Braking bad

I had an old house mate (from my days of land living) a friend called "tall" Dave come to visit for a weekend. 

He's a good mate who enjoys sailing but by his own admission has forgotten almost everything he learned on a competent crew course several years ago. He helped bring Mistral - Varekai  Boogie Nights back from Spain over four years ago but has done little sailing since then.

I introduced him to Beach Barbie first. Explaining her importance to the overall safety and security of the vessel.
Followed by the other safety kit (all new), the lines (all new), the kettle (the only original item), the helm (recently fettled, see blog entry "got a stiffy") and the sails (all new).

The boat has changed quite a bit since that big trip we did. There's a lot to take in.

Safety first, how to use the man over board items; the throwing line; the life ring and dan buoy; the rescue sling. How to deploy the liferaft. Where the fire extinguishers are. Where the gas shut off valve is. Where the flares live. Where the safety lines live. Where the May Day VHF radio crib sheet lives. Where the bilge pumps are located. Correctly fitted life jacket and how to activate it if you fall in and it doesn't automatically inflate.

Cup of Coffee? You look like you need it. 

Then, I moved on to which line does what. They have all moved since he sailed it on that delivery trip.

"

There's two up-fuckers, four down-fuckers based on traffic light colours, 1 red, 1 amber and 2 greens, a vanga-dang, a "Mr Jibbins" (we won't be using that today) and a "Dump n Grind" (previously known as  "scream if ya wanna go faster" aka the main sheet).  That's 9 clutches right under your nose.
The Dump n Grind has a Disco Tweaker too, which is something I added by nicking a handy billy** originally destined for use with a boom brake* and requires cowboy, yee-har skills to use, see you just flick it like this... and yee-har.  The blue Dump N Grind line lives in a heap by the wheel, the disco line lives on the other side of the winch bar in the cockpit to avoid the two getting snaggled.
Then there's the new furling line block with a ratchet and cam cleat on one side of the cockpit, a spinnaker pole down haul block on the other and sheet lines running forward to the new Genoa (no never met her) , Mr Jibbins the self tacker is packed away in a bag on my bunk. 
The two jib up fuckers and the red for danger spinnaker halyard are all nestled at the mast now, located by that new mast winch which arrived eleven months ago. Nice isn't it. Makes life so much easier.
Oh and that silver rope, that's the pole up. yes, That big pole that's attached to the rail. Don't worry, we won't be getting the spinnaker out today, yes that big colourful sail in the bag, I reassured Dave, however, I'm going to put it in the saloon where I can reach it easily, just in case, you know, just in case. 

"

Whilst my boat savvy friends and previous co-skippers Hazel, Rick and Sue picked all of this up as naturally as opening a bottle of wine and putting your feet up, Dave looked a little bewildered.

No worries, once we slipped our lines out of the marina berth, we headed off for a night on anchor in Chichester Harbour.

Dave doing his best impression of Will Smith, the fresh prince of Chichester.

I put Dave on the wheel with a telly screen to give him a break from having to remember things, which left me free to play with the sails and the sun was shining.

Goose winging into Chichester Harbour on a sunny summer evening with light winds.

It's been a long while since I last anchored Boogie Nights, but everything set first time round, no messing and we were soon sitting down for a late evening dinner in the cockpit while the small handheld GPS (my dad bought it for the boat when he helped bring it back from Gibraltar in 2010 - thanks dad) was switched on as anchor alarm.
If we drifted more than the length of the boat, it sets off a little chirrup to let us know.
With the changing of the tide in the middle of the night I looked to visually check that our anchor was still good. I'd forgotten how much I love being at anchor.

A beautiful moonlit night

anchor lights

Next stop was Cowes, Friday was the last day of Cowes week, so watching fireworks and meeting with friends was planned. Torrential downpours weren't planned though and it turned into a bit of a wash out.
The weather forecast was showing that a big old tail end of a tropical storm, called Bertha, was heading our way on Sunday. But Saturday was looking good for sailing.

To make up for a piss poor Cowes night, I mentioned to Dave that the weather and tides were spot on for a fast lap of the Isle of Wight. A bit lumpy for the first couple of hours then a great wind direction for a fast sail round the back of the island then back to shelter before the gales arrive.
Dave was keen. I was looking forward to a good blast to clear away the previous nights dark clouds and damp spirits.

