Calstar: shackled

I think the "luff length crisis" with our new foresail is solved.

The original fittings that came with the Furlex involved a pair of great big snap shackles; one on the swivel at the top and the other on the drum at the bottom. I say "great big" but by that I really mean about 4 four inches each in length. Everything is relative.

So last Saturday we nipped down to the boat for the morning, unbent the foresail, removed the top and bottom snap shackles and dropped in at the chandlery on the way home to buy a couple of lighter, 6mm twisted "dee" shackles, each being only a couple of inches in overall length.

So a saving of about four inches. If I was right, and the luff length was only in excess by an inch or two, the hope was that would fix it.

Getting the sail off to remove the snap shackles wasn't so straight forward. The wind was blowing in excess of 20 knots straight down the marina and straight in over the stern of the boat, initially moored bow-to in her berth. So the first job was to turn her around and put her back in stern first so we could unfurl the sail without mishap.

This picked up an interesting miscommunication between Dad and myself.

Our usual process when casting off is he takes the helm and I walk her back out the berth until the speed astern picks up enough for the rudder to overcome the prop wash, at which point I step aboard, and generally keep an eye on the receding pontoon until we're sufficiently clear for Dad to turn without the bow swinging into the jetty. His visibility down in the cockpit isn't that great and he's understandably not one for balancing on the coamings whilst juggling the throttle with his foot.

At least that's what I thought we were doing. Things got a little bit interesting the week before in lighter wind from the same direction, which I'd put down to Dad simply not swinging the stern around enough before engaging ahead. This time however, when I called out that it was clear to swing, he went immediately ahead, still more or less facing the berth, and tried to turn up into the wind. Which proved an eye opening repeat of the week before, except with significantly more wind against the beam to push us down onto the various bow anchors and out-drives of the other boats moored along our pontoon.

It all ended well enough with a little bit of anxious sweat and some colourful language but no tears, and whilst I did at one point step over the pulpit in preparation to fend off with my foot, I didn't actually have too, and we eventually ended up back in our berth after a couple of failed attempts stern-to, as required. All the enthusiastic application of throttle roused our lovely neighbour Lucy up from below decks aboard her gorgeous yacht "Dakota" and she kindly helped out by taking the stern line from me as we came back alongside.

I overslept by an hour Sunday morning. A gig and corresponding late night the evening before meant I didn't get to Dad's until about 0800, rather than the 0700 promised, so didn't get to the boat until about 0930.

We fitted the new shackles, hauled up the sail to check it looked okay before dropping it again to secure the shackle pins with some seizing wire, and then cast off and headed out to the bay.

It was about half an hour before low tide by time we locked out through the Barrage, making for a very long drop and us having to carefully pick our way from the outer harbour and into the Wrack Channel between port and starboard lateral buoys, the nearest of which were now sat high on the mud-banks they were intended to mark. The sky was grey and the sea flat. As we left the navigation channel and motored out towards Raine Point, what little wind there was failed completely, the surrounding waters smooth as smoked glass.

After half an hour of motoring along the Penarth shore, the tide close to turning, we unfurled the genoa and hauled up the main. The sky was beginning to clear, with broken sun now edging through, and a gentle, southerly wind began to stir, albeit hardly enough air to even ripple the water. Nonetheless, it was enough to give us steerage and trickle along close hauled on a starboard tack in the direction of Flat Holm.

The set of foresail seemed fine; I put enough tension into the halyard to put a vertical crease up the luff, and then eased it back until the luff was free of creases in either direction. As is the way with these things however, you fix one thing and another fails; as I pulled on the outhaul, the sheathing around the nylon core of the line frayed and then parted entirely, apparently abraded away by the cleat. Not exactly a disaster, and the core of the rope held in the cleat so we were able to continue sailing with it as it was, but annoying as we'd only replaced that line at the end of last summer.

As the tide began to flood, the sky cleared to a gorgeous, summery blue, and the wind kicked in. Very soon the little boat was heeled over with a bone between her teeth and charging along. Later checking the records of a local(ish) weather station, I read that the lunch time wind was gusting up to about 18 knots, which made for some fantastic sailing; more so in that the sea remained pretty much flat through out, the wind blowing up with the flood tide.

