St Peter Port to Dartmouth

As is often the case, optimum timing for this trip was not optimum for the crew. Either a stupidly early start or a stupidly late arrival. We kind of compromised and tried to leave just as there would be some visibility and before the tide started setting strongly against us down the side of Guernsey.

All that translated to a 4:15am alarm clock. Izzy looked unimpressed. A 4:45am walk for her in the dark was a bit strange too. At least it allowed us to leave early and to achieve a sensible timing compromise.

An overview of the route looks simple enough, with the S shape caused when we allow the tide to carry us east to begin with then to push us back to the west:

Why that funny little kink in the middle of it? Well, there is a big traffic separation zone and we just avoid the west end of it on this trip. However, you have the big commercial guys who have been penned into a lane popping out like corks and spraying off in different directions depending upon where they are bound. For those approaching from the west, they "home in" to their part of the zone from all directions in a similar manner.

This crossing treated us to the busiest shipping activity we have ever seen in the area:

and you can see the first of many "wiggles" through the gaggles of big guys in our red track line.

We get ahead of ourselves - it was pretty misty and so we had fun with the new radars and the FLIR (twilight conditions) spotting both pot markers and ships. The FLIR did an excellent job finding the little markers and telling us which marks on the water were birds (they are hotter!) The doppler radar worked well, the automatic flagging up of "dangerous" targets (ie those heading our way) worked well as did the full automatic tuning. We always had to play with our older units to optimise the image as the auto-tune worked "up to a point". Lessons from Captain Rae (now retired) needed soon on how to set up the new kit. Colin - we have gin on board....

Our first enforced course alteration was down to the Fagelgracht who was heading for Holland. New in shipping terms as well, 2011 build. Not pretty though through the mist:

Followed by several more. This wasn't aided by a couple of fishing boats ambling around in the middle of the separation zone. Twice we had to more or less turn and run parallel to the shipping and make a gap between them that we could cross. At least it was calm, no nasty swell and just a gentle F3/4 from the NE that was not kicking up much in the way of waves.

The more we use the new Furuno kit, the more we like it. Clarity of screen presentation, handling of AIS targets, radar integration and FLIR integration work well. The ability to run a remote screen on our tablet and control the system from that is nice but not terribly useful. I think it will come into its own when we need an anchor watch alarm set overnight.

Once clear of the TSS area the shipping activity was quiet and we could enjoy the run more. Izzy did her lookout thing again:

and we contemplated where to go in Dartmouth. The Dart Marina folks told us there were no free berths. April 1 is the typical "all change" date when bertholders move between marinas. It seemed that nobody had left yet. The Harbour authority folks will no longer let us stay on the mid-river pontoon that we have used for years (about 8!) as we are now too long. Funny that, same pontoon as always, same ground anchors, same boat, but we are sure they have a reason that isn't just victimisation of small Nordhavn boats. Yes, remember we are a small Nordhavn. The mid river buoys that we could hang between are not really very practical - they are spaced for boats of around 100' length not 50'. Luckily the nice folks in Darthaven Marina having said they were full called us back and found a nice hammerhead slot for us. At least we had a home to aim for.

The entry to the Dart was as lovely as ever, this time on the flybridge as the wind had died down. We happily moored up around 11.5 hours after starting the engine in Guernsey with no particular dramas on the way. Just lots of wriggling around. As it was such a lovely evening, we treated ourselves to a G and T on the flybridge. Izzy wanted to join in:

She is a lot like her mum really but gin is not appropriate for a 4 year old!

Maintenance news: nothing new to report. The Captain sorted out the depth offset on the little Furuno gauge on the flybridge (it had not copied the offset from the main system). Also we need to do the first of many cleaning jobs on the touch screens in the pilothouse....

Guernsey time

You know how it is, you wake up, look out and see another Nordhavn in St Peter Port. Now, they are not that common. Then you get a message from Phil the Nordhavn Europe man who has just come over on the handover trip from the Hamble river with the brand new shiny boat. Makes ours look very sad indeed - polishing only just started for this year.

Phil came to say hello and get his signature on the sales paperwork witnessed. We told him that doctors charge big time for that sort of stuff. No visible reaction though. The new boat, Anura, you have seen in earlier posts, when she was out on trials in Southampton water. Yes, that was the time that Phil was wearing a kilt and in the interest of public decency we refused to post any close up pictures.

