around the corner!

So, watch this space for more updates!

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