Beach Barbie with her classy cable tie crown keeps a look out for racing boats ahead of us

We turned left out of Cowes. It was a bit choppy, with the strong south westerly wind picking up the fairly big tide as it headed down toward the needles channel.
My first mistake was not hoisting the main sail within the sheltered harbour entrance. This meant we were being bounced around and the boat rolled and slammed as we ducked between racing yachts trying to avoid interfering with their race. Just as the melee was clearing and we found some clear space on the water I prepared to hoist the main. This is when I realised my second mistake, I hadn't double checked the halyard fitting as usual.
The Halyard (up-fucker 1) had become detached and was now flying several metres in the air behind us.
So I spun the boat around to head downwind to see if the halyard might fall back within the grasp of the spreaders.

No. It was now flying ahead of us by several metres.

No matter which way I turned the boat, the halyard just kept on flying beyond reach.
Motoring as fast as possible downwind yielded the best results with it occasionally dropping down and hitting the forestay, so I sent "tall" Dave forward with a couple of lifelines attached to his life jacket harness and my longest boat hook, having already gone forward myself and realised I was around 30cm too short to reach it.

After 20 long minutes of waving the hook at the sky, he managed to snag the halyard and pull it back in.

He clambered back to the cockpit with his prize, a fancy grey dyneema line with a faulty clip on the end. I asked if Barbie had had anything to say while he was up there, to which he replied,

No, she was resolutely silent. I think she is reserving her judgement for later.

We then changed places so that I could run around the boat with the halyard and undo it from its maypole style mess. With a fresh roll of tape in my pocket I fastened it back to the main and taped the loose catch, pulled a couple of reefs in the mainsail before hoisting and then finally we were sailing an hour after setting off!
But by this time, the damage had been done.
Dave was decidedly a whiter shade of pale.

I sailed the boat solo while Dave sat and stared at the horizon willing his sea sisckness tablet to start working. I suggested he go and lay down until it took effect, but unsurprisingly he was unwilling to go down inside the boat.
It's not easy tacking down a very busy Solent into 28kts of wind while you have a large person looking ill in the cockpit. Whilst I can handle Boogie Nights well enough on my own, I can't handle seeing friends look unwell, not when they're supposed to be enjoying it. We do this for fun!
We reached a point, just south of Yarmouth (Isle of Wight Yarmouth, not Great Yarmouth on the east coast) when I asked Dave if he would like to continue or head back.

Freshly painted nails make me more self aware of my delicate digits. My favourite Gill gilet is ever present blocking the wind but allowing me to keep the layers thin. 

lightweight leggings are much easier to pull waterproof trousers over if the weather turns foul.
Leopard print is de rigueur on Boogie Nights

We headed back up the Solent.

running without a preventer

With the wind behind us everything seemed so much calmer for Dave. But for me, this is when I get twitchy. Needing to gybe every 10-20 minutes meant rigging a preventer (stops the boom from crashing across the boat) was going to be a right royal pain in the arse. So steering by hand was essential. As was being quick on the helm.

another Dehler, called Kelana heading the same way.

Oh how I wished I could beam Hazel in at that moment, or any of my boaty friends who understand the risks of running without a preventer, trying to cut it as fine as possible to minimise the number of gybes needed to maintain a good/fast course

It was around this time I cursed myself for not fitting the boom brake I was given as a gift at the end of 2013. (it's a Walder boom brake, which isn't my first choice, but when it's gifted to you, you don't turn that kind of generosity down)

I've been stepping over it for months in my forward cabin. I put it there thinking eventually I would get pissed off enough to give in and finally fit it. I've stubbed my toes on it, bruised the soles of my feet on it, got tangled up in it. Always cursing.

So, this week, after 10 months of pain and cursing,  I finally fitted that f*&king thing! That bad boy boom is now braked.

A second hand donated Walder boom brake

(*the boom brake requires the use of a handy billy to tension up the line on the drum, causing added friction, which means the boom can move only slowly while it slides around the drum, so when the boat is going into the wind, the boom brake is released without tension, but then when the wind is behind the boat, tension is applied to the brake, which stops the boom from being able to fly across the boat uncontrolled, which would damage the boom, mast or other fittings or could potentially kill someone if they got in the way)

 (** a handy billy is a mini block and tackle which gives a much stronger purchase on a line. So one line attaches to the end shackle. The handy billy has it's own captive line tied on to the end of one of the blocks and then goes backward and forward around the pulleys, it becomes 4:1 ratio, which means a small amount of pulling by me on the handy billy line means lots of pulling power on the single line attached to the end of it.

a highly technical drawing of a handy billy

The other half

For anyone considering life on a boat, one of the questions  that immediately springs to mind, 

other than

"is it cold in winter"

is "where do you keep all your stuff?" But, the question should really be,

how much stuff do you need?

