Legs part 2

I decided to make the legs demountable, this involved a bit of quick maths regarding the diameter and wall thickness of the tubes. The general idea was to make the legs in two parts that fitted together neatly to make each leg. It was important to remain within Paul's over engineered specifications and I ordered a smaller piece of tube with the same wall thickness to make a joining piece or internal sleeve.

I got the maths just right! The internal diameter of the big tube was exactly the same as the external diameter of the smaller tube, consequently they didn't slide together easily or even at all! Oops......

I needed an engineer, one of the best local men for the job has to be Steve Trippier, Pete very kindly offered to give me and the tubes a lift to Steve's and asked him to turn about 10.000th of an inch off the smaller one and cut the long tubes in two. As a bonus we also got to look around Steves shed.

Steve on left and Peter Manning on right.

Along with several vintage motorbikes, stood alone in splendour, there is Steve's steam engine that he has built from scratch. It is intended to fit it in a steam launch.

Strangely Lynne has no interest in sheds, it must be a man thing.......Steves shed is in the elite class of such things, a magnificent shed.

A few days later the tubes were returned and now fitted together with surgical precision

No matter how I try Lynñe still finds shoes infinitely more interesting than engineering!

However a few more days work and Dark Tarn will be able to dry out supported only by these two tubes and sitting on her keel. We intend to do this as a first test in the river Fal in Cornwall.

We have also been busy fitting the liferaft on deck, this seemingly simple job involved us removing several deck fittings that held the kedge ( secondary ) anchor, filling the holes and fitting six retaining blocks. In order to accommodate the deck camber it was also necessary to fashion some iroko wedges to raise two of the blocks and keep everything level, these were sealed with epoxy and varnished. They can just be seen in the picture. However the major problem with jobs like this is inside the boat as every hole has to be measured carefully to avoid stringers and other structural parts, this requires the headlinings to to be removed, a job that Lynne is becoming expert at! It is also very disruptive especially when you are also living aboard.

While the headlinings were down we took the opportunity to renew the polystyrene foam insulation and refitted the light fittings. also everything needed to be primed and painted also bedded on sealant..

Hence the fitting of this raft took nearly a week.

It's fitted with an HRU or Hydrostatic release unit ( it's the cylindrical object near the mast ) hopefully never to be used it will fire and release the raft should the boat sink and the HRU senses it is between 1-3 metres underwater. The raft is released manually by means of a 'Senhouse Slip'. Yet more names for Lynne to remember! I'm sure she thinks I make these things up............

The liferaft in position.

29 hours

It's an odd thing but most trips in the Irish Sea involve journeys of either 60 or 120 miles. Carlingford to the Ribble is one of the 120 something trips, or around 24 hours if it's done non stop. In actual fact it's one of the longest crossings possible. Lynne and I had done a passage plan which sketched out the basic approach and strategy. Once you have this basic template it should really be a question of just slotting in the timings for tide gates and departure times along with present weather and forecast weather conditions. Sounds easy doesn't it? We had hoped that by delaying our departure 24 hrs we would have more southerly than easterly winds, this turned to be wrong.

We started heading against the flood tide pouring into Carlingford Lough, past Green Castle and on towards Haulbowline light and the Hellyhunter Rock. The names on the Irish side seem far more lyrical somehow!

It was a sunny day and the wind was a steady force 4, I took the opportunity to snatch a bit of video as Dark Tarn romped towards the other side of the Irish Sea.

We were close hauled on the starboard tack and would be for the foreseeable future, this is a less than comfortable angle of heel and has led to the yachting truism that " gentlemen never sail to windward"

Lynne managed to produce a hot Irish Stew which went down very well, however even at this early stage we both seemed to be feeling the cold. Normally I would sit on the top step and keep watch from our " cuddly" but the AIS was showing our piece of the ocean was littered with fishing boats that all seemed to be sailing in circles, I think they refer to it as trawling, it certainly makes life difficult! It meant a constant lookout from the cockpit was required. Lynne was keen to keep me company however the danger then is that we would both be running the risk of getting very cold.

I encouraged Lynne to stay below to keep as warm as possible and put Brideshead revisited read by Jeremy Irons on the stereo to entertain her. Nice job Jeremy!

