Crewing a HUGE Nordhavn

After we were splashed again, life changed in an unexpected and unwanted way. Alex (the owner of the HUGE nordhavn 55 that has been mentioned many times before) called to say that Gisele was not well and he asked for some local advice. This ended up with her being taken into Southampton General hospital for an emergency operation. Not at all nice. 

Their boat was in Lymington and Alex wanted to bring the boat back to Swanwick for a couple of days and needed some crew. So we re-arranged our plans, drove to Lymington with Ann and Martin as extra crew and then helped him bring his boat back. Martin looked rather at home in the hot seat::

and had some instructions on the "kit" from Alex:

Meanwhile, Ann was busy hunting for a house they were interested in near the Bramble bank. Martin had to avoid running onto it:

Luckily all went well and Lady Grey was safely moored in Swanwick again for a couple of nights.  Gisele was released from hospital to recover but another boat move was needed. Swanwick wanted to kick him out as the berth would be needed for a Broom 50 that was being relaunched. So we then helped with another delivery job. This time the crew went along to aid in the move to Ocean Village where Lady Grey could stay for as long as she wanted. Departing Swanwick:

with the crew looking most professional sorting out the lines. Meanwhile the captain drove to Southampton and had the amusement of the cruise liner traffic. Apparently there were 4 of them in port and the traffic was grim. Luckily he made it to Ocean Village to welcome in the good ship Lady Grey as she approached her berth:

The captain is worried that the crew now wants the space and luxury of a larger Nordhavn. The crew assured the captain that the extra acres of GRP to polish put her off. The bank manager was very happy to hear that.

The lift out fun

In the midst of the entertainment system refit, we had booked a lift out. The yard in Swanwick has a nice chunky 65 ton lift and the guys did a good job carefully positioning the strops and getting her airbourne:

After the winter in Penarth with brackish water, and a few weeks in salty stuff again, the boat had been through a bit of self cleaning and so pressure washing her was not too difficult:

The normal fun of cleaning up the stern gear, coolers, thruster props and anode replacement was aided by Martin (we were staying with them whilst the boat was high and dry) and Anne who decided to pose in her boiler suit and sunglasses whilst manhandling a prop:

We managed to get everything done pretty quickly thanks to some OK weather and the help. Unfortunately, the tides dictated an early 7am relaunch on the Friday so we had a nasty alarm call to get us to the marina and to prepare the boat for the splash. Here is the view from the pilothouse as the travel hoist approached:

and soon she was heading for the water again:

A satisfying but tiring week. We were very happy to be afloat albeit in a very grubby boat.

The other good news was that Paul, the Maricom man, announced that the had found why the Satellite compass might have been misbehaving in bumpy weather. He prefaced it with "you might want ot kill me or love me".  He  then 'fessed up  to having set a parameter wrongly after the battery change which defines the orientation of the control box and hence the rate sensor devices in it that measure rotation. He reset it and time will now tell.We decided not to kill him despite the nasty awakenings doing rough overnight trips and the incessant beeping during the run from Penarth down the north Devon coast earlier this year. It was hard to resist the temptation but he needed to finish off the TV and router work first anyway.... 

This was the tricky diagram that he misinterpreted - apparently we are a "D" installation:

or at least we are set that way now. 

A trashed boat, once more

The original B&O entertainment system had become less and less entertaining over time. Still, it had managed rather longer than many bits of comparable kit these days. The TV sets were analogue with digiboxes in front of them. The sat dome and digibox combination would not allow HD channels to be viewed and as the BBC moved all their Freesat offerings to HD, they vanished from our world. So, the time had come to go big and replace things. The plan was to fit some new smart TV sets, new innards to the sat dome, an external 5/5G/WiFi booster aerial, a new terrestrial TV aerial and various tekkie bits to link it all. 

