Storms, autopilots and a social whirl in Lymington

 The promised strong winds materialised. This is what we were promised:

This was just as it started building up:

and some of the gusts were force 10 speeds. For the non-nautical folks, 46.4 knots is 53.4 mph and Force 9. That is plenty enough thank you.  It got a little bit fruitier than shown on this picture later on, however we really did not care as a couple of yottie friends visited dodging fallen trees on the way. We caught up on all things nautical / Covid / Brexit deal (they have a business that tries to import from the EU) and put the world to rights. Oh, we might have partaken of a little alcohol too to go with the food. They are sailing folks but like most people we know with white flappy things for propulsion, they seem to motor a fair bit judging by their Marinetraffic picture:

The captain then got all keen and decided to replace the errant follow-up lever in the autopilot system. Luckily, a few months ago, a second-hand one had come up for sale by another Nordhavn owner and knowing that they are now rarer than rocking horse droppings, we bought it. Getting replacement items for 14 year old boat electronics is not simple.....

Removing the old one was OK. However we then found that the "nice" man who removed the one we had procured could not be bothered to pull out the little plug on the one wire which connects it to the system. Oh no, some numpty had cut the plug off and it is a multi-strand very fine wire with a bespoke plug on it. Luckily we could swap the old cable onto the new follow-up lever by dismembering it gently:

as the other end had mostly simple clamp terminals. Some bad words were said about idiots who cut connectors off cables that would easily unplug. 

Still, the replacement lever was rebuilt, fitted and tested as far as possible on the berth - so far so good. The next trip will tell us properly.

After these exertions (not really that hard) the cold wind and rain conspired to cut our bike use and walks. A visit from an ex work colleague of the Captain was good - loads to catch up on including hearing about his John O'Groats to Land's End cycle ride. A succession of 100 mile days until you make it. Yes, you did read that properly and yes he is probably a little bit crazy as he said that when reaching Land's End he would happily have turned round and gone straight back. Hundred mile days are a little further than the range of our E-bikes. He looked good though:

and before you ask, he is the guy not wearing a sling....

The weather continued to be rubbish although the darkness in this picture is because it was late evening, not because of the black clouds we enjoyed day after day:

as you can see, there were a few calm evenings. 

The social whirl continued, feeding Roland the engineering guru one evening and catching up on his new life in North Wales (not to mention his regular commutes to Plymouth to see the Princess Yachts folks).  After so long being locked down, seeing people (all of whom had been suitably jabbed of course) was a huge and most welcome return to some kind of normality.

Cameras, autopilots, Toddlers and off to Lymington

Paul, the very nice Maricom man came along to Bucklers Hard to finish off the camera install. That was lucky as he also helped troubleshoot the strange new autopilot behaviour. The problem seemed to be from the flybridge follow-up lever:

as the system ran happily for ages on the berth with that disconnected. Connected, using either of the autopilot black boxes (yes, we have two and two hydraulic pumps in the system) the system would suddenly power down and not restart. We can prove or disprove the point on our next trip.

The camera system has great quality images and a recording facility. Also excellent low or no light capability too. So we are very happy with the new kit overall. Being able to see the images on the flybridge plotter will make some berthing manoeuvres much simpler. 

It became legal to host folks on board and so we had a visit from the Toddlers for lunch - their first escape from the house for a meal out since lockdown #1. All very strange how suddenly it begins to feel normal to do such things again after months of high infection rates and tight restrictions. Then we had to do some plotting with Andrew and Linda about when to leave Bucklers Hard. You need plenty of tide height to get over the bar at the entrance to the river and also one that forms just downriver of the village. High tide was just before 4am... If we waited for the afternoon high then it was going to be pretty windy and a late arrival in Lymington. Yup, you guessed it, a 4:30 alarm call. Naturally we were wide awake well before that. As it was light and we were all members of the wide awake club, a very early departure was enjoyed. 

The river was beautifully peaceful - no other idiots were out and about at that ungodly hour. The new camera on the stack saw it like this:

only without the funny lines that the camera causes when taking a picture of the screen. The plotter sees it more like:

We just sat in the pilothouse and enjoyed the view. 