We are so conditioned to acquiring more and more things that make life easier, simpler, more efficient or more, just, more... that learning to reverse that can be very very hard. Especially when lots of those things have been given as presents from friends and family over several years.

www.storyofstuff.org

It took years for me to pare down my possessions to enable me to fit them in the 57' narrowboat, Honey Ryder. It was down to clinical, cold hearted, calculated sheer bloody mindedness and several slightly awkward conversations with folks who felt slightly peeved that I had Ebayed gifts from several years previous.

On my mission to have less but live more, I asked all friends and relatives to please not buy me any gift or thing that doesn't have a very specific purpose (I should make it clear that I have very generous friends and family for which I am extremely grateful)  To the point that I get very anxious when given a well meaning but useless item. My immediate thought, where will it go?

If it cant be drunk or eaten; fit easily within a boat cupboard; withstand 45knots of direct wind or be dropped on the floor in a puddle of salt water and remain useful then it has no place here. 

When I was living on Honey Ryder, every month I would go through the cupboards in a section of the boat and have a bit of a clear out. With every thing that I got rid of, I felt as though a weight was lifting from my shoulders. That 57' x 6' metal tube was schtuff absorbing. Even when it was fully loaded, it still trundled along at 4 or 5 mph. It was a non performance boat. It weighed 15 tonnes. It was made of sheet steel. If I had 3 pairs of shoes or 10, it really didn't give a toss either way. It was a bit like the Hob-Nob biscuit of the boat world. You know, the kind you can dip in a hot drink and it asks for more.

"C'mon, is that all you've got? Hit me, hit me again, just lay it on me. C'mon, I can take it"

When I was paring down, ready to sell Honey Ryder I had the aim to fit everything I own into a car.
One single car.

It wasn't easy. And I didn't quite manage it. My car was too small.
It seems I am quite the maximallist for a minimalist.

When I bought the Dehler 36 four and a half years ago in Gibraltar, I didn't have particularly many plans, other than to sail solo round Britain at some point and have a nice time cruising around in the holidays and at weekends, I certainly didn't want to race it, but I am a speed demon and I like to go as fast as I can at all times.
Minimalism, though important, wasn't an all consuming obsession until reality hit home after sailing Mistral, Varekai, Boogie Nights back to the UK virtually empty and then it filled rapidly with "life". Or at least what I thought was life.

It's only when you move onboard a weight sensitive yacht and start to get a feel for how your stuff fits as well as how your stuff is, or isn't, fit for purpose that you can see further areas that can be slimmed down or changed.
While I was worrying about fitting everything into a car, what I should also have been considering was getting everything I own down to less than 120kg, or the weight of two people.

No room for fat people unless they're going to sit on the rail. Make them pack light.

The boat seems to whinge and complain at anything brought on board. It mocks me.
The shape of the cupboards means they are awkward to use. Food shopping is frought, everything that comes onboard has to be taken out of its packaging and put into boat specific containers. This highlights the vast amount of over packaging we deal with daily when emptying four carrier bags of food and immediately have one full carrier bag of rubbish (recycling) to go straight back out. .

"so you want to put that large bag of crisps in there do you? Fine, they're light enough, but you won't be able to close the door"

How many pairs of jeans? They're heavy, how about jeggings? Make sure you roll them really small otherwise the door wont shut. Thick cotton shirts? Let's just have long sleeve t-shirts and throw a short sleeve shirt over the top. That way you can survive with fewer space consuming shirts on hangers.

"you're gonna need some smaller hangers, this cupboard is meant for pigmies with narrow shoulders."

Don't forget to roll those t-shirts nice and small, otherwise the door wont shut
One coat, not six. One pair of boots, not three. Maxi dress? Ha ha ha. You want jumpers? You can have two, and make sure you roll them small, otherwise the door wont shut.

a bonus is that people think you dress kinda kooky and edgy, without realising that it's borne out of lack of options.

It becomes very apparent, very quickly that a yachts performance is effected enormously by the weight it has to carry and how it's distributed.
The wardrobe is on a strict one in, one out rule. Everything is counted, itemised, audited. 

I never thought I'd be saying that I audit my wardrobe.

In the galley, that glass jug and earthenware you've always moved from house to house, suddenly seems to weigh the same as a baby elephant and despite being aesthetically pleasing, it is now coming between you and that extra 0.002 of a knot you so desperately seek when sailing.

plastic straight sided jug with attachable lid is very light and practical. Glass jug = baby elephant.

Weigh your dog. Unless you're going to train it to ride the rail and hike to maximise the moveable ballast weight, then trade that heavyweight Labrador/Doberman/Alsatian in for a 3kg compact version.

