Calstar: A male thing

Calstar is now rigged up for shore power.

My cousin Vince brought his tools and expertise and an awful lot of trade-rates purchased electric cable down to the boat with us on Saturday and we spent the day planning cable-routes, drilling holes, running wires and wiring sockets.

It was a blustery day, with the wind gusting straight into the boat's cockpit, but the rain mostly held off so it made for dry work, fortunately.

It was not a short day however. We now have the domestic and engine battery chargers wired up to a shore power socket, and a number of plug sockets discretely placed throughout the boat for phone chargers, laptops, tablets and the like when we're plugged in. But we got to the boat for about 1000 and didn't finish until gone 1730. Admittedly, the bear's portion of labour was borne by Vince, although being the nimblest of the three of us I was tasked with drilling the first hole from inside the cockpit locker once we'd decided on the cable route.

As I fired up the hand-drill, it occurred to me that this was the first hole I'd ever bored into our boat. I mean sure, Dad's drilled a few, but I'm not usually trusted with anything so, well, potentially terminal.

We didn't sink. I'll count that as a win.

Not so winning (to steal a misuse of the verb from Charlie Sheen) was the conclusion to the day.

Everything wired up and tidied away, Vince declared it was time to plug it all in and check it didn't go bang. I ran the power cable out, went to plug it into the shiny new socket in the cockpit of the boat, and realised that both socket and plug were unfortunately male. We'd all failed to appreciate that a flush socket fitting was male, whereas the power extension cable we wanted to fit required a female socket to plug into.

So she's rigged up for shore power, but she ain't plugged in yet.

Buffy: Postscript

I should probably add, in case the tone of my last post comes over as too, well, crowing: it doesn't normally work out like this.

Of the seven other sailors and six other boats we raced against this afternoon, most (albeit not all) beat me more often than I beat them. And fairly so, as they've all been doing this a lot longer than me, though I can't say I'm exactly new to this any more.

Thinking about it, a good few of them were actually directly involved in teaching me to sail when I first joined the club at Frampton, a little over ten years ago.

Which of course makes today's win all the sweeter.

As does the fact that it was the first race of the season. As does the fact that it was Buffy's maiden race after her relaunch following these past and very long six weeks of shore-bound maintenance.

But it was the weather that beat everybody today and gave us the win. It's exactly the sort of blow that Ben and I have the weight and stamina to take in our stride, the sort of blow that knocks a good few others flat.

The conditions faded for the second race, and although we beat her to the windward mark, and although we kept touch and threatened her for the rest of the race, Geoff's experience, wit and guile won out in the lighter airs and our sister Enterprise "Ghost" beat us back into second place once again.

It was still a grand day's sailing. Bloody brilliant to be back afloat again.

Buffy: Fruits of our labours

Woke up this morning to the sound of the wind rattling the windows in their frames and the sight of the tree outside my bedroom window dancing like a dervish.

The first day of the new sailing season at Frampton, the first race wasn't until 1400 so I had time to enjoy a slow, lazy rise out of bed, or would have done had it not been for my building sense of anxiety. Since first starting to watch the forecast at the beginning of the week, I'd been hoping and hoping the initially promised damp, flat drift would morph into something much more worthwhile.

It looked like my wishes had been answered, and then some. I watched the tree twist and turn outside in the gusty air with a fair degree of trepidation. But there wasn't much else to do but to get up, get my kit together, rouse Ben from the pit he calls his bedroom and head down the Club to face it.

By lunch time, it had moderated a little, but not a lot. As we prepared the boats, we could watch lines of squally weather bringing wind and rain blowing up the Severn Valley to embrace us. In one such gust, the leeward trolley wheel of the Laser standing next to our Enterprise on the lakeside exploded with a loud bang under the pressure of the wind, hard plastic fragments ricocheting off my freshly painted hull to bounce into the water.

It gave us all quite the start, none of us had ever seen the like.

But the squalls, though frequent, were relatively short lived.

Our maiden race of the season was a pursuit; each boat starts on a time based on their respective handicap, the slower boats starting first, the faster boats later. Whoever has the lead when the clock runs down after about an hour wins.

The foul weather had kept most of the fleet at home, so only seven boats made the start line: a couple of Solos, a couple of Laser Radials, a Topper, another Enterprise, and us.

