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!