Arriving in Lymington before 7am was novel. Nobody in the harbour office so we just picked a spot and went to get some more sleep. After recovering a little, the Bromptons were exhumed from the lazarette and the four of us cycled to Milford-on-sea. We mentioned ages ago whilst hosting Andrew and Linda in Scotland that together with the crew, they were the "Berghaus triplets" - all wearing the rather nice branded jackets. Well this time we were the Berghaus triplets and the Brompton Quads. The quartet of folding bikes did prompt a few comments.

The lighthouse in Milford provided a most enjoyable light lunch. If sharing a baked camembert could be called light. 

As there was a little weather window, Andrew and Linda decided to head back home to Weymouth around 10pm. Their departure was just as darkness was falling:

and as you can see, a ferry got in the way. 

Nordhavn departures are rather stately activities:

It felt strange to be alone again - almost like being back in lockdown.

Heading to Swanwick and cameragate

You can only have so much time in Gosport before you begin to behave like the locals. We knew it was time to go when the closed tattoo parlour looked tempting.  Actually we headed off because we had a date for our second Covid jabs and needed to be somewhere accessible to Hythe for those. Swanwick was a good place as we needed to be there for Paul, the nice Maricom man, to do a few bits for us a couple of days later anyway.

The short trip was the first one of the year sitting on the flybridge. However, that was only possible as we were well wrapped up, had woolly hats on and the bimini cover was not in place so we got some warmth from the sun. The Solent was very quiet, unlike Swanwick marina which was very full. Apparently we have to change berths whilst here, on a day with F7 gusts forecast. Hmm.

The little Webasto heater was returned by the rather excellent Butler Technik guys and we had the fun of refitting it. It fired up first time and treated us to a lovely aroma of hot coolant - when draining it for removal, the heat protective cladding on the exhaust got wet and it had to "steam off". All good again:

The poor boat was then treated to a wash off, the first proper wash since Cardiff. Removing the Haslar bird poo was amusing in the extreme and it felt like much harder work than normal too. 

Then the most exciting bit - jab no 2 was administered during a visit to Hythe. We are all Pfizered up now and happily so. Going there by public transport (train and bus) was most unpleasant. The train was nice and empty but the bus was too busy and the inmates included one guy who wore his mask around his chin and a woman who kept sneezing and came to sit in front of us. Our last bus trip was on the Isle of Bute last summer and felt way safer. Funny how life and our appetite for risk has changed thanks to Covid, despite the low infection rates now.

Back in Swanwick, Paul and Dave from Maricom started dismembering the boat again:

and adding even more wires:

that all needed tidying, terminating and cutting to length. Yes, lots of cat 6 cable being run to support the new IP cameras. Our old ones were beginning to die (2 had already passed away!) and the IP based versions would allow images to be shared on the Furuno equipment not just one screen. Importantly for helming into tight berths, it means that they could also be viewed from the flybridge plotter screen, great for backing into a finger berth for example.

One thing jarred though, on a boat that is almost (bar the autopilot and radios) a Furuno closed shop, the Maricom guys brought this to protect the flooring:

Apparently Raymarine produce giveaways for the dealers, Furuno do not.

As well as the camera replacements, there were some things to tidy up from the electronics refresh that was completed a couple of years ago. Covid stopped us from coming back last year to get them done. What was on the list? Well, since a battery replacement by Maricom, the Furuno satellite compass in rough weather could lose the heading and set off alarms from the navigation gear. In all fairness, the kit automatically switched to using the little weather station input and just pressed on until the sat compass worked again. There was also a strange glitch in the windows PC behaviour (OK, nothing is really strange with Windows behaviour, we should expect the worst) which caused the cursor to go AWOL and dance around the screen sometimes, caused by Windows seeing some navigation gear inputs and thinking that they were from another mouse..... Oh yes, Windows is so smart.

To give you an idea of the quantity of the wiring on the average Nordhavn boat, here is the trunking that goes down from the pilothouse into the cabins / engine room:

Rather a lot of copper in there. Some 240v AC, some 24v DC, some 12v DC, some cat 5, some cat 6, some coax, some twin, some B & O proprietary cables for the entertainment system and a few that are just a plain mystery. 