With the Lasers reefed down to their Radial rigs, that left we Enterprises the fastest boats in the fleet, so we started last, the hounds to everybody else's foxes.

A port biased line, Ben characteristically opted for a port start, but uncharacteristically made a hash of his timings, leaving us about ten seconds behind the line when our gun went. We were only saved from being punished for our error by our sister Enterprise "Ghost" being equally late on her more conventional starboard start, and so they crossed a couple of boat lengths behind us and were left chasing.

It was lively from the beginning, with the gusts coming through hard and and frequent.

We kept our lead on Ghost, although she remained tenaciously close behind, and caught the two Solos early. We closed down the hindmost of the two lasers Lasers, crossing him as we were beating up to the windward mark,  Ghost still hot on our heels. And then, just as we were rounding the mark, another gust came slamming through.

Ben dumped mainsail like it was going out of fashion as he and I both hiked hard to windward, but by the time I realised it was no good and tried to free the jib, the angle on the cleat was too acute, I was crammed up by the shroud and I couldn't yank it loose. The mast touched, the mainsail slapping onto the surface of the water. Ben slid down the hull like a kid on an amusement park waterslide to disappear astern, and I vaulted backwards over the gunwale to land on the now horizontal centreboard.

The trouble with an Enterprise when racing in a handicap fleet is that most of the single-handers we're against can tip over and bounce back up in moments, their hulls completely dry and ready to go again. We capsize, and when we come up we're barely held afloat by our buoyancy bags, the hull swamped and the gunwales awash.

Buffy came back up as I leaned back and pulled on the jib sheet, scooping Ben with her, still in the grip of the gust, pointing conveniently downwind towards the next mark. I rolled in as she righted, pulled the jib on and slammed the bailers open in the floor of the hull whilst Ben struggled with the tangle of mainsheet astern. She began to move.

There is a good place and a bad place to capsize an Ent. At the top of the beat, with a long, fast reach ahead of you to the next mark, is as good as it gets.

"Does she gybe better or tack better when she's full of water, I can't remember?" yelled a vaguely concerned Ben as we neared the gybe mark, Buffy wallowing like a drunken whale ploughing through the water, throwing spray everywhere.

"Neither. Just go for it!" I yelled back, and started to haul on the kicker to coax the boom across as Ben turned the mark. The boom went over. We stayed up. And accelerated out of the gybe, still in the grip and violence of the gust, the boat rising out of the water like the Nautilus and beginning to plane as the lake sheeted out through the bailers and transom flaps, back to where it belonged.

By the time we reached the next gybe mark at the other end of the lake, Buffy was dry once more, and the second Laser was now also history in our wake.

It was a fantastic race. The weather was hard and unforgiving, but exactly what we needed to blow the cobwebs out. We caught the leading Topper in the final few minutes of the pursuit, and so Dad, who had put so many hours of hard work into the boat with me over the last six weeks, got to watch us win the first race of the year from the Club's veranda.

I couldn't tell him if his repairs to the centreboard had stopped the leak, there was too much water coming in over the sides to say. But I don't think it really mattered today; the freshly sanded and painted hull and the rebuilt and refinished foils slipped through the water like a dream and gave us our win.

Weather: Tempting fate

Outlook for Sunday has changed somewhat since I last posted. I'd been watching the weather charts develop across the week, half hoping it'd pick up. However, the thought is beginning to coalesce that perhaps I should be careful what I wish for.

Weather: And after all that

The forecast for Sunday. Looks especially uninspiring. A dull, flat drift. This may influence my choice of crew. Or how I sell the invitation to Ben....

Buffy: Released to the wilds

Buffy is, once more, returned safe and sound, released back to the wilds of the dinghy park where she's securely tied down against the weather, snug under her covers and waiting for the racing to start again.

Which will be this coming Sunday, as it happens.

The marina lock at Portishead is still in shutdown, so for once she has no competition for my affections. I just need to decide whether or not I search for a crew so I can helm myself  (Hels is sadly unavailable) or let Ben helm and crew for him.

Ordinarily, I'd jump at the chance to crew. But after the last six weeks of hard graft, I can't help but feel I want to take the helm for myself for the maiden race of her relaunch. And Ben's too big to sit in the front, so he might have to sit this one out.

It's taken twice as long to sort her out as I'd optimistically estimated to begin with, back in the depths of January. There have been some missteps and setbacks along the way, but they do somewhat pale into insignificance against the wealth of advice and support we've had from friends, and particularly, my dad.