As darkness fell the sky was alive with stars, but the cold was intense and for the first time in about ten years I resorted to gloves. We were still making very good time but as we approached the southern end of the Isle of Man the wind backed a little east and we could no longer lay the direct course for Gut Bouy off the Ribble. For about 20 miles we were heading for morecambe Bay, after a while the wind died a little but went back southerly and gave me the chance to make back some of the southern miles we had lost.

Lynne was spelling me on watch but we didn't follow a watch keeping routine, just stayed on deck as long as we felt able to tolerate the cold then stopped and dived below to get a little warmer. We both managed a bit of a catnap.

Lynne watched the moon come up and took quite a while to figure out what it was! I was on watch as the sun came up but it brought precious little warmth. In fact the wind was on the increase and as we got within 10 miles of our objective it was getting a little uncomfortable and again started to head us, we rolled away the Genoa and started the engine.

It became obvious that we were hours early at Gut Buoy, ideally we needed to arrive at about two hours before high water to ensure we had enough depth in the river to reach Preston which is 15 miles upriver. I decided to creep the last 8 miles or so at 2 knots and we arrived at Gut 2 hours and 50 minutes before high water. By now I was getting tired however knowing the river quite well I decided we could risk carrying on. The winds were now blowing force 6 and were making the approach to Lytham very uncomfortable Dark Tarn rolling violently from side to side in the heavy beam seas.

The rolling subsided as we were passing the windmill at Lytham but the wind was still very strong, there was also a small yacht which seemed barely in control doing strange changes of direction coming down river. I was quite concerned when I made an obvious turn to starboard ( vessels turn to starboard and pass port to port) and he responded to my starboard move by turning to port again putting us on collision course. I had no more depth in the channel to play with and turned very obviously towards Lytham as the depth dropped under our keel to 2.7 metres. A bit too close for comfort!

We continued up the river without any more drama and Lynne radioed Riverway lock control and they replied that we were expected and the sealock was set and ready for us to go straight in. 

We waved at some old friends and Peter Manning was waiting on the dock to take our lines. It had been a very long cold trip but we certainly had a warm reception.

25 years

By a strange coincidence we arrived back at Preston just as the celebrations for the Marinas 25th anniversary were getting underway.

It was very nice to get together with people we had got to know very well. Howard and Hilary were back from Turkey having left their boat in Sardinia. Hilary had also become blonde in the last twelve months!

I finally got to know the owner of the only boat in the marina I am envious of, namely Avatar a beautiful aluminium boat. The family unfortunately had been forced to return from I believe 17 years or so in the Caribbean. Eddy had developed Parkinson's and was responding to treatment but realistically his cruising days were coming to an end and he had swallowed the anchor in our absence and bought a house. Sarah their daughter who was born on board had been home schooled and was having to get used to going to school and living in a house for the first time in her life! She was also finding the weather hard to adjust to after spending her whole life in the tropics.

We had a boozy session later in the Wellington with Barry and Anne who also had moved into a flat overlooking the dock, they have crossed the Atlantic once before in the 24 ft Serenity, Barry is looking for anoyther boat to do it again!

A big cat Hocus Pocus is also heading south in May.

It's great to see so many boats eager to get going.

Dark Tarn back after a year away. Only a brief stay before we are moving off again.

Legs

On arriving back at Preston we discovered our friend Rays yacht Kady was stuck in the cradle that we should have been in on being hauled out. Not Rays fault I hasten to add, a supplier had sent him the wrong cutlass bearing and we are now both awaiting the correct part, which as usual has got me thinking.........
Dark tarns builder Paul Fay has in the last few weeks been doing exactly what we need to do namely scrub off and antifoul our underwater hull. The difference is that along with his wife Mo they have been drying out TigiTu on a gravel beach up the Fal river in Cornwall.

 

This seemed to me to be a perfectly splendid idea, I had recently emailed Paul, picking his brains regarding Legs, Beaching legs for Dark tarn. She was kept in a drying harbour in North Devon for a couple of years however the legs that Paul made were square section steel things that were impractical in terms of the sheer weight of them, however we have now discovered Aluminium and there is a major stockholder just up the road from us here in Preston.

See where this is going yet?

Armed with Pauls comprehensive figures I calculated the required size (and added a bit for good luck) priced up the required sections and did a bit of a drawing.