 You'll find yourself perusing the plastic summer season picnic section at the supermarket, with a tape measure, to ensure any glass to plastic replacement isn't more than X high and X wide with straight sides so that other lightweight plastic things can be stacked inside it to save space.
  Glass coffee jars? They're a just a plain liability, a plastic coffee receptacle is required. Sugar in a glass sugar jar? You're kidding right? That's slowing you down by at least 0.000001knot.
Actual glass wine glasses? Ok, I'm not a barbarian, I saved a couple of those for shore based quaffing, but otherwise all glasses are being replaced with plastic.  I'm still seeking plastic replacements for shot glasses. (friends/family - a gift idea, it passes the eat/drink/drop test)
Over the years I have acquired six different mugs (all of them pottery type), that's SIX! I don't even drink hot drinks and I've never had more than four people on the boat. Clearly there is still work to be done.

6 pottery mugs, hardly ever used. Plastic rules the drinks cupboard.

Anything that looks pretty is usually a liability. You'll find yourself browsing the shelves of kitchenware in various stores and giving it the little nail tap on the side to check if it's glass or plastic and swiftly eschewing  anything that goes with a ting or ring, preferring instead a dull clack or thud.

hand painted bowls from Istanbul, pretty but fragile, not very heavy though. They've survived the past 4.5 years amazingly.
It's hard to have too many bowls on a boat, they're more practical than plates.

Almost my entire book collection lives on this

Kindle

All of my music lives on a hard drive and a couple of MP3 players that plug directly into the stereo, films are gradually being moved from dvd to hard drive. Very little excess baggage lives on the boat. But I have every kind of luxury and space/weight saving gadget any sane person could want, and more.  But sometimes there's things that you want to keep, they're useful, but you don't want to live with them.  All of those tools needed for anti fouling or other annual jobs. I've got three sewing machines, but I don't want to carry them all on the boat all of the time.

Seasonal stuff such as thick duvets, electric blankets and winter boots are just dead weight in the summer. I don't want to get rid of them, but I really don't want them on the boat. A family heirloom pottery piggy bank and lead crystal vase? Where in the name of Schtuffingtons should that live?
Where to put spare sails or those pesky doors that I took off to allow the boat to breath?

The answer, is that most people who live on a boat have shore-side storage. Some have a shed.
Some have a shed on wheels (a trailer or horse box). And some of us have a shed on wheels that can be driven.

My van is in effect the other half of my house. It's that, much visited loft space in a house, it's the cupboard under the stairs, it's the shed down the end of the garden, it's the spare box room.

Within its practical cavernous interior my dirty habit of fabric hoarding resides. My entire wardrobe of cycling clothing, my giant larousse french dictionary, my winter coats, a union jack tutu and spare main sail battens, the baby sander, the bucket of car wash and sponges, the games of pictionary and Cluedo sit on a shelf next to some motorbike gloves and a helmet which is right beside my photo studio light stands and a spare diesel jerry can.
It doubles as a changing room, a workshop, a cycle storage and maintenance area.

abandoned for too long, the shed needs a bit of a tidy

My Peugeot Boxer long and high is a mighty tool. But in recent times it's been a troubled thing. It first failed its mot as it needed a bit of welding, nothing major. No problem, "I will just sell the half ton tail lift out of the back and that should raise enough money to get it through" I thought. But whoops, the William Anker who came to remove the taillift, in my absence, chose to rip it out rather than sympathetically remove it. Bolt cropping the electrics he basically disabled the poor Boxer, unbeknown to me, until the time came to try and drive it to an MOT station. I knew I would be in for a tough time when I moved south while the poor van languished in Essex, unloved and undrivable and more importantly, too far away to use as a shed. 

While I've been gadding about on the triangle race and other sailing trippettes here and there as well as working, the van has been towed backwards and forwards around the marina in Essex by friends who were trying to keep it safe for me until I could arrange to move it.

I hired a truck, and went to rescue it. It took a full day. And a curry.

piggyback truckin'

Now I have my "shed" within the same car park as my car, I can finally get to the bottom of the electrical problem and see if I can get it fixed up and road worthy again.

First job, de-clutter six months worth of schtuff accumulation. 

Going for a JOG

With the Ships Dog safely collected from his luxury country retreat in Derbyshire,  we called in to say hello to a few chaps who were fresh back in "town" having just sailed around the world.

It was good to see the familiar faces again, a little more tanned and rugged looking than just 11 months ago when I last saw them.
It was over a quick cider that Sue,  a Sussex yacht club member and triple clipper legger on Old Pulteney, asked if I had thought about entering the JOG race in just a few days time which was going from Cowes to Fecamp.