He's been with me every step of the way; I needed his practical skills to fix the centreboard case, and I think that's the bit of work he's most proud of in this whole episode, but even once that was done, he just kept turning up, even once an extra set of hands was a mere luxury rather than a necessity.

On which note, he's still at it, as although the work on the hull and decks are now done, he's finishing off my rudder and centreboard for me in his workshop. The plan is to refit them Friday evening. I have Saturday as a contingency, but he's rather hoping I can head down to Portishead with him then to do the necessary climbing around in cockpit lockers whilst he and my electrician cousin Vince do the clever stuff with installing Calstar's shore power.

There are a few other odd bits to still screw in or rig up, a last replacement buoyancy bag to attach and a burgee to fit, but most of Buffy's refit was completed by late Sunday. Matt and Hels chipped in for a while, which was most appreciated, until the fresh varnish fumes overcame Matt and we sent him home with Hels to watch the rugby.

But Dad and I had her out of the boat-shed, back on her trolley and the mast back up by about 1730 that evening, just in time for the rain to really set in, of course.

But the water looked lovely pearling up on her shiny new decks.

To remind myself of what she looks like under sail in all her glory, I've included an old photo below from late last season. I don't have a note of who took it, but it'll be one of a select few, and I'm sure none of them would begrudge me posting it here, despite the lack of credit.

And perhaps, just for balance, I thought I ought to also conclude with a photo of Buffy in a different poise. Ben was at the helm for this second one, which I should add has nothing to do with any reluctance on my part towards the idea of surrendering it to him this coming Sunday.

I should also add that although it looks like the terminal stage of a capsizing broach to windward, we somehow recovered it despite the odds and raced on. Although, as I recall, there were plenty of other capsizes of a more complete nature on our part across the totality of that particular day's racing.

Poor old boat. She is hard used.

Buffy: The wizard's workshop

Um, did I say "pathologically minimalist"? Although it must be said, as chaotic as it might look to the outsider, he knows everything last thing that's in there and every last thing is exactly where it belongs.

Calstar: A shore(power) thing

Saturday morning began with me getting cornered in the kitchen by these three muppets as I tried to make myself a cup of tea, and nagged for Friday night's pizza crusts, which they seemed to think would make a perfectly adequate breakfast.

Who was I to argue?

Pizza crusts duly delivered to their gaping, insatiable maws, Nik and I headed out early. Dad wanted some help locating and fitting a socket to Calstar for our planned shore power conversion, however, Nikki had the day off work and wanted to spend it with me, so a deal was struck whereby she'd accompany us both down to the boat in Portishead on the promise that I'd treat us all to lunch afterwards.

I have a very patient, understanding wife. Especially when bribed with pizza crusts. Ah, no! That's her dogs. Her dogs are bribe-able with pizza crusts. Nik just wants love and attention, obviously.

So off to Portishead we went, meeting up on way with Dad at his place, where of course I took the opportunity to let Bruno show off what a fine job Dad is doing with our centreboard rebuild, under his close and constant supervision of course. Contrary to the weight of dog hair from my own three pizza-crust scrounging scoundrels that's been inevitably added to the new varnish on Buffy's decks, I'm sure these particular dog-hairs won't slow us down too much in the coming season's racing. They do inevitably make up a good proportion of the filler that Dad added to the epoxy to bulk it out.

Racing at Frampton is due to begin again next Sunday.

Of course, next weekend I won't have to sweat over whether or not to race Buffy or sail Calstar, as long as we finish Buffy's repairs and have her race ready in time for Sunday. Calstar is still marina-bound, penned in by ongoing maintenance on the still shut-down and currently drained marina lock.

Interesting how the lock floor slopes so clearly and intentionally from left to right; before now, coming in on the first lock of a low spring tide, the lock master has directed us specifically over to the right hand pontoon, explaining it's the deeper side. This would be why.

We've decided to put the socket for the shore power inlet astern of the throttle lever, reasonably high up the cockpit locker wall to minimise the risk of accidentally stepping on it. We looked at various options, but everything in a relatively small 26 footer is a compromise of one kind or another. This seemed to involve the least compromise.

The locker itself, once cleared of the spare gas bottle, spare tank of diesel, kedge anchor, buckets and numerous lines of all descriptions and uses, was surprisingly roomy.

