the future is junk!

Another rather crazy crewing offer meant that on our return I took the time to visit my old friend Peter Manning down at the Marina at Preston Dock. I had agreed to crew for Peter from Preston to Spain where he would cruise in company with us for the summer and explore Galicia and Portugal. At least that was the plan, However the weather had conspired against peter somewhat and his schedule was a little behind, This turned out to be not too big a problem as yet again a recalcitrant filling necessitated me having yet another tooth crowned. I am beginning to wonder if God uses this as a means of keeping me still or subtly nudging me where he thinks I should be.....

So the above photo shows Malliemac, as you can see she is a little unusual, Peter has spent a huge amount of time and money building this boat. She is a turtle decked junk rigged (fansail) yacht about the same size as Dark Tarn however designed from the get-go as a single handed ocean crosser, she has a lot of innovative ideas incorporated into her design. Dark Tarn looks positively pedestrian in comparison.

However not without her problems, like all prototypes (for after all, that is what she is) a ;ot of systems need to be ironed out. Peter and I began with the rig and spent a happy couple of days tweaking and modifying the top yard and reefing system. theoretically this rig can be controlled without ever leaving the cockpit however its Achilles heel is a product of the rigs inovation which is the ability to have a "fan up". most of the modifications were supposed to alieviate this tendency and everything seemed to be going well until Peter demonstrated another of Malliemacs innovative features, her asymmetric leeboards. Peter had treated these, indeed the whole bottom of the boat to an antifouling system based on epoxy and copper. unfortunately Peter had put the latest treatment over an original formulation of Peters invention and they were not sitting happily together. The whole boat was blistering in some sort of chemical reaction, The first job was to haul the boat out into the yard to discover the extent of the problem.

Of course this needed bits coming off the masthead.

The news wasn't good. the reaction between the two coatings was extensive and in a slightly baffling way uneven. certain parts were very badly effected to the extent that the coating was literally falling of with a powerwash, others seemed firmly attached but blistering.

Peter decided that it all had to come off and so the backbreaking work of sanding off epoxy and copper began. a few days work saw the hull beginning to look something like but it was an awful job and I dread to think what damage we have done to our lungs, However I managed to get quite a bit of copper out of my bath at home! Should probably have weighed it in........

This job really was soul destroying and I'm afraid after a while I was forced to leave Peter to finish up alone. Our schedule for the trip across Biscay was in tatters and I needed to get back to Dark Tarn.

Peter and I had a discussion about the various options in a rare sunny day under Malliemacs hull and agreed to postpone the trip south until the end of May. There was a good possibility of good weather and Peter thought that Malliemac could be got ready by then. I would either fly back to sail from Preston or get the ferry to the south coast if Peter could get that far alone.
So that is now the new plan, fingers crossed ,touch wood.............?