A reminder:

Whilst in Guernsey we visited M and G in St Sampson by bus to get a stainless steel bracket made up. The plastic one that supported the controller for the old Furuno Navnet kit on the flybridge had broken - the new controller has to be in a little Navpod and the weight plus the age of the plastic had taken its toll on the original bracket which just broke. M and G turned it around in just over a day - perhaps to make up for the shaft etc work timing. Anyway, we were very happy with it until it came to be fitted. Looks like they got ID and OD a bit mixed up when they measured the old one. the bracket was not wide enough so some temporary surgery was needed to the fitting on the Navpod too. Stuff is never simple.

What else? A trip to St Sampson by boat allowed Marcus, the very nice Rubis tanker man to fill us up with 2707 litres of diesel. Low fuel burn last year as we didn't cruise that far whilst moving the toddlers into their new home. Also, thanks to the unplanned extended stay out of the water in Guernsey, fewer hours for the Webasto heating.

We also saw Charlotte and Justin, the Guernsey Oysters folks and had a very pleasant catch up that involved way less alcohol than was planned thanks to tide times. (Neap tides meant we did not go to Beaucette marina to stay and hence they had some driving to do). A walk along the coast is always lovely, although Izzy kept staring at Herm hoping we would take her there perhaps as she heard how much her mum enjoyed the place:

The staring did not work as the ferry times were far from ideal.  The walk up to Candie Gardens was not a great success though - dogs on leads only but the views make up for that a little:

We heard some commotion outside early one morning (a boat arriving) and when we got up, were greeted by the sight of yet another Nordhavn 63:

This one is the old "Due North", that used to live in Craobh marina and anyone who went to the Southampton Boat Show last year would have seen her. Lovely boat, beautifully maintained by her first owner. She was en route to the Med with her new owners on board and James Knight, the Yacht tech man from the USA who was involved in the purchase. James came over to introduce himself and give us his business card - always looking for an opportunity we guess. By the way James, we think you need a less "typically American" shiny blue thing to hand out over here:

Three Nordhavn boats in St Peter Port and two of them the relatively rare 63 models. Almost a creche going on.

As the poor dog didn't get a walk on Herm, we took her to the Bluebell wood instead. Just a couple of weeks too early for the carpet of colour to appear but she still seemed happy amongst the few blooms that had ventured out:

Lunch sitting outside at the Beach Cafe at Fermain Bay was excellent as usual. Later on we were firmly put in our place. Charlotte and Justin came to St Peter Port to say bye to us, saw a grey hulled boat and walked down the pontoon to it. Only they had picked the brand new Nordhavn 63. They realised their error and the owners told them "you want the small Nordhavn over there". So, now we know. Size does matter.

Weymouth to St Peter Port (Guernsey)

After enjoying Weymouth  for a day (the third furry crew member particularly enjoyed the beach) and even starting on the polishing marathon that the beginning of each season brings, the captain went to help Andrew remove the stabiliser fins from his Nordhavn 43 which was out of the water in Portland. The job went pretty well until the careless captain did the "holding a fin up and twisting his body to push the container propping the fin from underneath out of the way" thing. His back responded and told him off with a big twinge. No more help was proffered, instead a bus back and lots of exercises to help relieve the muscle spasm and resulting ability to walk like a ruptured duck.

Polishing stopped as did a plan to leave for Guernsey, a couple of extra days were spent in Weymouth much to the delight of the beach addicted third crew member who also managed to destroy her new toy quite quickly:

We were entertained by the arrival of the Sea Cadets training ship Jack Petchey. We've seen her in several locations and every time they make a total meal out of berthing her, even once a line is ashore to motor against. Plenty of rushing out of the pilothouse, looking, issuing instructions to the poor guy on the pontoon / crew handling the lines, rushing back in and doing "stuff" with the engines that never brings the boat alongside. Getting her to this state took many minutes:

We think the Sea Cadets have built the least manageable boat going, based on all we have seen. We would never be brave enough to critique the way they handle her. They are professional teaching types.

The forecast for a motorboat cross channel trip just got better and better. So much so that we enjoyed the calmest ever crossing - and we've made this trip many many times over the years. Departing Weymouth at a civilised hour, in the sun and with a true wind speed of 4 knots showing was a treat:

The sail training ship Royalist was in harbour too:

looking very freshly painted and spoodled. She followed us out to sea for what we guess was a trip purely under motor.

The route over to Guernsey:

The S curve is the usual "letting the tide take us" thing - the extra kink to the east was not a surge in the tide but was necessitated by the untimely arrival of Clipper Odin heading for the separation zone which forced us to divert around her stern:

That is a 0.8 Nautical Mile separation in case you are interested. The ship was off to the UAE, think our Guernsey plan is way nicer.

