Wednesday 13 March 2024

The Jigsaw

 

The 'new' Wilkinson Sails loft is an unassuming structure, clad in corrugated sheet. It is located above the reach of the highest spring tide. A five minute walk (uphill) from its picture-postcard, Kentish clapperboard, predecessor.


Which was built beside Faversham Creek. Flooding, with increasing regularity, as the channel silted. (Due to a decade-long wrangle, between Peel Ports and the County Council, over responsibility for maintenance of the town's sluice gates).

The ‘new’ loft may be less picturesque, than its predecessor. But, it provides a more cost effective and practical location, from which to operate a burgeoning sail making business. The move thus embodies the Wilkinson philosophy, of providing simple and pragmatic solutions.

The door groans theatrically, as I open it. Causing Sarah to look up, from the sail which she is repairing. She calls, to alert Alan, who emerges from the store room, bearing Stargazer's new genoa. Completed, after much over winter design discussion. It is cross-cut and in Contender Vectran.

One more piece of the jigsaw, which is the readying of Stargazer for her summer cruise, slots into place.

In the boatyard, meteorological spring announces its arrival, with sudden showers and languorous bursts of sunshine. Whilst the tide ebbs and floods with a more predictable regularity. Work, on Stargazer, occurs in opportunistic fits and starts, as conditions permit.

Day by day, the ratio of sunshine to showers rises. One by one, refit tasks are completed: polishing, antifouling, anode renewal, engine servicing and water pump replacement. Pieces completing the pre-season preparation picture. Until Stargazer is ready for her relaunch.





Friday 1 March 2024

In Tension

 

In the still of Friday evening, I bring Stargazer alongside the crane dock. Ready for her annual lift out, arranged for Monday.

Weekend long, the weather holds.

But, on Monday, forty knot gusts race one another, along the length of the river. Squalls scurrying from winter into spring. Crane work is cancelled. Carefully laid plans are thrown awry.


Tuesday and Wednesday are forecast to be fair, before the next system rolls in. But both days are already fully booked. And the 'rules,' of the crane dock are that boats, which have their lift cancelled, must queue for the next vacant slot. With Easter in the offing, such openings are in short supply. 
Tension mounts.


The 'rules,’ however, rely on human interpretation. With Stargazer already alongside, and myself on hand, to unship her backstay and aid sling placement, she would be a quick lift. 
On Tuesday I arrive at the yard early, to see what opportunities the day may bring. Chatting agreeably, in the sunshine, with nautical passers-by. Lured outdoors, by the welcome prospect, of a change in the season.


The benign conditions speed the morning's work. And apply a balm of benevolence to proceedings. Taylor, multi-tasking Marina Manager and crane driver, ambles over to our conversational knot. "Reckon we can squeeze Stargazer in next, if you like?"


Stargazer is swung ashore. A growth, of underwater slime, testament to a (largely) mild autumn and winter. Pent up breath can be released. Preparations, for Stargazer's summer cruise, may proceed. 


My visit, to the French Visa centre, had yielded a six month Visa de Long Sejour, in yesterday’s post. (See French Connections). I have my ticket to summer.


Now it is time to ready Stargazer's hull, rig and engine. Whilst Sarah and Alan complete her new genoa, in the loft at Wilkinson Sails.



Thursday 15 February 2024

French Connections

 ONE


A fine drizzle glosses the pavements, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. As I step off the train, on my annual mission to seek a French Visa. That vital ingredient in the heady 'Asterix' potion, which will fuel Stargazer's summer plans.


Back home in Kent, the silhouettes of bare-branched, skeletal trees stand sentry on the horizon. Colours are muted. Sunlight winter-thin and palid. Soon, though, it will be time to perform the first rite of spring. The bringing of Stargazer ashore, to prepare her for a summer at sea.

TWO


Last May, whilst Stargazer was in Concarneau, the one hundred foot, foiling, Ultim (short for Ultimate) class trimaran 'SVR' was in port. Readying for a single handed, round the world race, against five sister ships. The first time that such a feat has been attempted.


On the seventh of January, the fleet left Brest. Making thirty five to forty knots, as they smoked south, toward the Cape of Good Hope. There SVR struck a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). The violence of the impact driving her dagger board aft. Slicing open the hull. Watertight bulkheads averted a sinking. But her race was ended. Five competitors fought on in the ‘Big South.' Gitana building a commanding lead, through the windswept wilds of the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties.