We said a dusty goodbye to the big B&O black box that controlled the system before, with its miles of Scart cabling:

 A similar farewell for the failing original sat dome:

and the old TV kit too:

Paul from Maricom was the main man for the many wiring changes needed and managed to pull the boat apart once more with wires hanging in profusion from every panel - or so it seemed:

We were very glad that we were not involved in replacing the sat dome innards:

as it meant sitting on the top of the stack manhandling the rather heavy equipment. Oh, it also involved sitting on bits of GRP that have not been properly cleaned for ages and might just have a hint of green goo and bird poo on them. We offered a restorative coffee to Paul when he returned to earth, with chocolate biscuits of course. Installing a router and pulling cables to the three new TV sets for nice wired internet access was an amusing job. 

We opted to replace the sat dome workings rather than rely on pure 4/5G connections as we are relatively often out of mobile signal range when travelling. We kind of like the Freesat radio / TV to accompany us especially during the small hours of the morning when staying awake gets harder alone on watch. 

Whilst the mayhem on-board continued, we had a few diversions. Paul was called to a brief sea trial on the new Nordhavn 68 "High Fidelity" which is quite a bit of kit. Here she is returning from the little excursion, just before she left with a delivery skipper on board for Dun Laoghaire. Not sure why you would put such a  lovely boat in such a sad marina and town we must admit. However, there is always lots of space there!

One new boat being prepared was quite amazing in a "er what" sort of way:

Gambit was far from huge and sported 4 x 450 HP outboard engines. There is a big "why" question attached to the whole thing. Mad speeds in flat water, interesting ride in bumpy stuff, wild fuel consumption etc. Not our cup of tea but we hope the new owner enjoys it and has a block booking at their osteopath together with shares in an oil company.

On a more sedate topic, Anne popped over to say hi with a boot load of paws and cuddles:

They looked rather different after a run along the muddy river bank at low tide.....

Maintenance news - but for Lady Grey this time:

Alex and Gisele on Lady Grey, the Nordhavn 55 who were berthed close by had a moment. Gisele came on board and remarkably calmly said that there was smoke and a burning smell on board her boat. The captain went over, followed by Paul from Maricom to discover a failing AC panel meter that had overheated badly and was busy burning itself up. The captain disconnected it and the case was so distorted by the heat that it had to be broken up a bit to slide out of the oblong slot in the panel:

A very nasty situation and another good reason to replace the original old technology meters with the new stuff designed by Neil, another Nordhavn owner. Since his AC meter solution was not fully in production yet, Alex procured a replacement meter but of the original type from the Nordhavn Europe folks who luckily had it in stock. The captain fitted it, needing to replace the plug on the wiring loom as it had been cooked too. A few hours later and Lady Grey could depart for Cowes, with only a lingering aroma to remind them of the fun earlier on that day.

Lymington to Swanwick

After arriving in Lymington, with the strengthening wind trying to remove us from the pontoon, it was interesting to see that the only other arrivals were:

a hard as nails FPB and two sail training yachts that had previously competed in round the world races. Yes, this was not a day for the plastic fantastic fast motorboat brigade to be out there.

We enjoyed a few days in Lymington, an excellent in quality and price lunch at the new(ish) High Street Kitchen restaurant, a catch up with Ray and Sara (more food, in the Monkey brewhouse) and then on board with John and Kath who were in the midst of selling their lovely Broom 39. The Toddlers drove over from Hythe for lunch and amazingly the mooring lines held firm despite the storm force 10 gusts we enjoyed.

Tides are always a challenge. We were heading to Swanwick marina on the river Hamble (where we used to have a  permanent berth) and at half-tide it really rips across the pontoons there. Ideally we would arrive at high water, only that was 8:30am....  Typically you are allowed into visitor berths from mid-day so, we called the nice folks there , did the "we are booked in for a week then have a lift out so can we arrive earlier please" thing. Sure enough, it was fine.