The cost of a haul out into the yard came into the calculation and I discussed the issue with the supply officer, luckily she agreed that it was going to make sense to be free of the necessity of seeking out a boatyard every 12 months or so. So the decision has almost been made. The fact that dark Tarn was averaging 6.5 knts on the recent crossing from Ireland has persuaded me that we can last until Cornwall before a scrub off and antifoul and our "foster parent" for our much loved dinghy Annandale lives about 2 miles away from the beach in the photo up Mylor creek.

So the new plan will be to bimble south after the other jobs have been done, do not get hauled out but instead try out our new legs when we drop Annandale off with David.

Many thanks once again to Paul Fay for invaluable inspiration!

Paul busy saving money.

 

What a lovely job.

Notice the hard gravel beach, of course Ti-gitu is a bilge keeler so has been built to beach from the get go. As she draws 1.5 metres, exactly the same as dark Tarn we should be able to follow Pauls example. Time to get working on these legs then!

 



Leaving Ireland

Well we finally managed to spot a decent weather window to return to Preston so we booked the Sea-lock for Wednesday about noon. within a day Soteria had decided to come with us as did Blue moon. we decided to go down to Carlingford Lough and spend the day sailing with soteria, us so we could have a shake down before the long crossing home and Soteria to put the new skipper Frank through his paces, we could also take a few photos. Blue moon was going down to Carlingford Marina to have a new engine fitted as the puny 9hp thing she had in was on its last legs. its owner asked us to shadow them down to Warrenpoint in case they needed a tow. So it was on a glorious day we all trooped down the four mile section of canal to the lock.

 

we had a short wait at the sealock for the tide to make a bit and we very gently were released into the Newry river. Blue Moon had a bit of a struggle starting there engine however it started after a while and we all left the lock chamber.

 

Lynne was once again on the helm and was looking pretty confident after a six month lay off.



 



 We slid down the beautiful lower reaches of the Newry river towards Waters Meeting with its picturesque castle.

 

 

Soteria was following in our wake so we made sure to stay in the deepest part of the channel, at one point Lynne was chuffed to find she was perfectly on the leading marks over her shoulder and shouted me to see but Soteria had slid in perfectly on line following us completely obscuring the marks with her huge rig!



 

We motored past the busy commercial docks at warrenpoint and out into the wide but shallow expanse of carlingford Lough. We had one or two fankles to sort out (its Scottish for tangle)

but eventually had sail up with one reef in the main and a couple of rolls in the genoa as it was blowing a good force 5. by the time Soteria had some sails up we had shaken out the reefs as it had dropped to a very manageable force 3.

 

Soteria gets her sails up..............

 

I took a little bit of video of the day, it shows us sailing in the lough and a lovely anchorage we found just north of the marina at Carlingford. It also has some footage of us starting the trip back to Preston the following day.

 





Newry Cathedral

Last night Lynne and I attended a performance of Haydn's ' Seven last words of Christ ' performed by a locally based group of musicians, called the Oriel string quartet.

 

A few words about the Cathedral itself which is a beautiful building, as we waited for the performance to begin I spent some time studying the decoration. Understand that being brought up a Protestant I am used to churches that are somewhat plainer. In the case of the Cathedral every square inch of surface bar the vaulted ceilings is covered in tiny glazed or gilded tiles, there are friezes of Celtic design including shamrocks, along with representations of the saints. The extensive coloured tiles merge into the stained glass of the windows. The effect is truly stunning.

The music, I must admit, is not a piece I m familiar with. It's originally ( I believe ) written as a choral piece in seven oratorios. However last nights performance was in the more modern idiom of seven pieces separated by readings and poetry, all describing the last hours of Christ on the cross.

  In the space of the Cathedral the music was breathtaking. The four ladies of the quartet were consumate professionals, the fifth piece where a theme was ' plucked ' on the strings of the instruments was haunting, and the finale of the seventh which describes in musical terms the storm and earthquake that follows Christs giving up of the ghost was the most powerful and violent piece of music I have ever heard a string quartet produce. The whole experience was very moving, the readings from the bible read by the priest and poems read by a layman were very thought provoking and seemed to be a natural interlude between the pieces of music.