Prep

One advantage of six months in the same place is time to think, my case this largely involves thinking about safety, or to steal an seventies idiom " stayin alive"

So in no particular order I have installed a 'stealth'  switch in the AIS system, what this does is to interrupt the AIS transponder so it continues to receive but no longer transmits. So to all intents and purposes your vessel disappears off everyone's screen who is AIS enabled . Only to be used in case of pirate attack. Long way down the road but it's an easy modification. Probably a complete waste of time but the components only cost about a fiver so hey ho you never know.

Next on the list was a liferaft, this was a case of run around the house to get back to where you were. We looked into various options in England however costs for shipping to Northern Ireland were looking rather steep, we got one quote for £200 +VAT, needless to say we went back to CH Marine just down the canal from us

We finished up buying a just certified commercial raft which Paul down had just got in , he let us see it before a service ( inflated ) and again we compared it to a "yachty" raft, in this case a Plastimo which Paul was also servicing. Apart from the obvious difference in materials the other major difference was in the freeboard, in comparison the Plastimo was very shallow ( read WET).

Our new raft had also got an easy enter rigid entry slide ( not visible in this shot, it's on the other side) if you have ever had to get into a liferaft wearing usual foulies and wellys etc. you will understand the significance of this. More importantly it was made of heavy duty materials and just serviced. Paul and Joe also gave us some in date flares and other bits and bobs, and so the deal was done. We originally wanted the raft to be up to SOLAS B specification but we soon realised that if all the SOLAS stuff was packed in the raft it would need servicing every year as it would to all intents and purposes be a commercial liferaft, so we went for the ISO 9650 part 1 option which means a service interval of three years and we intend to carry all the SOLAS stuff in a grab bag. We now need to mount the liferaft in its canister on deck and fit some form of cradle and an HRU. ( Hydrostatic release unit, this deploys the raft automatically in the event the boat sinks ) unfortunately this means my least favourite job ever, drilling holes in the boat, best have a few dry runs to get the placement just right and put off the dreadfull day!

An EPIRB ( emergency position indicating radio beacon ) was next on the list, we also obtained this from CH Marine. A Mcmurdo G5 GPS  model.

Of course we needed to update our OFCOM licence and also inform MRCA, but it can all be done online these days, assuming you can get past the as usual, rubbish web presence of the government. It took me six attempts and a password reset to amend our existing licence.

This little thing ( when activated ) will send a distress message via satellite to the rescue co-ordination centre in Falmouth saying that we are in trouble, the beacon has a unique hexadecimal number that will identify it as our beacon, hence family will also be informed and hopefully we will be rescued, the beacon guiding our rescuers to our exact location anywhere in the world, for 48 hours anyway!

   Thinking about all this worst case scenario stuff can all be a bit depressing, of course in reality we hope that we never need any of this equipment.

However, as my very good friend Lenny is very fond of saying " it's better to have and not need, than need and not have". Quite right Len.....

 Apologies for the amount of MLAs ( multi letter acronyms ) 

Climbing Slieve Gullion

We have been having a very lazy time recently, flew home for Christmas and had a great time visiting friends and family. The ongoing list of maintainance jobs has been getting bigger and we spend a few hours snatched between bad weather to make a start on little jobs. So far we have touched up the deck paint and replaced the toe rail guard wires with one encased in plastic tube to isolate it from the steel.

Today however as the day dawned bright and fair, a telephone call from Jean Baptiste ( JB ) held an invitation we couldn't refuse, a walk, well more a climb really, up Slieve Gullion. A local peak we had been dying to get up for a couple of months. The recent snow also added a frisson of appeal so we filled a flask and booted up to accompany the "Soterias"

The plan was to climb to the south summit cairn from the upper car park past the forest park.

We started the walk from the lower car park as the road to the upper car park was closed due to the inclement weather ( read ICE ) so it was a couple of miles to walk through the pine forest to begin. We calculated we just had enough time to complete the ascent before dark with this added distance.

As we left the pine forest we could see the sea on the coast a dozen miles away. The visibility was perfect.

As we gained the top car park where the path leaves to climb to the summit JB and Besum caught us up having had to stash the car ( car park closed at 5 o'clock )

We began the rather steep and slippery climb up the heather covered hillside leaving the road behind.

The snow began to build up along with ice.

In places the path was surprisingly steep.