As we approached the eastbound ship area, so a gaggle of big guys came after us. Amazingly with no course alteration we just trundled through the pack:

As the tide turned we got help down past the Casquets and towards Guernsey. We always love heading towards an island and seeing the coastline appear as that grey line on the horizon then watching the details of the place slowly become visible. It seems that Patrick the penguin and Kylie his "mate" enjoy that too. At least they looked riveted by the views:

Heading down the Little Russel channel to St Peter Port we had a scare. We were avoiding one pot marker when we heard a bump. Engine into neutral, boat seemed OK, behind us a pot marker popped up then sank again below the water as the tide pulled it under. Very lucky. Why fishermen are allowed to put tiny markers that get dragged under completely by a non spring tide in the direct deep water channel down to St Peter Port is a thing of mystery. And frustration. And nearly disaster.  We feel another rant coming on about how unsafe this is. In fact chatting to a local boater he also complained about the same stupid tiny marker.

That didn't dim our happiness at arriving in St Peter Port though. Love the place, plenty of happy memories (it was a favourite spot to visit when we had holidays that were constrained by work!) The welcome by the harbour man in his little dory was friendly and very helpful. He put us on the pontoon they use for cruise liner passengers when they are brought ashore by tender. Hence we had a walk ashore spot for Izzy the furry third crew member as the harbour pontoons had not been connected to the shore yet..She has steadfastly refused to use the astroturf and didn't even seem in a hurry to find some grass ashore. Almost 12 hours of bladder control after having two puppies. Amazing. Mind you, she and the crew had been enjoying some snoozing and cuddles en route:

The run was in almost perfect conditions, took just over 10.5 hours and caused remarkably little stress. The verdict on the new electronics - positive so far and from the crew as well. The functionality and ease of use of the TZT2 Furuno system is good.  Little things like the route planning and AIS target handling are so much better than we had before. Still haven't experimented with the radar yet, that will be a challenge for the next trip. Think we will need a tutorial from Captain Rae who is a bit of a trainspotter about the stuff. He recounts stories about using radar when he was flying Lightning fighter planes. Identifying and reacting to things at around Mach 2 (around 1,500mph) must be harder than at 6.5 knots.(around 7.5 mph).

Our morning after arrival view of the harbour was a little different to normal thanks to the spot on the cruise liner pontoon:

You can see the entrance to the visitor marina that we will not try to go into on this visit - neap tides means that on a couple of days we would not be able to get out over the cill even at high water. We don't like being trapped.

Maintenance news:

The big Lugger behaved just fine.  The genset started when we needed it to prepare dinner. We have to investigate why the Pyrometer (exhaust gas temperature reading for the main engine - remember that this has a dry exhaust) is not working now. Initially we thought that a wire had been dislodged when the Maricom guys had the panel out for the electronics work. That was checked and all was well. Now we think the wiring to the sender in the exhaust was damaged by a guy from an insulation manufacturer who wanted to use our boat for measurements to make up new insulation for another 47. Although we asked that none of our nice new lagging was disturbed, he clearly did so as some of the fixings had been retied differently. NOT AMUSED! So much for doing good deeds.

Lymington to Weymouth

Yes, the weather was good, the tides for a morning departure were in our favour and the captain thought that he knew enough about the new Furuno kit to venture out beyond the well trodden Solent area.

A little run to Weymouth was called for. Why? Well, Weymouth harbour is a lovely place to stay, Andrew and Linda (you should know them very well from this blog) live there and it is a good jumping off spot for Guernsey and fuel too.

Departure with our third crew member was a civilised just after nine affair. The wind was a kindly F3/4 but sort of on the nose. So nice after days of gales.

The route is simple, except for needing to avoid the firing range at Lulworth which was active. However the safety patrol guys always help by telling you how far south you need to go to avoid becoming a target. This time it was 50 degrees and 33 mins N. That does mean you have to cross the race over the St Alban's bank but in gentle winds it was not a big deal even for Izzy: It looks like:

The new navigation gear all fired up OK:

You can spot the other critical "on passage" items in the picture. The rhubarb and custard sugar free drops have become a favourite and get a serious pasting on overnight trips.

We went down the Needles channel with ever increasing tidal help. The Needles looked a bit mean and moody as usual:

This plotter pic shows how we could cut several miles off the trip by following the 50 33N line rather than heading to the waypoint shown which clears the southerly extremities of the entire firing range:

Sorry about the reflections, it was getting brighter outside. On the final part of the trip approaching Weymouth, Izzy seemed keen to keep a good lookout:

Some anchored ships were successfully warned off by barking. Amazing really.