We covered around 10nm in the couple of hours we were out bashing back and forth across the bay under sail.

It was a lovely day's sailing. I think we've sorted the set of the new sails now, which is a tremendous weight off my mind. The damaged outhaul is an easy fix as we were able to thread it out attached to a mousing line ready to run the replacement line back through when we return to the boat this coming weekend.

Which, hopefully, will be a proper test of the new sails.

Wind is forecast F4 gusting 5 from the south and then veering west for the weekend and the tides are just right for what we have in mind. I have a gig Friday but am clear Saturday and Sunday, so assuming the forecast doesn't deteriorate any further, we're planing to sail over to Watchet and back.

Calstar: Bank Holiday local sailing

Just spotted this post in my drafts. I think that means I was going to post some words around all the pretty pictures.

However, the moment has passed I think. These were taken a couple of weeks ago, our first trip out through the Barrage with our new sails, albeit with the luff of the genoa still hopelessly, horribly slack.

But it seems a shame not to post the photos; we'll have to content ourselves with just a few words to wrap around them for context.

It was a gorgeous day. Made all the sweeter by the fact that it was a Monday; a national bank holiday weekend, so a liberated Monday free of my usual station sat at my desk in the office. I won't say "chained" because I am routinely there entirely of my free will. But it was nice to be somewhere else for a change.

We locked out around local high water and spent a couple of hours sailing carefree circuits up to the Cardiff North buoy, back down towards Mid Cardiff, cutting back in towards the Outer Wrack then up and around again.

The creases in the luff and bellowing at the tack of the sail were distressing, although the winds were relatively slight and the little boat charged around as if a thing invigorated with the reclaimed joys of youth.

But it definitely set our minds that we'd have to do something about the set of the sail ourselves. It was about now that we settled to try and resolve it with shackled. We'd asked a local rigger to come look at it, but as is so often the way with these things, he was all enthusiasm when initially approached, but two weeks later hadn't found the time to amble down the pontoon to take a look and advise.

The lovely spring weather lasted throughout our entire time out on the water. Just shy of a couple of hours under sail, and 11.5nm covered going around and around in circles just for the sake of it.

We eventually locked back in, and headed over to Mermaid Quay where we moored alongside for an hour and went in search of lunch, settling on tapas at one of the many local restaurants.

The sun continued to shine as we made our way back to the marina, moored up in our berth and tidied everything away to head home. As we left the boat and climbed into the car, the western sky was beginning to darken ominously.

Twenty minutes later, on the motorway passing Newport, the heavens opened and the deluge came down.

I'm dismayed at my attempt at brevity. I did honestly mean just a few words. Seems I just can't stop myself. I think it's the click-clickety-click of the keyboard as I type.

Hypnotic. Therapeutic. Oddly ameliorative.

Buffy: a comedy of errors

Wednesday evening racing at Frampton saw me clueless. Sorry, I mean crewless. Or perhaps both? Hadn't heard from Hels again; she's been, understandably, very preoccupied of late with things both domestic and professional away from the lake. And Ben had, regretfully, informed me he'd already made other promises.

I suspect after having checked the forecast first. Beginning light, then fading further as the evening drew in. Not his kind of weather, especially if I'm asking him to crew in the front of the boat whilst I helm.

Undeterred, I turned up anyway and got the boat out. It's far from impossible to race an Enterprise single-handed, just not as much fun and decidedly uncomfortable in a drift; it's next to impossible to get the balance and trim right and still sit somewhere where you can see what's going on.

First lesson of the evening: even if you don't have a crew, find somebody else to help before you try and tension the jib with the highfield lever.

The highfield puts about 400lbs of tension into the rig, which is a lot to pull on with a six inch lever. You achieve this by getting the crew to hang on the forestay with their body-weight, pulling the mast forwards to absorb the initial tension whilst you pull the lever on.

Crewless, I figured I'd be clever and push back on the forestay myself with my foot whilst pulling the lever on with my right hand, left hand braced against the mast for balance. Seemed a simple enough stretch.