Having an alarm clock wake up was not good but we duly got ready around 7am and then headed off. Simple sheltered route in the Solent:

with not much else about. En route the captain was most confused. The tide tables and the navigation PC said that high water was at 8:30 am, but the plotter screens said it was low water then??? The fog of an early morning brain cleared slowly and we realised that for some strange reason the plotter had picked up the current date from the satellite compass, which is suffering for a severe bout of "GPS rollover" disease. That means until it has a firmware update, it will show the right time but the wrong date - it was back in 2003. Swapping the date input to another sensor, all was well. 

Heading towards our old home territory we encountered a raft of pot markers with old plastic milk containers as floats. When will they enforce the existing harbour laws to sort out the cowboy fishermen??? Some had old 5l plastic containers like this one and in comparison were well marked:

Lethal at night though unless you have a FLIR.

Heading up Southampton Water, we encountered the lovely old Shieldhall heading out:

Launched in 1955 she is a proper old steamship and in a preservation trust now. She was a very late build to be steam powered and is, so they say, the largest original steamship still in operation. Her operational life was not terrible glamourous, carrying sewage sludge out to sea - have a  look at Shieldhall website. Lovely to see her under steam again though.

Arriving in Swanwick we were clearly a small Nordhavn. Alex and Gisele on their Nordhavn 55 were two berths away. A brand new 68 called High Fidelity was two berths in the other direction. Yes, we had that little boat syndrome going on until we realised just how much polishing the other two need. Not that we have even started any this year yet thanks to the grim weather so far. Restless, a N43 was also in the marina but in a different area so she didn't help to "big us up" at all. Four Nordhavns in Swanwick - the berthing master remarked on it, we christened the place the "Nordhavn creche". He seemed to prefer the Nordhavns to the massed acres of shiny white Fairline / Princess / Sunseeker craft around us. We certainly prefer our fuel bills.

Changing plans - Plymouth to Lymington

We mentioned in the last post that the weather forecasts for the week ahead were grim. Here is an example, copied later on, for the Wednesday / Thursday timeframe:

Not even a tiny bit tempting....  the reality during that week ended up as 90 mph gusts at the Needles on the Isle of Wight.

There were two possible weather windows to use, bearing in mind that we needed to optimise our departure time as we would be passing through some areas where the tide flows very strongly and we wanted to maximise the help we would get to shorten what would be a bumpy trip anyway. One window had lighter winds but they would be on the nose for much of our journey meaning more pitching which gets tiring. The other, a day later, had stronger winds that would build during our trip and be pretty strong at the end of it, but from a better direction - on the stern quarter where the stabilisers could counteract much of it. We opted for the second and planned a trip that would get us into the shelter of the Solent area and onto a berth in Lymington before it got really nasty out to sea.

Leaving Plymouth at 6pm in the gloom we at least could sneak through the narrow channel next to Drake's Island rather than go the long way around. Even the markers looked depressed somehow:

The night began slightly murky, a bit foggy and pretty unappealing really. Annoyingly, the damp air degrades the FLIR image quality significantly and where we normally get clear images of waves etc it struggled. That was particularly tricky around the Salcombe area  and Prawle Point, as we know there are always plenty of pot markers there, so we headed a bit further south than normal to try and avoid the worst of them. Luckily the FLIR was still working well enough to pick one up that we duly segwayed around after uttering a few choice words. The sea state was OK, the wind was with the tide so not too many big waves were being dragged up. The strength and direction were as per the forecast. So far so good. As we passed Start Point, ready for the long haul across Lyme Bay, we had to divert for a couple of commercial ships which was unexpected! Rarely do they come from that angle in that place. You can see them and the kink in our track on the plotter image:

and for the radar addicts amongst us:

For the non boating folks, the plotter picture is "north up" ie looking like a normal chart / map would whereas the radar is in "heading up" mode meaning that the image is what we would have seen out of the helm seat looking forward if it wasn't pitch dark! The captain's brain likes to keep the two displays this way. The crew is less keen.