We were given a lovely spot just outside the harbour office in Weymouth and were also greeted by a dinner invitation from Andrew and Linda. What more could you ask for?  Nice trip with loads of tidal assistance, happy third crew member, nice spot and Linda's famous curry to look forward to. As we prepared to dock, Izzy wanted to help the crew on the foredeck. Hint - Izzy is not showing her bottom in this picture:

Izzy did disgrace herself on the walk up to Andrew and Linda's house though by finding some rancid fish smelling gunge on the harbourside to semi roll in. She had another new experience afterwards - a clean up session in their bath.

As for the trip - a nice run of only just over 5 hours. The nav kit behaved well, just have to play with the autopilot setup as it is responding much too quickly to the new fast feed from our old satellite compass and oversteering terribly. So much so that we reverted to the internal rate compass for most of the trip. Must read the manuals and figure out how to adjust the old Simrad autopilot so it behaves better. If only humans and dogs came with one too.

Being sociable

Whilst enjoying Lymington we also enjoyed the company of some friends. A lunch out with John and Kath (the Broom owner folks) at the South Lawn hotel was a long and most pleasurable one. We ended up making an unplanned trip to Hythe with John to recover an old outboard for John to try - a little two stroke job that is way lighter than his current Honda offering.

John, Irene and Archie the Lakeland terrier came to see us. Not by driving all the way down from Newcastle we hasten to add, we are not that popular. They were staying locally and we took advantage of that enjoying their company and the lovely Beaulieu to Bucklers Hard walk. Only it was muddy. Very muddy.

Anne delivered Izzy our goddog for a little holiday. Little? Well, she will be with us for at least two weeks and seems to be settling in rather well:

She is back in charge and calling the shots especially with her little bear toy:

So much so that a rather talented Dutch artist lady we met in Lymington was asked to sketch her:

The sketch was done on board the boat by Nicoline:

who also took a liking to the Nordhavn way of life. Lovely and talented lady - if anyone wants any animal sketches or portraits in the New Forest area, let us know your email address through the comments section and we can pass on Nicoline's details.

It was a busy day actually, Steve who is also a Nordhavn owner (Mity Mouse, a Nordhavn 40) came to see us. Well, more like "came to talk electronics and see what the new Furuno kit was like". Very few folks come to see us unless we have Izzy on board. Do you think there might be a connection?

We also got the old 2 stroke outboard working so that John and Kath could try it out on their dinghy. Out little Tohatsu egg whisk was then exhumed from the darkest recesses of the lazarette and it started too. 4 pulls and off it went after a winter lay-up. Great bit of kit. To check all was well, we had a little Lymington river dinghy trip:

Our extra crew is not keen on her lifejacket but seems to like standing on the tubes of the dinghy and barking at ducks. Hence the lead, firmly attached.

Finally the SW'ly gales abated and a high pressure was being established. Time to escape and really test out the new navigation kit perhaps?

Just for info, this rather disturbing little blog has just hit the 100,000 post reads mark. Go and do something mind improving instead is all we can say.

Swanwick to Lymington - kit testing and joker valves, again

Escape from the rather expensive winter berthing rates at Swanwick could not come quickly enough. After Paul from Maricom finished the electronics fit, we hot footed it to Lymington. OK, an exaggeration really. It was blowing a near gale and gusting force 8/9 (42 knots at times) according to our nice new instruments and we had no reason to doubt them at all! Getting off the berth in Swanwick was fun as the wind and stream wanted us to stay there. The big barn door rudder, thrusters and luck extricated us. The route is a simple one:

but with a WNW gale blowing the Solent treated us to its trademark "Solent Chop" - short wavelength steep waves caused by the wind being over the tide. We threw lots of spray around, giving our nice new FLIR and even the radars some salt to help their inevitable future corrosion.

On the way, we were circled by a police boat which had been on the Hamble river. They might have been thinking "what are these mad guys doing out here". We were drinking tea actually. The Nordhavn is pretty stable! On arrival in Lymington, the same police boat was on the berth we had been given by the Harbour Authority folks. Doing a loop in the wind, the crew had great fun yelling at the policemen and telling them they had stolen our spot. They apologetically moved on with the skipper saying how he was jealous of the Nordhavn and always liked them. Now we understand the circling bit.