Of course, the lever, which moves through 180 degrees, initially pulls out towards the stern of the boat and then continues to push down and forwards towards the bow. By this point, it's got a fair bit of energy in it. And at this point of reversal, my hand slipped and the lever sprung back up, abrading a six inch long scratch up my wrist towards my hand.

Belatedly realising the error of my ways, I grabbed a handy Laser sailor to hang off the forestay temporarily and continued rigging the boat, trying my best not to get blood on the sails.

It would be good to say the foolishness ended there, but of course it didn't.

On the water I got a more than acceptable start. The line was horrifically port biased, which everybody else seemed intent on ignoring, so I tried a port flier and, typically, mistimed it and had to duck the leading starboard boat.

But I recovered well, the boat moving quicker than the other four Enterprises on the water, a combination of clean hull, shiny foils and just my weight in it, I suspect. I reached the windward mark just ahead of "Ghost" and just behind Charles in the lead boat, "Boldly Go". I tacked on to port behind him but clear ahead of the rest of the fleet and followed Boldly around the mark, leaving it to starboard.

At which point we found ourselves facing the rest of the now closing fleet. They pointed out to us it was supposed to be a port rounding. The Enterprise "To Boldly Go" had boldly went. The wrong way. And I, like a lemming, and boldly followed.

In trying to unwind my course and tack the mark on the correct, port side, I inadvertently caught Alan's Enterprise on its forestay with the end of my boom. Everybody was moving slow enough for the contact to be fleeting and no damage to occur, I'm not even sure Alan noticed. However, concluding my 720 degree penalty turn, I lost track of the windward mark and soundly thumped into it.

Another 360 degrees penalty turn complete, and I was finally on my way again, with only Henry in the rear most Enterprise now for company.

Over the course of the following hour, I slowly climbed back through the fleet until I was back on the tail of the lead Enterprise, Ghost. I then rather enthusiastically rounded up around a leeward mark in pursuit, lost track of it and misjudged it in the by then very fading drift, and heard another unmistakable, resounding thump on the hull.

More turns.

I finally finished second. Which was more than I deserved. Well ahead of the rest of the fleet, but significantly behind Ghost. It turns out that the function of a crew-mate in an Enterprise is not, as I'd previously thought, to balance the boat, to trim the foresail, to position the centreboard or operate the flyaway pole.

The function of the crew is to keep me from being stupid so I actually have a chance of winning the race.

It was however, my own idiocy not withstanding nor the occasionally frustratingly light conditions, a lovely evening to be out on the water however. I'm already looking forward to next week, crew available or not.


On a more serious note, I guess I'll see how this season goes. It's complicated by the joint ownership of the boat; Hels owns half of her, so I can't just go out and promise the crew's seat to anybody as she rightfully has first call on it. So if she can't make it then any backup crew is always going to be at short notice. But if I continue to be frustrated on the crewing side of things, I guess that's telling me the time has come to sell my half on and go get a single-hander; inevitably a Laser, I suppose.

We shall see. I love double-handed racing, but for it to work, it needs a crew-mate that's as reliably committed and as obsessed with the whole thing as you.

Calstar: new sails and an inch too far

Fitted the new sails this weekend.

I say fitted, but frustratingly, the luff of the foresail is about an inch too long. The mistake is almost certainly mine in the measurement, although I haven't checked. I'm not sure it makes any difference in any case. We've waited so long to receive them that I'm just glad they're here so we're going make what we have fit.

Although knowing the fit isn't perfect yet is a nag at the back of my mind. A slight tarnish to the otherwise pure excitement of something new.

The obvious fix is the forestay and furler.

When we fitted the new Furlex last year, the rigger fitted the drum intentionally high to give clearance for handling the anchor. In practice there is at least three inches of extra space there, so the ideal solution will be to lower the drum of the Furlex those few inches to effectively extend the forestay.

That will also mean extending the foil the sail runs up.

Dad's back down in Cardiff on Monday to talk to a rigger. All a lot of hassle and fuss and additional expense, but if it works out, infinitely better than re-cutting the foresail.