The Junior Offshore group is for amateur, unsponsored boats

Hmmm. what a good idea! 
Sue and I had briefly discussed sailing together this summer to see firstly, how we get on as a double handed team and then secondly, if all goes well to arrange a longer distance trip with the aim of qualifying as a possible second team entry for the AZAB in 2015.
Hazel, who co-skippered Boogie Nights for the Triangle race is already qualified for the AZAB.

A quick phone call, followed by some rapid entry form filling, and we were on the list.

All of the cruising paraphernalia that I had started to load on the boat, went swiftly back to the car for storage along with a few more bits that I had identified as unnecessary. 

Before I had a chance to think too much more about weather patterns, tidal flows or race starts, Thursday arrived and along with it, Sue.
The plan was to have a little familiarisation sail over toward Cowes where we planned to "hang out" for a night before race start at 0730 friday morning.
The wind decided familiarisation sailing is for loosers, so after an hour or so of sailing nowhere fast, we had to motor over to Cowes.

Sue whipped the charts out and I read out the sailing instructions from the race entry so that we could be sure we took the correct route east from Cowes and out past the various buoyage before turning southwards toward Fecamp in France.
A swift and elegant G&T and it was bed time at midnight.

Rising at 0530 to give the ships dog his last sniff of fresh turf and Sue her morning cuppa we headed off for the race start with hazy sunny skies beckoning.

There was a rip snorter of a tide by the start line and given our lack of boat familiarisation the day before, this was Sue's first proper go at pulling on lines with any real urgency. We gave ourselves plenty of space to avoid being in the way of the "serious" guys and to avoid the risk of spearing anyone with #beargryllsbarbie
We were so wrapped up in our discussion about gybing that we actually missed the visual start signal someway behind us being hoisted up a flag pole on shore. So we crossed the line about two minutes late.
Nay mind, it's a long enough race of 90 miles and I didn't worry about two minutes lost.

It turned out to be a race of halves. Or something like that.
Half the fleet headed east and picked up more consistent breezes and managed a reasonable time down to France with the faster boats arriving around midnight.
The other half, which included us, took a more direct route, which unfortunately took us straight into a large area of no fucking wind. (or NFW as I shall henceforth refer to it.)

The first hour was spent optimistically thinking the wind would pick up soon. I took the opportunity to take a power nap.
The second hour of NFW was spent thinking maybe we should quit, in between re-applying sun cream and reducing layers of clothing.
The third hour was spent desperately trying to stop the sails flogging to allow the 5kts of breeze to take effect. Sue sang a "wind song" that involved sprouts.
At this point a large thunder cloud was on the horizon.

anti-becalming weapon

Then I put my shortest shorts on and smallest top. Normally this is the trigger for squalls or at the very least the sun to hide behind a cloud. Still NFW

The deciding factor was, if that thunder cloud brings wind, then let's carry on. If not, then we motor the remaining 60 miles to France.

30 minutes after donning those short shorts... the sun went behind a cloud, Boogie Nights kicked up its heels, accelerated back up to 7kts and we were jiving for a very happy few miles.
Then that wind gradually eased back though as evening approached, so the beautiful warm night was spent eaking and tweaking with the main sail to squeak as much boat speed out of the wind as possible. All the while an eclectic mix of music wafted out of the cockpit speakers causing the odd spontaneous dance move or sing along by whoever was on watch.

The morning arrived, and with it, the final straw.

Percy Verance who had stayed on board for the previous 22 hours decided he was getting off when the sails started to bang about and our speed dropped to zero.

And so our race was ended sadly in retirement. We motored the final 26 miles to France. Arriving in perfect time for mid day drinks in the club house.

glassy sea, Fecamp ahead

Hot Hot Hot and NFW forces race retirement

We weren't the only ones to retire. There were several others in the same situation as us. Though we were the last to give up on the hope of finishing which made us the last to arrive in Fecamp.

Fecamp is a fairly average french seaside town, nothing particularly outstanding but nothing bad either.
There's plenty of small eateries with the obligatory arrogant french service staff.

No dining out experience is complete in France without being made to feel like a naughty child at the dinner table.

check out our selfie

north facing cliffs at Fecamp are a geologists text book wet dream

So while we were feeling childish, we found a tame dragon fly and asked it to pose for us....

dragonfly training

Obi wan struggles to train this padawan

I also baked Cookies - if you want to know how then follow my simple baking guide

 

Mooring in Fecamp is often a rafting up affair due to being a popular stopover port. 