Somewhat less amusing was #jokervalvegate2 . Yup, the fore heads had developed a little leak (it has to be from the outlet, doesn't it) and tightening the inaccessible outlet pipe that holds the joker valve did not fix it. We thought that the 90 degree plastic elbow or the stupid plastic (yes, plastic!) flange that holds the valve in place might have a crack in it due to the tension put on the fitting from the new stiff sanitation hose. A new elbow was procured from the rather excellent Lee Sanitation folks together with an extra 90 degree swept elbow that could be fitted into the hose to relieve any sideways pressure on the fittings.

Planning the job and getting the bits was simple. Doing it? Well, not as bad as the joker valve replacement in the main heads but still a job from hell. The machine screws that hold the fitting in place are slotted so you have to rely on a screwdriver. One of them is hidden behind the elbow it is holding on. A cranked screwdriver will not go in (not enough clearance). Much bad language ensued.


Cutting the hose and adding the swept elbow was simple. Releasing the fitting that holds the joker valve was not... Finally the machine screws were out, got replaced by sensible ones with a hex head on them and the thing rebuilt after fighting the hidden bolt in place.

Only it then leaked again. The **** new joker valve that you cannot hold in position whilst fitting the thing had twisted a bit. Undo, rebuild and finally we have a working heads again. Simple job that should take an hour or so took about four.

New swept elbow and fitting finally in place:

Spot the second machine screw holding the flange and elbow in place on the toilet body:

Yup - you cannot because it is hidden behind the elbow itself. Awesome design, thanks Raritan!

To be fair, the heads have been ultra-reliable in their 12 year life so we should say a prayer of thanks to someone and stay quiet. It is hard doing that after 4 hours messing about with a toilet discharge pipe though. Very very hard.

All re-electroniced (and broke)

Well, somehow all the boxes got cabled together and worked bar one issue with the new analogue radar (the reed switch that tells the scanner when it was in the ahead position was not plugged in properly from the factory and needed a little attention)

It went from this:

and this:

to this:

The pilothouse looks a little bit different now with bigger clearer screens and a much smarter navigation system overall:

Shame that it is still operated by the less than smart captain. We think it will be like a modern mobile phone where you (well, we at least) end up using 10% of the functionality most of the time and still struggle with that small bit..

For the mildly interested, here is how the FLIR sees things at night:

That is Swanwick Marina, like a 1960s' black and white TV picture. Shame that we are old enough to remember those.  Here is the Lymington river in pitch darkness with a yacht entering the nearby marina:

Yes, impressive kit. For the boating folks contemplating getting a FLIR - just do it. We were told by the original owner of Due North, the lovely N63 that was at the Southampton show this year, that he considered a FLIR as a must have tool for night cruising. We get why now. Eye-wateringly expensive kit of course but somehow it feels almost worth it where some things we buy for the boat just feel like a straight renewal job.

Overall impressions of the Time Zero Touch 2 kit from Furuno? Very positive so far. As folks who were very anti touch screens on a boat, we get how the TZT2 system helps for setting up things in port and gentler seas. When it is very rough, we have the controller to use. Or we can occupy ourselves by hanging on to something solid in the boat. The configuration of everything is not trivial, we found a few issues on our first run but nothing that needed surgery - just some config changes that even the captain could manage with emailed advice.

More on the kit after a few decent trips. For now, we are happy but poorer.

St Daviding and a canine diversion

It was strange to spend a winter away from Penarth so we felt that we had to go back for a long weekend to see a few of the local folks and to escape the carnage of the pilothouse. Driving there on St David's day seemed most appropriate

Lorna, the owner of the two fluffy dogs that have starred in here many times before, kindly provided an excellent B and B service for us. She even lent us the fluffy dogs for walks, Pip looking chilled (as he nearly always is):

and Poppy looking intelligent (she is):

It was a social time indeed. We caught up with Steve, the man who used to operate the big yellow waterbus on the bay together with Bronwen his spaniel:

The worried expression was because she had far too many people around her who were eating and she had to decide who her victim would be. We also had the chance to inspect the many upgrades that Simon and Nika had made to their lovely timber yacht to prepare for a summer cruise to the Baltic. They are braver than we are, expecting no impact from whatever pops out of the Brexit chaos.

Whilst we were away, the electronics refit work continued and Roland the engineer checked and deemed OK the main engine shaft alignment. Less successful was getting a wireless remote device to work with the crane. Some investigation is needed - we will report back later......

Upon our return, we found that the old radars were now resident on the boat deck:

Not sure how useful they will be there to be honest. Their next home will be on eBay as they still work well and might be a useful replacement for someone with the old  Navnet system who doesn't want to go through the fun and expense we are enjoying.  We also had one of the three new screens but again, propped up on the pilothouse seat it probably isn't terribly useful yet:

Progress though.