Sufficient to enable her skipper, Charles Caudrelier, to back off for thirty six hours, whilst a storm blew through. Before tackling Cape Horn in more benign conditions. Now on the homeward leg, he is nearing Recife. The only one, of the 'flying boats,' not have to pitted to repair damage (predominantly to foils). Now he ekes out his remaining six days' provisions. With the doldrums between him and the finish line.

THREE


The company behind Passeport-Escales is based within the city walls of Vannes. This is a scheme which Stargazer makes extensive use of. It grants five 'free' nights, in each of one hundred and fifty French marinas. In return for allowing others to use the vacant berth, of a boat away on passage, from a participating home marina.


Stargazer, the Passeport-Escales team inform me, has benefitted from more 'free' nights, since my retirement, than any other British boat. They therefore wish to conduct a short interview, for their house magazine 'Pass-Ports.' Its purpose is to publicise the scheme and, as Jean my interviewer explains, "to help people to dream." An endeavour which Stargazer wholeheartedly supports.


Picture Credits:

4.Gitana in flight                        courtesy of  Yann Riou polaRYSE  Gitana SA
5.Gitana rounding Cape Horn   courtesy of  Yann Riou polaRYSE  Gitana SA

Thursday 1 February 2024

Foredeck Physics

 

Rich, marine engineer extraordinaire, makes short work of removing Stargazer's failed windlass. (See New Year’s Morn post).

The cause, of its demise is quickly clear. Electrolysis has been at work. The aluminium casting, of the chassis, has nobly sacrificed itself upon the altar of the Periodic Table. All that remains is a fine dust, surrounding a few skeletal 'fingers' of solid metal. It is one of these which has jammed the gypsy. To which the motor was connected only by the steel drive spindle. The housing crumbled to a powder.


A vacuum removes the debris and a wipe down, with methylated spirit, prepares Stargazer's foredeck to receive her new windlass. Bolt and hawse pipe holes align perfectly, as promised by the brochure.


Below decks we hit a snag. This is a 'boat job'  after all! The motor has grown in diameter, in the fourteen years since the original was fitted. The new one fouls both the locker front and the deck camber. Rotating it through one hundred and eighty degrees improves, but does not fully resolve, matters. Rich and I pause for coffee, cake and contemplation.


A plan is hatched. I glue and wire the pin of a new anchor shackle, on the dock. Whilst Rich returns to the his workshop, to fashion a structural plastic spacer. Our idea is to lower the motor. Simultaneously creating a clearance between its top and the deckhead; as well as its circumference and the locker door jamb.


Shadows stealthily lengthen across the foredeck. Until the windlass installation is complete and the anchor sits back on the bow roller. Stargazer is ready to sail, in search of secluded anchorages, once more.




Thursday 18 January 2024

A Kingfisher Comes To Call

 


Improbably iridescent, the Kingfisher pauses from its energetic darting. Fireball orange, treasure-island blue, ice white. A shimmering contradiction of colours, perched upon the red-rusted girders of the foot bridge.


Ice skins the waters of the stream which it spans. As they meander through winter-pallid sedge.


A keen wind whips into Oare Creek, from the Swale. 

Setting the feathered heads, of dormant reeds, aflutter.


A knoll rises from the marsh. An island of lush green, in a sea of bleached beige. Creating a sheltered sun trap, beneath the foot bridge.


The Kingfisher and I bask in our pool of warmth. Listening to the song of the wind and chuckle of the brook. The bird ceaselessly darting its multicoloured head from side to side. 


It dives. Flitting from bank to bank, in low, skimming, acrobatic flight. Its dazzling bright plumage magically melting, to my amazement, into this lanscape of wan vegetation and looking glass pools. The Kingfisher disappears from view, making toward the hamlet of Oare.


I follow, more sedately. Boots scrunching over the heavy hoar frost, which crowns the sea wall. Past the slumbering forms, of winterised boats.


The tide ebbs seaward.


Abandoning awhile the eclectically individualistic miscellany of craft, which the Hollowshore yard attracts.


Leaving a slender and serpentine rivulet of salt water, as a reminder of boundless summertime ocean horizons.


Water confined, for now, between banks of an unctious substance, not fully solid nor yet truly aqueous, East Coast Oooze. 


On which a mud streaked Redshank forages, in the low winter sun.
















Monday 1 January 2024

New Year's Morn

 


The first dawn, of the New Year, breaks sunny and still. No people abroad, nor a breath of wind. Only the silvery lap of the tide breaks the silence. 
It was on just such a morning, ten years ago, at anchor off Castle Townshend, on the southern shore of Ireland, that this tale began.


