And
finally the update is done which can only mean we’re back in the
cruising mode and about to head off. Or have already done so…
It has been a long 18 months, lots of work on Hannah, lots of paid work for Bee, less for me, but sat over the inevitable evening glass of wine (now home brewed) there is a feeling of satisfaction at the changes we have made - improvements all. Engine and gearbox sorted, doghouse built, new sails with the addition of a trys’l and small storm stays’l (NOT that we will ever need them….) and so on. Here’s a brief rundown on the efforts to date.
One
of its great assets was it enabled us to get on with work as it
tended to hide us from passers by and although work progressed slowly
we were moving forward. Of the many jobs we had to tackle the
repairing of various bits of hull damage was fairly prominent. Long
time readers will, perhaps, remember the stories of hitting lumps of
French granite and being assaulted by a runaway iceberg. The latter
was relatively easy as the damage was confined to the epoxy that had
been used to fair the hull.
The granite damage proved a different
problem as the cement we had used had set so hard it refused to crack
with a lump hammer and bolster and eventually we gave up and decided
it was sound enough. We ground it back to give a smoother finish and
declared ourselves satisfied. The wonder of concrete hulls…. And
the wonder of the use of the shower on Larus (Tim and Nancy’s boat)
to rid ourselves of the inevitable cement dust that accompanies the
grinding back of the hull.
Well
ok it wasn’t quite like that but certainly the gist. Reactions
varied from “the contents of a babies nappy” to a “great colour
to be seen at sea” with us firmly in the latter camp. By May, with
the sun high, we needed to remove the cover as temperatures would
easily rise to 30ْC
and above and even the tomato plants Bee had elected to grow seemed
to wilt under the heat.
We
completed the paint and bright work, cleaned up the engine, replaced,
with Geoff’s help, the timing belt and re-fitted the engine. By
late July we were back in the water and towed back to our berth.
Engine was re-connected, prop shaft and a new flexible stern gland
fitted and with new wiring we fired it up and did it run well. All
that thanks to John of course.
Smaller jobs were completed and then we got a surprise visit from Martin and Roma (the previous owners and builders of Hannah)in “Apple” a steel Wylo, their latest build (and last they assure us) Lots of neat ideas and high workmanship and great to see both boats together. Still prefer Hannah though.
Actually we have had several visits whilst here. Ziggy and Lisa and then Stephen and Zella both visited, at different times, from the US and then my grandson Evan arrived towing his parents, Pete and Sarah, along to see the reprobates in the flesh. Quite a year!
By now we were almost, we thought, ready and then idly glancing through an oldish copy of Yachting Monthly I happened to see a photo of a similar boat to Hannah that had built a doghouse………………… YES just what we needed!!!…….much discussion with many different people, a pooling of ideas and then the break we needed when Alastair casually mentioned he’d love to give me a hand in the build. Alastair, besides featuring in a number of previous webpage’s of ours is also a dab hand with wood and his offer meant the difference between “Gawd what on earth is that” and ”It looks like it has always been there”
We
measured, cogitated, re-measured and then ordered. I collected from
the wood yard but was absolutely gob smacked at the size of the
timbers and had a nervous chat with my mentor about the sizes –
surely Noah couldn’t have had anything like these sizes?
But we
worked on steadily, me looking on, AD whittling away and slowly it
came into being and, I have to say, is everything we could have
wished for. The timbers are in keeping with the massive strength of
Hannah and already we appreciate the difference as ventilation
improves dramatically, the blessed Toots has somewhere to shelter and
rain no longer means we have the hatch slammed shut.
The sails! Well this was a saga that could have been from hell. We’d bought the material, found and bought an industrial sewing machine and a copy of “The Sailmaker’s Apprentice” A local hall was available for hire (£6.00 ph) and a mental (you choose which way it’s meant..) calculation of 200 hours to cut and stitch seemed about right. The weeks turned into months and Bee’s reminder that we (I) hadn’t started was met with excuses. Finally we sat down to work out a strategy which quickly established that perhaps we should give ourselves a head start and get the main made. I phoned around to find a sail maker who would use our material. All I spoke to said “No” but many mentioned the name “James Lawrence” and so I rang. “Sure, No problem” After a couple of discussions with Mark Butler at JL we felt that perhaps we should just hand the whole job over and so drove over to Essex with our old sails. Watching the loft in action made us realise that we had been out of our depth here and the relief at handing the job over was palpable and enormous. Made more so when we told the sails we had asked for, 9 in total, would take 3 skilled people 3 – 4 weeks to complete…perhaps I needed to add a 0 to my calculation of 200 hours? Readers of earlier entries may remember our uncanny ability to find heavy weather whenever we’re “doing a long one”. It’s this ability that we focused on when we were discussing the sails with Mark and the reason we now have deeper reefs in both the main and mizzen and a trys’l and storm stays’l for those moments when the call of the sea is replaced with the call of the 9-5…………. As yet we have had little chance to try them out other than for a few hours but we’ll report in due course.