To escape the carnage, we rented a van and played removal men, taking a couple of unwanted recliner chairs from Hythe to Anne's where we were greeted most enthusiastically by Izzy. Looked like the goddog has forgiven us for the cut pad on her paw moment. Then we left her to take some other unwanted items to the tip for Anne. It felt rather strange to be driving a Transit van again. The last one was just as the captain finished working for Ford Motor Company and he had a run in a newly launched model in case he got called to assess one by a dealer. That was in 1986 and the radical new van looked like this:

How time flies.....

As Swanwick Marina was very very full, we were under strict instructions to leave before the weekend. They also wanted us to move for the last couple of days there and gave us a berth 1 metre wider than we are. Without our fenders. Backing into it was going to be fun so we picked a time when there was minimal tide and wind. Naturally that had to be 5am. Happy days. The most annoying bit was that the nice big berth we left stayed empty until we left.

Departing Swanwick, again at slack water, we had a chilly flybridge trip to Bucklers Hard which is a favourite old stomping ground of ours. On the way down the Hamble River, the autopilot decided to turn itself off and refused to fire up again. Er? Maricom had not touched that bar removing a panel for access which the pilothouse control head was fitted into. One step forward and all that. Still, we were joined in Bucklers by Andrew and Linda on Zephyros, their Nordhavn 43 so we had a mini rally going on. First time we'd seen them in ages too so a walk into Beaulieu and an outside coffee were in order. 

Birthday girl and #webrokethedog

Anne arranged to come over to see us on Izzy the dog's birthday. She thought it was her 5th. We knew it was her 6th. The blog came in handy to prove that point!

An early dinner in the rather excellent Trinity's at the Lightship was enjoyed and the assistant manager took a shine to Izzy. When she heard that it was her birthday, a special delivery arrived:

Yes, a sausage with a candle in it. Spoilt dog indeed. She was impressed, but less so when only allowed some of it:

As we were in for a visit from Tina, a confirmed Izzy lover,  we were allowed to keep the small furry birthday girl for a few nights. Then it went a bit wrong. Giving her a run and fun in the park nearby we noticed that she stopped to lick her paw. Going to check for something stuck in it, the usual issue, the crew came away with a bloody hand. Yup, a cut pad this time. Plenty of cleaning it up then we carried the poor dog back to the boat - she was unimpressed. We were happy that she is a small and light one although nearly 8 kilos can be enough when she decides to wriggle. The bleeding stopped after a wash out, some anti-bacterial stuff was applied and a bandage too:

The sock on the bandage was to try and stop her from attacking it. However as soon as Izzy got even a teeny bit active again it started bleeding so mum was called and Izzy got taken to the vet for a couple of staples in the pad and a huge dressing:

#webrokethegoddog 

Tina was on her way to join us and plans were hastily rearranged - she had some Izzy cuddles, delivered birthday presents and then whilst the poor dog was being stapled, we were being fed on the lightship again:

We know that over the top of the glasses look only too well. It means many things but in this case something like "I hate having my picture taken and I will get even". We might keep the AIS switched off in future. 

There was rather a lot of harbour activity late one afternoon when the aircraft carrier Prince of Wales headed out. Harbour was closed, loads of patrol boats around keeping the leisure sailors and jet-ski loonies at bay too. Impressive sight as she left though:

The spinnaker tower looked a lot like a rather strange spare mast arrangement and the block of flats spoils the ski jump at the bow too. We did spot one rather brave light aircraft pilot heading this way. Silly person.

The weather didn't allow for much polishing sadly. It did let us cycle over to Southsea to see Paula and Nigel for lunch and then cycle back in the pouring rain. April showers arriving in May it seems. Some dramatic skies too, like this view of the tower one evening:

At night, it turns into a bit of a disco diva:

giving an impressive light show. All this entertainment for free. Talking of entertainment, the force 10 gusts on bank holiday Monday were just that. We had removed the bimini cover, added more lines and fenders and just enjoyed (?) the rollercoaster ride. Typical UK public holiday weather really. We abandoned a plan to head over to Cowes thanks to the wind and the captain who had sore back muscles and spent a day mimicking a ruptured penguin until the spasm eased. No idea what caused it, maybe a shortage of red wine. That possibility is now being well and truly avoided.