It was a perfect day for messing about with the sails however. The morning was still and bright, once the initial cloud cover cleared, and then a breeze blew up in the afternoon so we took Calstar out into Cardiff Bay to try out her new sails.

Although I couldn't put full tension into the foresail because of the afore mentioned extra inch, we could tension it enough to sail with.

The foresail is fuller than our original one, the clew of the sail lower, and the extra power even in the initially slight breeze was immediately obvious. The flat water  undoubtedly helped, but close hauled and heeling to about 20 degrees, she trotted along at a very comfortable four and half knots where, previously I'm sure, I'd have only had three out of her.

The material, 6 oz Dacron for the headsail and 7.5 oz for the main, was refreshingly stiff and crispy. So much so it'll feel like a crime when the time inevitably comes that we need to reef them. Dad was quite entranced; even to the point that when a gust heeled us over when close hauled to beyond thirty degrees he didn't complain.

It's the first time I've really sailed around Cardiff Bay, we usually just cross it from one side to the other under power to get to where we're going. It's essentially a 500 acre freshwater lake created by the Barrage, which compared to the 50 acres we have at Frampton seems pretty big but once you start charging around it with a 26' yacht it starts to feel decidedly small and the workload of tacking and gybing correspondingly high.

In the brief hour we spent crashing around the blue waters of the bay beneath the gorgeous blue of a warm, bright spring sky, it felt more like charging around the cans at with Buffy at Frampton than the more usual gentlemanly pace of a typical outing with Calstar.

It is an unaccustomed luxury to be able to just nip out of the marina any time we like regardless of the time or state of tide for a "quick sail" just to try stuff out. The move to Cardiff from Portishead is, so far, working out well for us.

Calstar: a new suit

The much longed for new sails have finally arrived this morning. That's 104 days from order to delivery, and 32 days overdue from the originally promised delivery date. Next time I'm going to make a significant pain in the ass of myself from much earlier in the day. And there will be a next time quite soon, as I want a cruising chute once funds have sufficiently recovered.

Whether I'll get it from the same folks given the delays and amount of chasing I've needed to do, I'm not sure. If I miss a deadline personally, I expect to tell my customer, and to tell them before the deadline is missed. Not leave the customer to chase me after the fact.

Anyway. I'm instructing at Frampton all day tomorrow so can't get to Cardiff now until Sunday.

I honestly can't wait. And if everything fits, I expect all will be forgiven.

Calstar: Gloucester & Sharpness Canal

Once we were into Sharpness, the next 14 miles (actually, as we're now technically inland, I guess I should refer to distance in statute miles - 16.5) or so were relatively straight forward, with no 10m tidal rise or 6kt streams set against us to worry about.

Of course, there are the nineteen bridges to navigate, if you include the two that guard the exit from the dock basin in Sharpness that, to be fair, most typical users of the canal wouldn't have cause to pass through.

There is also a considerable amount of traffic. Admittedly, much of it is moored on the side of the canal, but, especially given a following wind, the effects of prop wash are suddenly amplified in the narrow confines of the canal when you're trying to hold station whilst waiting for one of the innumerable bridges to swing to let you through.

The views are pretty. The canal often runs above the surrounding countryside, and for the first few miles parallel to the upper reaches of the Severn Estuary above Sharpness, the Noose and the birthing place of the Severn Bore. A place "yachties" like us don't sail. Except I've sailed there.

I love that stretch of water. Wild. Untamed. Unpredictable. Unforgiving.

Dad gets a bit possessive of the helm when we're on the canal. Whenever we drop sails and engage the engine I always defer the helm to him and tend the lines. It makes sense as I'm the more nimble of the two of us and better suited to any necessary jumping around or fending off.

This habit transfers to the length of the canal also, albeit there is much less tending of the lines and fending of the hull for me to do.

It does mean I have 16.5 statute miles of not much to do.

By about 1400 we were beginning to flag. We'd reached Sellars Bridge, over which a pub called The Pilot can be found. This is the same pub the band has played a couple of times; Dad's house is a five minute walk from here, which makes for a bit of an odd feeling to have travelled so far only to have come back home.