Another
change has been the saloon stove. Battered and worn, the old one had
given great service but we’d set our heart on something with a
little more control, something that would burn through the night if
required and chose to fit a Morso Squirrel. It is a cracking stove,
fulfils all our needs and with its glass front gives a wonderful
glow. We toyed with the idea of a back burner and radiators but then
found we’d need to install a pump and then we’d be into
additional power requirements. (apparently the pump used by Reflex uses about 2
amps!). KISS....
A
tale or two…. I’m in the engine compartment, clarting around and
Bee is putting the kettle on. As you are possibly aware we have a
Taylor’s Paraffin Cooker which is preheated before igniting. Bee
was in this preheat process and turned to the fuel tank to pump up
the pressure, turned back and was confronted by a small wall of
flame. “I think you should come here” sayeth the dulcet toned
one……….:”I think you should come here NOW” It was the
slight emphasis on the last word that alerted me to the fact that
something might be amiss………. We dumped a fire blanket over the
flames, blasted it with an extinguisher and retreated up top. Gazing
at the white fire blanket I could see a cherry glow and a gentle
roaring sound and rushed down the companionway. Peeking under the
blanket, holding my breath against the fumes I can see the fire is
definitely not out. In one of those strange coincidences in life Bee
had come back from Asda the night before and announced that the shop
had fire extinguishers and, as ours were mostly out of date, perhaps
we should get a new one. Oddly enough instead of prevaricating as I
usually do we had gone in that morning and bought one. And, of
course, it was this brand new extinguisher I’d grabbed and squirted
over the blanket. This time I lifted the blanket and emptied the
remains of the contents across the cooker…………. Well they do
make a mess but more importantly they work very well. Obviously
we needed to replace that and buy more but timing is all it seems.
The fault by the way can be traced to the eejit I employ to keep the
cooker in fine fettle i.e. ME. I had allowed a locking nut to work
loose (or more likely not done it up tight enough) which had allowed
a fuel leakage and then the fire. Paraffin is a MUCH safer fuel than
gas and has in no way altered our view of the cooker. Other than to
make sure all necessary work is done properly and in good time. And
then one day passing the rubbish bin, as usual full to overflowing, I
spotted a wine box lying on top of the rest of discarded items. Ever
curious I shook it and was rewarded with a carton at least half
full….as a matter of academic interest I checked the sell by date
and startled to see it was only the day previous. Of course we drank
it – kept us going for several days.
We
had a week away, ostensibly as a shakedown and or departure. Motored
across to Newtown Creek and then endured a week of howling gales as
low after low came scudding down the English Channel. At one time we
suffered a whiteout as wave tops were blown clean off and when the
wind backed to the SW we had a fine time…………. Except that it
reminded us rather more than we wanted of the journey back from
Greenland…………………
With
the many nights we have spent at anchor over a variety of seabed’s
you will appreciate how dear to our hearts a good anchor is. We’d
used a 45lb CQR and a 56lb imitation CQR and whilst the heavier one
was much better we were aware that in very strong blows, despite a
long scope and a religious fervour when setting the damn thing,
Hannah had a tendency to creep. By creep I mean that the wind and
wave strength would combine to gradually move her across an
anchorage, despite being, apparently, well dug in. It might only be
60 feet or less but it happened. It may be the effect of tide or wind
changes but it happened. Where the anchorage is wide and loads of sea
room it isn’t a problem but it is something else we have to concern
ourselves with. Over the years we had become almost fanatical about
our anchoring technique and would set and reset if we had doubts
about the holding. Better to do it then than face a gale and a
dragging hook. Then we read about an anchor that seemed too good to
be true. Sets first time (another bone….) and just keeps digging
in. Intrigued we contacted the Kiwi company and did some more
research and then decided to buy.
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