Stargazer's anchor windlass had uttered a series of protesting shrieks, upon being called to action, at our arrival. I had rowed ashore in search of grease, with which to soothe it. O'Donovan's store supplied food, petrol, gas, newspapers and friendly advice. But not grease. That, I was assured, was to be found in Baltimore.


This counsel proved sound. Alongside the jetty, in Baltimore, I split the gypsy from the gearbox. A shower, of fractured phosphor-bronze shards tumbled out. With no replacement parts available locally, my only recourse was to remove the shattered plain bearing entirely. Packing the drive with grease, in its place. That was in 2013.

As recently as last summer this 'temporary' arrangement was still in service. When Stargazer visited the island of Houat, in Quiberon Bay. But, the week before Christmas, it finally seized solid. Fortunately an updated model, said to have the same mountings and be compatible with Stargazer's switchgear, remains in production. An order was quickly placed.


In the tranquility, of the first hours of the first morning of 2024, I sit on Stargazer's foredeck sipping hot black coffee. Pondering how to create sufficient slack in the chain, to remove it from the gypsy, with the motor unable to turn the windlass. To my pleasant surprise, simply releasing the clutch, using a winch handle, does the trick.


As expected, the anchor shackle is rusted solid. Heaving on a heavy duty spanner, to undo it, shears the head off its pin. A fresh, fine toothed tungsten blade, in the ship's hacksaw, however effects a speedy release.


There is no more to be done, until Stargazer's new anchor windlass is delivered. Except to enjoy the serenity of this pristine New Year's Morn.






Sunday 17 September 2023

La Hirondelle 116

 

Stargazer pauses, overnight, in her dash up Channel, to beat the incoming gale. Allowing her skipper to sleep, and the tide to turn in her favour. Before setting out into Saturday’s pyrotechnic dawn.

On Friday morning, we had hoisted the cruising chute, off Eastbourne. By the glow of Stargazer’s navigation lights. Broad reaching past a sparkling, but yet to awaken, Hastings. 

We watch silently as the sun rises. Feel it’s warming glow chase away the night chill. Dry the pearls of dew from the decks.

Paint the sandstone bluff a dreamy gauzy gold.

As the heat of the day builds, the wind veers. Stargazer beats gently toward Dungeness. Riding the inshore eddy, which presages the turn of the Channel tide. The brutally square silhouettes, of its nuclear reactors, our day mark.

Off the tip, of the tawny gravel spit, the east going tide gathers Stargazer in its arms. Sweeping her along the rhumb line.

Accelerating the apparent wind.

Stargazer gathers pace, as the tide quickens further, off Folkestone.

By the time I radio Dover Port Control, for permission to cross the ferry entrance, Stargazer is making seven knots over the ground. The incoming Pride of France, warned of our presence, is happy to cross astern. Leaving our wind clear, from its turbulent shadow.

The breeze is building. The tide at its peak flow. As Stargazer rounds the South Foreland. 

We are finally able to bear off, by ten or fifteen degrees. Onto a flying fetch. Making between eight and nine knots over the ground. A glint of rooftops now visible on the horizon.

Stargazer skims through the familiar Ramsgate pier heads. To tuck in, beneath the high granite walls, for the night. The forecasters still in disagreement about the timing, but not the imminence, of a change in the weather.

Saturday morning dawns fiery and fair. A light easterly ruffles the sea. With the certainty of a favourable tide awaiting us, off the North Foreland. There is the possibility, of a romping twelve to seventeen knots of fair breeze, forecast for tomorrow. But, doubts remain amongst the forecasters: this may turn out to be a strong westerly headwind. To my eyes, the dawn sky has a look of mischief about it.

Stargazer hugs the shallows. Staying out of the strongest of the south going tide.

As she works her way up to the North Foreland. There to greet the first of the flood, into the London River.

Stargazer turns her bows due west. In the lightest of airs. Riding the tide. Helped along by the engine and its ailing water pump.

Until we sight the Medway channel. Where a tug waits to shepherd an arriving merchantman. The afternoon sea breeze playfully rippling the waters around her.

Stargazer glides past the quays of Thamesport, saluted by its cranes; and on up river.

Carrying the last of the flood. The wooded banks rising around her. Home before the weather hits.


Stargazer secures beside an illustrious new berth companion: Lively Lady. The thirty six foot yawl, aboard which sixties solo sailing pioneer, Sir Alec Rose, circumnavigated the globe.