As we headed towards Portland Bill, where it can get rather rough (!) the tide turned against us and of course that bumps  up the wave height and makes the wavelength shorter and less pleasant.  We stayed well away from the Bill itself on our track so it was all OK, just slow going, down to around 3 knots over the ground as we punched the tide. Daylight (well, a grey imitation of it) arrived together with a poor little tern who really wanted to land on the boat and have a rest but the boat motion made it rather tricky to hit and then grip onto the rail::

After what the crew reckons was around 20 attempts including what aircraft folks would call several touch and go landings, the poor tired thing gave up. We felt a little guilty somehow.

Pretty much as per forecast the wind picked up during the morning but that was fine - we knew that the tide would turn to help us so the impact on the wavetrain would be less. It was pretty quiet for traffic until the Barfleur, a ferry, departed from Poole:

 

She kept turning towards us, making our closest point of approach well below anything that we would be comfortable with and then, just before we diverted north to give more clearance, decided to straighten up a bit and give us our original clearance. Maybe the officer of the watch decided to be kind to us as it was choppy out to sea and heading north for a while would have made the rest of our trip harder as we had to claw our way back to the south and into the waves more. Maybe they saw us on AIS / radar and followed the collision regulations. Maybe the original turn was just a mistake. No matter why it was good news! Here is Barfleur passing across our bow, around 0.7 nautical miles off and slightly blurry thanks to the movement of the boat and some rain on the screen too: 

The route looks pretty simple really:

and the bumpiest bit was reserved for the end (as expected) some 2.5 metre waves on the stern quarter together with waves reflected off the Isle Of Wight made a messy confused wave pattern that the stabilisers could not control all of the time. A couple of bigger roll / pitch movements managed to upset the pesky sat compass again but nowhere near as much as on the run to Falmouth when it really annoyed us. Maybe the settings tweak has helped?

Getting into the Solent (between the Isle of Wight and the mainland) things calmed down and for anyone who was stalking us on AIS, the strange loop we made before entering Lymington was to wait for the outgoing ferry. It was not the autopilot or helmsperson throwing a wobbly. The main engine had a wide open throttle run to give it a clear out and the little wing engine had 15 minutes of exercise too, just to bring it up to temperature and circulate the oil nicely. We were happy to berth in the Dan Bran pontoon as the wind continued to pick up. A little later on, seeing white horses in the Solent itself and 40 knot gusts on the instruments, we realised that the timing had worked out pretty well.

Maintenance News

Before leaving Plymouth the stern gland on the main engine was tightened a little to reduce the drip rate. We mentioned that it started to leak a little too much on the run to Falmouth. Knowing how much to tighten it is always amusing, rather too little than too much is our motto. Reducing the drip rate by half on this run increased the running temperature of the stuffing box from a steady 17c to 20c.Hardly near the pain point of the packing inside it!

The main engine, stabilisers etc all behaved themselves and had been through a good workout so bar a fluid levels check when we arrived, there is nothing else to report. If you like dismembering boats though, you will be in luck soon.

Falmouth to Plymouth, then being social

Not knowing how busy the Easter bank holiday would be, we'd decided to head for Plymouth and hide away in Mayflower marina for 5 nights. Why Plymouth? Well, plenty to do ashore, some nice cycle routes and the famous (to us at least) Just B bistro in Saltash for a light lunch or cake. You can see what drives us.... Why Mayflower - because we are cheapskates - we have membership of Transeurope Marinas because we berth in Penarth and that gives us 5 nights at 50% of the normal berthing rates. Almost a bargain.

Leaving Falmouth in the morning we were treated to an unusual sight - sun and blue sky, even over the dockyard:

and somehow it made everything look nicer:

even if it made the pilothouse windows look dirtier.

Our track to Plymouth is a pretty simple one:

that just needs careful avoidance of pot markers at both ends of the journey. Out to sea was fine, gentle waves, not much other traffic and sun. What more could you want. Well, the crew worked that one out:

121 amps from the engine domestic alternator means that the kettle is on.