On arrival we were rafted three out, but the two boats inside us left to return to the UK allowing us to move onto the pontoon for the night. Early the following morning what appeared to be a large grey block of flats pulled alongside to raft up, blocking out the light and rousing us from our luxurious slumber. It was a large high sided catamaran with cigar smoking dutch people on board. We pre-warned them of our impending departure planned for the late evening.
Soon after, another dutch boat, a smaller monohulled yacht being sailed by two chaps, sun kissed and slightly rugged looking, came along and moored on the freshly emptied space on the opposite side of the pontoon hammerhead to us. Sue made clear her approval of the easy on the eye new neighbour while she spied out of the galley window as she made a cup of tea.
After our walk along the beach and lunch back on the boat, the block-of-flats neighbour suggested we swap places to enable a swift getaway for us later.
The downside to this was that our views of the rugged looking chap were now obliterated by the block of flats and we were now downwind of the vile stench emanating from the fattest cigars I have ever seen being smoked by our catamaran dwelling neighbours.
We jokingly discussed finding reasons to adjust things up the mast in order to catch a last glimpse, but Mr Rugged saved us the bother by being hoisted up his own mast and appeared, lurching skywards in short stilted moments alongside the familiar squeak of blocks and pulleys under load of human weight.
The vile cigar stench now wafting down on us and pervading the entire boat made us bring forward our plans to leave though and we started making ready to leave at 2030.

For the return journey back to Gosport, readers of my previous post Channel Hopping will have noted my observation about the wind on that occasion.
Well, it was true to form. Blowing from the north with a bit of blowing from the west as well. Which just so happens to be EXACTLY the way we wanted to go.

It would seem that Percy Verance who was on the outward leg but got off early had been replaced by Sod and his law. 

So the return journey was likely to be a mix of pointing-not-directly-where-we-wanted-to-go along with dodging squalls and getting wet, if the weather forecast was anywhere near accurate.

A lovely night sail brought a pretty sunrise when the sun eventually broke through and then the dark clouds started looming. The fork lightening started. Off in the distance at first, rumbling away distantly. It approached us as we reached the middle of the traffic separation area in the northern sector of the channel. Just as we reached the central reservation of the shipping motorway, the wind shifted, meaning we couldn't sail directly across the next lane. So we headed toward the light ship marking the end of the shipping lane in the hope we could start to head north west toward our goal.

But then the first of the squalls came. And with it a deluge. In seconds I was ankle deep in the cockpit despite its large draining capacity. Unable to outrun the storms we had to run with them, full main sail up and a partially furled genoa we watched the wind accelerate from 10kts to 30kts and we were humming along, Sue working the mainsail to avoid us being overpowered and I was on helm to keep us pointing toward the light, while lightening forked behind us.

Sue on helm in lumpy seas

Ideally we needed to reef but being in a fairly precarious place in the shipping lanes we needed to find some sea room to park the boat while we shortened the main sail.
Sue had never used single line reefing before so we needed a little extra time to allow for this.

Eventually we had space to reef, hove-to in the now quite lumpy sea while we reduced sail area and set off again with much better sail trim and comfortable boat speed heading in the right direction for once.

It was fairly short lived though, after two or three hours of that, the sun came out and we were shaking the reefs out and applying the sun cream again but struggling to point exactly the way we wanted to.

feet up, drying out after the earlier squalls and thunder storms

lifelines, a brew and home made cookies. Signs of a good passage.

While I was snoozing in the cockpit I was rudely awoken by a strange whooshing noise.
The first thing I saw was Sue, suddenly engulfed in lifejacket, as it had triggered and inflated.
The mainsheet tweaker sheet had somehow snagged the lifejackets toggle as Sue was trimming.

trapped at the wheel by an accidentally triggered lifejacket

With the lifejacket inflated, Sue couldn't actually fit between the wheel and the backstay and was trapped at the helm.  Both of us were unable to do anything for laughing at the sight of it.

We realised that any lady sporting zeppelins in her chest area would struggle to get in or out of the helm position.

the final approaches into the solent were frustrating and involved tack after tack. Then another squall hit us for a while, which sent us off in a spin. Quite literally.

We motored the final three miles back into Gosport where we moored up 22 hours after leaving France.

Where we went:

Extreme baking - part 1

Nothing lifts the spirits quite so well as a freshly baked goodie.

Whether that’s fresh baked bread, pastry, cookie or cake.

Some of Boogie Nights blog readers may recall my urge to bake a cake mid passage during the Triangle race recently.

I list “extreme baking” as one of my pastimes on my CV. It's almost a sport and I'm quite competitive.

