Pottering about in the Scilly Islands

As expected, we decided not to rush anywhere in the fog. No fun spending 19 hours staring at the radar so instead we stayed put and spent time pottering around the islands a bit more. No hardship frankly.

A very lazy time was enjoyed at the Flying boat café / bistro on Tresco with coffee and cake (no, not carrot this time, chocolate but excellent!) which then morphed somehow into wine. You know how these things can happen…. That took up all of an afternoon and early evening somehow.

We also had a brief (crew’s knee is playing up a little after her mountaineering exploits on Tresco) wander around Bryher a day later. Of course, her knee started to play up close to the Hell Bay hotel so coffee was needed there too. We bumped into some local folks who knew Soleil d’Or. Remember her? If not, here is a reminder. She is a lovely classic boat who belongs to Steve. He is better known as Bronwen’s dad and the Cardiff waterbus operator: 

The black "blob" hanging over the gunwale is Browen the Spaniel by the way.

Soleil d'Or was the “gentleman’s launch” and transport for the Tresco island main man and spent many years moored very close to where we are now. The main man now has a much less impressive looking Aquastar with a strange green hull as his transport.  Apparently there is a rock known by the local folks as the Sol rock. Not because Soleil d’Or hit it but because if you could see any of the rock, there was not enough water in the channel for her to pass through. Wonder if the ferry skipper who grounded a little (see earlier post) knows that trick?

On Sunday afternoon, the wind picked up but was blowing across New Grimsby sound. It was strong enough to compete with the tide and so all the boats ended up laying across the sound and, hence, broadside on to the waves coming in from the Atlantic. Not ideal. So, we deployed our “flopper stopper”. For the non-boating folks, this is basically a big stainless steel plate hinged in the middle that hangs from a spar into the water on our port side. As the boat rolls to port, it closes up and “dives” down. As the boat rolls the other way it opens up and acts like one big brake in the water, slowing the roll dramatically. Deploying it means fitting a line to the stack to support the end of the spar:

And then some fore and aft lines to keep it in position. Launching is nothing more ceremonious than slinging it over the side from the aft cockpit. The finished arrangement:

This grabbed the attention of the other folks moored near to us. Expressions of amusement / amazement as we rigged and deployed the spar and flopper stopper turned to jealousy as it started working and we rolled significantly less than them (yachts included!) Worth the 10 minutes or so of activity for a quieter night.

You can just about see the big stainless plate under the water here as it "opens" on the way up together with a little weed the guy line has collected:

Crude but effective. We like simple solutions. You can have a “stabilise at rest” function with the hydraulic fins but of course they need a genset running all the time to power them and the wear and tear on the bushes etc must be huge. We don’t have this feature, ours only work when underway and that is fine by us. The low tech flopper stopper is ideal.

Maintenance news:

Some time ago (3 years or so), the main engine oil cooler had a mist of oil underneath it and the bolts securing the housing to the engine block needed tightening. Well, a similar mist has appeared so the bolts got another tweak. Will order up a new gasket and fit it when the main engine oil is changed, not a big job. As we’ve been using the genset every day since Weymouth over a month ago (bar during a brief Plymouth marina stay) the hours have racked up and it will be due an oil change shortly. Will leave that until we are in a marina again, with oil disposal facilities to hand.