 As we approached the summit plateau, there were some lovely ice formations formed by the wind.

The view from the summit was spectacular however it became apparent that there was some weather approaching.

 Vicky, Soterias owner and Lynne, Dark Tarns owner at the summit trig point.

Lynne on the summit with ice formations and Mourne mountains in background.

Below the summit trig point is a cave where we retired to shelter and have a well earned " brew"

JB and Besum had carried up some wood and were determined to build a fire! It was very cold in the cave but also quite sheltered from the deteriorating weather.

The entrance tunnel would appear to be aligned with sunset.

As the time crept towards 4 pm it was decided that we should descend in order to get back to the road at least before dark, just then a snowstorm began and visibility got very much worse. We identified the descent path and everyone helped the girls down the slippery path, or held on to the girls to stop slipping, take your pick!

After an hour or so we had dropped down to the level of the road again and we stopped to admire the last rays of the sun as it set. Perfect timing!

So the crews of Soteria and Dark Tarn trudged back to the car in encroaching darkness and so ended a really nice day.

Weather Bombs

Interesting weather conditions just up on the north coast, We have been watching pictures on TV from there and the west coast of Scotland, mainly places we have visited recently like Largs and also the coast of Antrim Portrush etc.

The winds have been over 100 mph at times and waves of 50ft have ben recorded. We however have got away very lightly. Today the winds were only gusting to 28-30 mph but were strangely gusting around the compass swinging through 360 degrees. The majority of the time wind speeds were in the force 2-3 bracket.

The conditions up North have been caused by a slow moving and very deep low that has been deepened even further by a dip in the jet stream (bit like a child's toy, the whip and spinning top for those old enough to remember one) The now fashionable term for a depression that is deepened by some other phenomena is a `Weather Bomb` in the case of the famous Fastnet storm it was a secondary low. In this case it is dry air from the stratosphere deepening the low pressure by a process known as explosive cyclogenesis. All pretty scary stuff.

And another storm due tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Waves and waving at Port Stewart north coast of Antrim

Waves at Whitehaven Cumbria. I once asked Gregg Norris a Whitbread round the world sailor, where did you see the roughest seas Greg, Cape Horn, The Southern Ocean, cape of Good Hope?

he thought for a while then said “St Bees Cumbria”……… “Bloody awful place”

current affairs

for the last week or two there has been a furious exchange of e-mails between the Newry and Mourne district council and several boat owners berthed at the Albert Basin in Newry. Obviously this includes yours truly. The basic problem being that very few people on the council appear to know anything about boats. There is a generally held opinion that it isn't only boats that the council know very little about!

The power supply for yachts at the quays run from some rather elaborate cast iron boxes, quite Victorian and very functional in a rather old fashioned way however in another wholly inadequate as they only hold two connection points each. In consequence many connections up to now have been supplied by splitting the supply cables so at least two boats could share a supply. As there are only 5 boxes that means 10 power points. There are presently 23 yachts berthed at the Quays!

Enter the electrician, unfortunately the large training boat Soteria has been tripping the circuit breakers having a total of five leads coming out of one box. The electrician they sent down pointed out that this was 1/ probably unsafe 2/ exceeding the supply amp age 3/ illegal as it contravened regulations for supply to boats. The crew of Soteria reacted poorly and the electrician reported back to the council who correctly then informed us all that what we were doing was, …well see above.

The threat was that we would all be disconnected however in a flurry of cooperation and chaotic rushing around we managed to get the supplys back down to ten boats being supplied from ten power points, the council representatives agreed to consider adding additional powerpoints and we as berth holders agreed to disconnect one boat before connecting another so that only ten boats were connected at any one time.

Lynne and I were also photographed for the local paper the Newry Reporter.

First time as a page three girl for Lynne!

So all's well with the world again……….and we have got to know a lot more of our neighbours here at the Quays.

Pirates vs the moral dilemma......an open letter to Garmin.

I just bought a new electronic chart, Atlantic islands and the Iberian peninsular (Spain) the particular format we use is Garmin Bluechart, in this case it's the all singing and dancing "vision" version.

However, Garmin say that it's not possible to create a backup of this SD card.

That's not true.....

It's not easy, but it is possible.........

I would also venture to suggest that this isn't piracy it's prudent.

So I now have a copy in each of our two plotters and the original as a backup.

Moral dilemma?

Nope....