Having fresh baked goods on board is a great way to make friends in port and can add a touch of the good life to a trip out, whether that’s a long passage, a race or short day sail.

Just because conditions can sometimes get hostile on board a sailing yacht, doesn’t mean we have to loose sight of civil things such as good food.

A happy and well fed crew is going to perform much better than one surviving only on tasteless dried food or canned mush.

Most people shy away from baking on board because of the paraphernalia required and the messy potential of dealing with raw ingredients. Not to mention a certain level of skill involved in getting the measurements right on a boat that might be leaning at 45 degrees and bouncing around, weighing scales are rendered useless.

In port we have the luxury of using the table, but at sea I use the floor space and the galley sink and drainer as secure places to put things to avoid them going flying.

breadcrumbs in the left bowl and sticky dough ball in the right bowl.

Getting the tools right before you start is essential.

What you will need:

• A set of measuring cups/scoops and spoons

• A sieve, small and large. (not absolutely essential)
• A large enough bowl or container to fit everything into whilst mixing, (one which has a clipable lid is ideal if you have to abandon your project partway due to adverse conditions.) 
  
• A measuring jug.
• A pair of rubber gloves (marigolds work fine and last ages)
• A non-stick baking tray with sides
• Grater with various sized grating faces (not absolutely essential but very useful)
• An airtight container, (this could be your mixing bowl/container.)

Two simple recipes for cookies

 

lemon, ginger & cinnamon cookies on the left  --  chocolate & chilli cookies on the right

ingredients can be used for more than just baking.

it all fits into a fairly compact space

Lemon, ginger & cinnamon cookies

Ingredients:

• 100g (2/3s of a cup) Plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ½ teasppon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice or mixed spice
• finely grated rind of 1 lemon
• 50g  butter (1/5^th of a regular 250g block)
• 50g caster sugar (1/4 cup slightly generous)
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup

Chuck into your bowl or mixing container : the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, spices and grated lemon rind. Give it a stir with a stick/spoon/fork  Or put the lid on securely and give it a jiggle.

Once it’s nicely mixed up, chuck the butter in, diced ideally and don your rubber glove. One handed is fine for this, you need to massage the butter and dry ingredients together until they become breadcrumbs.

If you need to attend to deck duties at this time, simply slide the glove off, leaving it carefully in the container, stick the lid on and you can carry on where you left off later.

Light your oven. We are aiming for 180 degrees or gas mark 4, which in boat oven terms is usually <maximium>

Once the mix has become breadcrumbs, you can then add the caster sugar. You could use regular sugar, it's not that critical. Again, give the mix a good jiggle with a stick/spoon or other useful stirring/mixing object.

Once that lot is mixed, you can then chuck in two table spoons of syrup, stir it up and then get your gloved hand back in there to squeeze everything together by massaging it into a ball.

Once it’s all together in a ball, divide it into 12 equal parts, more or less and roll each part into a ball.

Get the non-stick tray and place the balls firmly to avoid them rolling about and evenly spaced to allow for spreading when in the oven. 

they spread quite a lot in the oven, if they touch though, they are easily separated once cooled.

Put the tray in the oven on the best shelf for the highest heat. Some ovens burn stuff at the back, so you might need to spin the tray round half way.

They should take about 10 mins.

Take the tray out and leave it somewhere safe to allow them to cool and harden up for 2 minutes. This may be a grill area if you have one or you might identify a safe area, such as a cupboard or behind a leacloth on a bunk or anywhere they can sit safely until they’ve gone hard. Once all of the balls are turned into cookies, you can wipe clean the mixing container and put the cookies into it, ready to serve.

Chocolate and chilli cookies

Ingredients:

• 100g (2/3s of a cup) Plain flour
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 50g (1/4 cup) light muscavado sugar (demerera will do)
• 50g  butter (1/5^th of a regular 250g block)
• ¼ teaspoon ready chopped chilli from a jar or mild fresh chopped red chilli
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 100g plain dark chocolate (smashed or finely chopped/coarse grated)

Put all the dry ingredients together into your mixing container, mix em up.

Then, it’s glove time, chuck in the diced butter and chilli. Give it a good rub until all the ingredients look like breadcrumbs.

Add the syrup, mix with a stick or spoon first then massage into a ball.

Light the oven, if using a boat oven, most likely setting is <maximum> or, if using a domestic oven, then 180 degrees or gas mark 4.

finally add the chopped up chocolate and knead that lot into the sticky ball so that its evenly distributed through the large dough ball.