We stopped for a beer. It was a very quick beer; we thought that the lifting of Netheridge Bridge a couple of miles further on was booked for 1630, but the bridge keepers at Sellars told us as we crossed over their bridge to reach the pub that it was actually 1500.

So it was a swift pint and a brief stop.

There are three final, significant bridges that ward the entrance to Gloucester Docks. Two of them are modern additions, built in the last ten years to route the bypass around Gloucester City itself, and so carry significant amounts of road traffic.

Our quick pint at The Pilot had separated us out from the cluster of yachts we'd sailed up with, so we came alongside the bank for a short while to wait on Netheridge bridge. With one remaining yacht behind us, we had to wait for them to catch up so we could move through as a pair.

Once through Netheridge, we found our friends Tess and Chris of "Monterey" moored up on the bank before High Orchard Bridge. They had been with the group ahead of us, but on the first attempt to lift High Orchard for them, the bridge had, for reasons unknown, failed to fully rise.

Second time lucky, the bridge rose up to its full clearance, giving room for Monterey to slip beneath it with us. Watching it gradually creep up was a tense experience however. Although perhaps not as tense as it'd be the following Sunday waiting for it to lift to let us all back out again.

The final bridge was Llanthony. Once, before the addition of High Orchard, the biggest, the main road crossing and only the lifting bridge on the canal. Now, since the construction of the bypass and the addition of High Orchard and Netheridge, it's function is reduced to a glorified pedestrian bridge.

Friday night we ate with friends from the fleet at the nearby Ship Inn. And drank a not insubstantial amount of beer.

The following morning, Dad and I walked into town and found a taxi to take home. Dad's plan was to walk Bruno and then walk back into town to have supper at one of the Dock's restaurants with the rest of the PCC fleet and spend the night on the boat.

And me? Typically, I had mismanaged my diary so had a gig in Bristol to get to. Afterwards, I went home to bed and then got a lift back to the boat from Ben on Sunday morning, ready to head back down to Sharpness in preparation for the lock back out on Monday morning and the long trip back down to Cardiff.

Calstar: Easter Friday Cardiff to Gloucester

Portishead Cruising Club organise a "cruise in company" to Gloucester every Easter, which involves sailing up-channel from Portishead to Sharpness Docks, locking into Sharpness and then travelling up the 12 miles of  the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal to Gloucester Docks. We went up with them from Portishead a couple of years ago, and had arranged to go up with them again last year, but we all got blown out by the weather and the trip was cancelled.

A friend of mine, plays drums in our band every so often and is a fellow yachtsman, did comment the first time we did this words to the effect of why on Earth would you want to take a seagoing vessel all the way up an inland waterway to Gloucester? Not an unfair question, and I could understand and, to a degree, share his bemusement. The simple answer is that Dad wanted to do it. And for me, it was a fresh challenge and an interesting, tricky piece of navigation.

We're no longer members of PCC. I found that keeping in touch and current with a club that was almost an hour down the motorway and primarily organised itself and communicated via the Clubhouse bar on a Wednesday evening was difficult, especially as I race Buffy at Frampton on a Wednesday evening. And Calstar is now based down in Cardiff. But we're still friends, and when we discovered a couple of weeks ago that they were planning another trip again this year, we smiled winningly (and metaphorically) in their direction and they kindly invited us to tag along.

Being in Cardiff, a further 18 miles down-channel from Portishead, presented some additional challenges this year.

High water Sharpness on the Friday was due 1040. The fleet needed to be off Sharpness ready to lock in an hour before. Any earlier would be too early on the tide, more than half an hour later would risk missing the lock. The Portishead fleet were planning to gather outside Portishead between 0730 and 0800 Friday morning but my work commitments prevented us from doing the obvious, splitting the trip across two tides and coming up to Portishead Thursday evening which a few other Cardiff boats were planning to do.

We can cover the 18 miles between Cardiff and Portishead in three hours, but that's will the full spate of the tide carrying us. Without that, it can take four and a half hours to cover the same ground.