Nikki and Dad mocked me mercilessly about the variety and quantity of lines retrieved from the locker, Dad making "tidying" noises about how maybe we should go through them and throw the ones we don't want out now they're out all over the forward bunk. Thing is, I already did that back in the autumn. Although I admit I wound them up a little by grumbling and muttering things like "Can't have too many spare lines on a sailboat" and "That's not a rope, it's a warp" under my breath, truth is you can.

But we don't. All these lines still remaining both have a use and have found a use at least once in the last six months. You've got to watch Dad though. He's an incessant tidier and pathologically minimalist. If I'm not careful, he'll sneak down there without me and tidy my lines up, and it won't be until I'm trying to cling to the walls of Bristol City Docks Lock with my fingernails and wondering where my 15m dock lines have gone that I'll realise he's done it.

I'm perhaps being a little unfair. We do have a habit of collecting clutter, and it's surprising how quickly clutter overruns you in the confines of a small boat. As Dad points out, it's easy to lose track, and if you don't know it's there there's no point in having it.

Minimalist tenancies aside, he is a very dab hand with a drill and screwdriver. The shore power socket is suitably sited, ready for the wiring up, intended I think for this week, or perhaps next. In any case, a good morning's work done, we retired to H&W's for a very pleasant lunch at a table overlooking the marina.

Sailing: The Prout Puffin

Recently read on a fellow Bristol Channel sailor's site (2wheels1keel.com) that his very first dinghy was a Prout Puffin. That put a smile on my face and sent me scurrying back through old photos to dig out pictures of a long ago summer and my own first sail boat.

They pictures were taken by Dad just down-stream from Wainlodes on the lower reaches of the navigable River Severn, which, of course, feeds into the Bristol Channel I now call home just a few miles further down. You'll note the colour of the water is almost the same, albeit still fresh at that point.

Dad had borrowed the dinghy from my Uncle Mike to use as a tender for "Paddler", the 26' river cruiser that back then was our summer home. Uncle Mike had said we'd might as well take the mast, sails and foils. Insatiably curious, I badgered Dad into showing me how they all slotted together and explaining the whole sailing thing worked, and then spent the rest of those six heady weeks of summer teaching myself to sail at every chance I got.

I wasn't very good. But was utterly enspelled by the magic of it.

By the by, Paddler was a cunning piece of marital manoeuvring on Dad's part.

As I remember it, a year or two earlier Mum and Dad had sold their UK house but found themselves "gazumped" on their intended new property and therefore without anywhere to live at very short notice; in a time of rapidly spiralling house prices that were the mid to late 80's, this was a practice where the blaggard seller of the house you were moving into changed his mind and sold to somebody else for a now higher price. Dad persuaded his disappointed and at that point somewhat desperate wife that it'd be quicker and more certain to put a good part of their now liberated capital into a boat and live on that for a few years during our summer holidays. The rest of the year, of course, we were based out in the Middle East for Dad's work.

The domestic experiment concluded a couple of summers later with Mum having moved out and living with Gran and a summer of definite discord. Until Dad bought a little terrace house on the outskirts of Gloucester. Under Westgate Bridge. On the banks of the River Severn. Where, of course, he could moor his beloved Paddler just outside the back door.

Harmony was once more restored. Marriage is all about compromise.


Tom of 2wheels1keel.com has long moved on from his own Prout Puffin and is the new skipper and proud owner of the Bristol Channel based Albin Ballad "Sundance". I've just been reading about his Jester Challenge Baltimore ambitions; he's hoping to make the 11th June start this year with Sundance.

I'm almost jealous but wish him nothing but fair winds and good fortune. A friend at Lydney Yacht Club completed the Azores Jester Challenge the year I joined there, which along with a few other revelations at the time, opened my eyes to exactly what could be achieved with just a little planning and ambition and boat well-founded but modest enough to be entirely within my own reach and means.

The Jester Challenge is definitely 2017 a little too soon for me, but one day, most certainly.

Sailing: Pick a colour

Any colour.

As long as it's black.

Weather: Sunshine in Porthcawl

High water. Sea's lively. Interestingly, the bigger spumes of spray come after a big one has broken on the pier wall and then rolls back into the next one rushing in.

Hypnotic to watch.

Weather: Dear Doris

Lovely view of today's weather via the World Wind Map