Divide into 12 bits, roll into balls and squish down lightly onto the baking tray allowing space between for the balls to flatten out and spread a bit.

Put the tray in the oven, they should take around 10 minutes more or less.

Let them cool for a couple of minutes when they’re done so they harden up, then put them into your air tight container ready to serve. 

Wet Shave

It's just three weeks since we popped our racing cherry in the Yachting Monthly Triangle Race and added another 1000 miles to the log book.
The antifoul that I put on in December was originally meant for the weedy needy River Crouch where practically the moment you put the boat in the water are the various weeds and cunning water creatures working out who is having which bit of this new surface area territory that has landed in their world.

The south coast is a slightly different kettle of fishiness. My soft easy wearing East Coast antifouling has picked up weed, then been blasted off and then the weed decided to have another go, this time sticking itself to the epoxy hull where the antifoul paint has worn away. Where the sun hits the boat the most on the current mooring is right up at the bow (pointy bit) and the boat has developed a green goatee. (or a Billy)

A green goatee

This means I either get the boat lifted, jet washed off and a quick top up with antifoul more suitable to the South Coast, which will cost me around £170 for the lift plus a can of antifoul. Or find a scrubbing post and attempt to balance the boat alongside so I can jet wash and touch up antifoul that way, which is a cheaper method. Or, even cheaper than that, I don my wetsuit, go for a swim and get scrubbing and give Boogie Nights a wet shave to knock back the goatee and buy me some more time between lift outs and more importantly, save me some money.

"Cost - nowt but a couple of hours swimming about."

 Banjo was unaware of my plans and looked on slightly worried as I wriggled and cursed, started sweating profusely,  wriggled and tugged whilst jumping up and down and cursed some more as I lithely slipped my old wetsuit on. (most recently worn a couple of years or so ago when I had to go in to clear the prop)

These things must shrink in the cupboard.
It was like a neoprene corset when I finally zipped it up. The label inside says SM, it should read BDSM.

A scrubbing brush and a crepe spatula - the perfect tools

I rummaged around in the lazarette and cutlery drawer finding practical tools for shaving a boat-goatee and discovered that my crépe spatula is just the job for giving Msr Weed the Gallic shrug.

Despite the hot weather, it's always a bit of a breath taking moment when we first lower ourselves down the bathing ladder. Good job my tight wetsuit rendered me incapable of breathing in much more which made the visiting neighbour boat occupant, who was watching me,  think that I'm much harder than I really am.

cleaning the rudder with my feet

The black part near the surface of the water is where weed sticks the most

It's trickier than you might imagine scrubbing and scraping a boat bottom whilst bobbing around, highly buoyant in a wetsuit. The technique I had to use was to swim toward the hull whilst going at it with the scrubbing brush or crepe spatula.

Handy hint:
I slung a strong line from the front of the boat, just hanging above the water and then tied off half way down the boat. This gave me something I could hang onto and use to brace against.
I also took a buoyancy jacket in with me. I wasn't wearing it, but used it as a float to lean on to keep my arm from getting tired while scrubbing.

A buoyancy aid makes a good low level assistance float

It's quite a sobering position to be in actually, (in the water) it's a good reminder that should I ever fall overboard, it would be impossible to get back on without help or a ladder. The sides of the boat loom over me. I can't imagine what it must be like trying to get back on in rough weather.

After nearly two hours of turning pruney I decided enough was enough. I've done my best. Sure there's still going to be some hairy bits here and there. But it's now looking much smoother around the water line. The goatee is gone.

smooth

The antifoul is almost all worn off at the bow

Since it was such a lovely warm day, it was a good opportunity for a team building exercise.
Banjo was unimpressed with his enforced swim.
"Come on it'll be good for you. Character building" I said.
His life jacket does a good job of floating him but ideally there should be some sort of chin flap to help keep his head/nose out of the water. I might have to modify it.

Reluctant team swimming

The reason for this flurry of scrubbing is because we've entered another race, this time, a quick one over to France.

Best get packing all my shit away again!

Vomit comet - A sprint north

Yachting Monthly Triangle Race: leg 3 - Treguier to Torquay

Welcome back for the third and final installment of the triangle story.

why did Barbie blush? Because the sea weed.

I’m back, it’s Beach Barbie reporting on behalf of Boogie Nights skippers Jayne and Hazel.

We all had a delightfully merry time in Treguier, France.

Well, I say all, they did, not me. I didn't get so much as a sip.

Those Brittanny folks treated us so well. Except for the French man who came and leant on me not realising I was even there, spinning me round on my cable tie, I was facing port for some time and I felt slightly queasy until Jayne came and set me straight again.