I know (roughly) the MTBF (mean time before failure) of solid state memory. So I would like a backup of this fairly vital software in case the media fails......

I have absolutely no intention of flogging copies of this sd card on fleabay. That would be immoral.

If I can crack the hidden file security of your software in the ten minutes available before the pub then it does beg the question why bother? The only people your so called security is impacting are infact your customers who you are endangering by your short sighted view.

The real pirates would take less time than me to crack your security, remove it and allow users to create backups of this software. What do you have to lose? If we can all back up in case of a media fail, we all would be a damn sight safer and not so dependent on a one shot deal. I am fairly sure that most of us would have bought an original copy in the first place, after all, this isn't One Directions new album is it?

Or do nothing, and I will just tell everyone who asks how to circumvent your security.

Drifting

Ah Winter..........the time of dreams and plans. I sit in our cozy cabin and reach for a pilot, mentally sailing across the sea and thinking about where to go in the spring. Where will Dark Tarn take us?

I don't have to drift very far before I am sidetracked by an old story.

Sailing South down the East Coast of Ireland you pass Arklow and Rosslare at this point I have promised Lynne we will cross back to Wales to visit Pembrokeshire.

So there we are, crossing St George's channel in my minds eye and suddenly I realise we have just crossed the Sumner line. Of course you can't actually see it, in fact it didn't exist until December 17 1837. Captain Sumner was on a voyage from South Carolina to Scotland. Not having a had a sun sight for a few days Captain Sumner was unsure of his position, however he knew he was in the vicinity of the cluster of islands and rocks off the south west corner of Wales known to the ancient Greeks as the headland of the seven perils. Suddenly the clouds parted and Captain Sumner was able to get one sight. He duly plotted this and he got a latitude fix. However he would need several more sights to establish his longitude. Pondering this he plotted the same fix by reducing the sight by 10 and 20 degrees from his estimated position. Lo and behold the sights formed a straight line. The Sumner line. The line intercepted the position of the Smalls light. Captain Sumner turned to follow the line and the light duly appeared on the bow a few hours later.

This is the basis of modern celestial navigation later refined by Marq St Hilaire, The line isn't actually a line, it's a part of a circle where the altitude of the celestial body is the same from everywhere on the circle. Imagine a room with a single lightbulb and visualise the cone of light it throws on the floor and if you walked around the light measuring the angle between the cone and the bulb the angle would remain the same, you get the basic idea.

There you go, simple idea, but crucially no one had thought of it before.

Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending because our hero ended his days in an asylum.

However I for one salute you. It's a brilliant piece of abstract thinking, this particular area of sea I pride myself on knowing very well. A wonderful cauldron of tides, history, landscape, wildlife and welshness. I need to return and  as I do, I promise I will remember captain Sumner as we cross his invisible line.

Of course I will also remember a day when "Two Timer" was knocked down and rolled off the South Bishop light. But that's my history and another story..........

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance..........possibly

,Bought two albums this week, although "album" is possibly an anachronism. Let's just call them "downloads" , after all with a finite amount of room aboard. It's just music to my iPad.

I was and I am not ashamed to admit it looking forward with huge anticipation to Pink Floyds new Album ,record, release or whatever, The endless river. Of course being a diehard fan I opted for the deluxe all singing and dancing version which I actually downloaded courtesy of our hosts at the B&B in Horwich. It was however several days later that I actually listened to it.

However in the meantime I had also downloaded an album record or whatever by an obscure Scottish musician called Mike Vass, the music in question is called " In the wake of Niel Gunn"

Mike unfortunately became quite ill after being bitten, and contracted lymes disease. After his recovery he undertook a voyage following the voyage of Neil Gunn in 1937. This trip of Neil's with his wife is the subject of his book ' Off in a boat' which is a very honest and often amusing account both of a not very experienced sailor and the west coast characters of half a century ago, a sort of Para Handi meets Whisky Galore. It kickstarted Neil's literary career and he went on to become a successful novelist.

Although not well known outside his native land Neil Gunn is widely appreciated in Scotland.

Mike Vass apparently composed most of this music on the recreation of Neil's voyage and is a mix of modern and traditional musical styles, if you ever sail the west coast this is the soundtrack. Trust me.

£22,000 of Arts council grant well spent! There are numerous sites a Google search will throw up but it is especially worth finding the you- tube videos of the trip.