Low water Cardiff Friday morning was 0345 at 1.3 meters. The low water height would mean that the outer harbour at Cardiff wouldn't carry enough water for us to get out for about an hour either side of tide. So the only option available was to lock out a little over an hour earlier at 0230 and stem the last of the ebb.

By the time we got to the boat Thursday evening and had settled in and bunked down, I managed a shade over a couple of hours of sleep before I had to crawl back out of my sleeping bag at 0200 and rouse Dad to prepare the boat to cast off. At 0230, the Barrage lock was an eerily dark, lonely place as we locked down about 10m to the awaiting sea. A near to full moon, although riding high, was obscured completely behind a fully cloud-mantled sky. Flashes of green and red from the navigation buoys guided us out through the Wrack Channel as we left the lock and departed from the outer harbour, one nervous eye glued to the dim, amber glow of our depth gauge, keen to avoid the indignity and inconvenience of sitting out the last of the tide on a mud-bank.

A light breeze was pushing up-channel with us over a lightly ruffled sea, so as soon as we were clear of the Wrack, we turned into wind and pulled the sails up, but continued to motor-sail for the first couple of hours through the darkness, first to make way against the still ebbing tide and then to keep our ground-speed up in the light air until the tide fully turned and picked up the slack.

Some time later, off Clevedon and about an hour out of Portishead, wind and tide strengthened in our favour and we finally stilled the engine to glide through the darkness with just the rush of wind and chuckle of bow wave and wake for accompaniment. Sunrise was little more than an apologetic, grey seeping of light into the cloud-raddled sky as we passed Black Nore Point and Kilkenny Bay. We made Portishead for about 0700, anchored off to wait the rest of the fleet and Dad grilled some bacon for breakfast.

We weighed anchor at 0730, as the first of the Portishead boats locked out. The smaller boats set out directly, whilst some of the larger, faster vessels milled around in the shelter of the Hole. A preventer rigged to the main and the headsail poled out in a goose-wing, we set off ourselves on a run towards the Bridge. The wind had freshened, and within half an hour we were up in the top of the Shoots, fast approaching the bridge. A forest of masts marked where the Portishead fleet were just now pushing out from the shelter of the Hole to start making their way up.

We turned back to them, hardening up to a close-hauled beat to stem the tide, waiting for them to catch us up.

We passed beneath the Second Severn Crossing under full sail in the company of the leading Portishead boats and continued up between the bridges, the wind becoming fickle and shifty as the early morning lengthened. As we passed the moorings at St Pierre Pill, some of our Lydney friends aboard the yacht "Castiard" put out into the channel to join us on their way home to Lydney Harbour. Once through the second of the Severn bridges, we turned briefly into wind, started the engine and dropped the main, but left the headsail set to motor-sail for a while longer as we began to pick our way up the Slime Roads.

Our Gloucester bound fleet was made up of fifteen boats, most from Portishead but a few, like ourselves, out of Cardiff. Fifteen boats plus Castiard made that stretch of the Severn an uncharacteristically popular spot for a brief while that Friday morning.

Navigation through the upper reaches of the Severn Estuary is involved, and undoubtedly perilous if you get it wrong, but not difficult or complicated as long as you prepare and follow the well marked channel. We arrived off Sharpness a little before 1000 as planned and made our way directly into Sharpness Lock, where we rafted up with a couple of Portishead boats and waited to be lifted up to the canal.

Calstar: like it's Christmas all over again

Just had a call from Mark at Jeckells, and am told that our now sails are finally packed and ready for delivery, due for pickup by their carrier this afternoon, to hopefully be delivered to us for tomorrow.

Fantastically good news. Horrifically overdue, but if they do turn up tomorrow and prove to be all I hope they'll be, then all will be happily forgiven.

I feel like it's Christmas all over again.

Of course, that could just be because it was just about back last Christmas that we actually ordered them. These photos, of the Tower of London, a London bus beneath Nelson's Column and Harrods respectively, were taken through London on the trip there and back to the London Boat Show on January 7th.

A bit of a while ago now.