Entering Plymouth you pass the old admiralty breakwater and the cute little lighthouses on either end:

and then Fort Pickelcombe, a mid 19th century fort that has been converted into flats:

must be an interesting place to live with some stunning views across the harbour and out to sea. 

As we neared Mayflower marina, so the wind picked up a fair bit as you can see from the "adjustment" to the crew's hairstyle when she was preparing the lines and fenders:

Luckily it had been trimmed before we left Penarth so she could still see what she was doing, sort of. We ended up being berthed on the inside of the large wavebreak there - not ideal as the pontoon has that sad beaten up look after many winters trying to calm the huge waves that can batter the marina in gales from the wrong direction. Still, the staff are always hugely friendly and helpful. One of the dockmasters came to help with our lines and turned on the water supply too which had been off due to a leak caused by the aforementioned winter storm damage. Berthing here must be quite hairy in the wrong conditions. 

We managed a walk to the nearby supermarket (Lidl by the way) and then around to the Royal William Yard for some exercise and the obligatory coffee and cake. Why didn't we get a bus over to Saltash to visit Just B? Guess what - closed for some exterior renovation work. All our favourite places seem to be either down the tube or shut so far this season.

Things looked up lots when Robert and Deborah, the posh Malo yacht owners joined us for lunch on board. A lovely sunny day so they came by BMW 2 series convertible with the lid down looking very much like Malo owners. It seemed sad to force them onto a dirty, salty, unpolished stinkboat. Still, it made a change to see them in the flesh rather than just sending cryptic or slightly abusive WhatsApp messages.

More planned social stuff got trashed by the weather forecasts:

This is from the Met Office inshore waters forecast and the  coastline is not normally shown in red. Red means a strong wind warning (Force 6 and above) in that area and as you can see, that applied to the whole of the UK. The rest of the week looked even worse with strong gales and plenty of rain coming in. So, we looked hard at some conflicting forecasts and decided to cut our stay in Plymouth short as we wanted to be in the Solent area by Sunday 16th. Why? Well, you will just have to read some later blog  posts to see for yourself.

Relaxing (?) in the Fal

After a peaceful night on the lovely Ruan mid-river pontoon and a chance to catch up on sleep, we decided to head into Falmouth town. Simon, our rather excellent extra crew person, had a train booked back home from there the following day and it is quite a hike by RIB (especially in the forecast rain). So, we slowly pottered down the estuary, with Simon looking very relaxed at the helm - his new spot (to use a Sheldon Cooperism):

We opted not to pick up one of the mooring buoys - again as heavy rain was forecast for the time of Simon's departure. We tried to get a spot in Port Pendennis but no, they were full (bodes badly for later in the season) with superyachts being fettled by the Pendennis yard guys and a few other assorted working craft. This forced us to use the wildly expensive and not at all fitted out in a manner to befit the price "Falmouth Haven". The harbour authority have stuffed up their prices to above those of Port Pendennis now - supply and demand we guess. The infrastructure and shelter is still no where like their competition and they still have a weird power supply system using top up cards that you cannot top up until they run out (unless you are lucky and get the same chip card second time around). 

Arriving at low water was not planned or ideal. Calling them on the radio elicited no reply. Phoning just got an answering message. So, we gently berthed alongside an empty run of pontoon with our depth sounder going to 0.0 metres and plenty of mud being stirred up. A truly premium place.

Despite Simon only having sailing boots, he manfully managed the walk to Penryn (40 minutes) where we had promised him excellent coffee and outstanding cinnamon buns at the Muddy Beach cafe:

only the outside view was not as good as this borrowed picture (way more cloud), they no longer sell the awesome cinnamon buns and the coffee was weak. New ownership of the place and what turned out to be our last visit. Shame as it had been so good for so long. The exercise was good for us though.

The next day we joined Simon on a very busy little train to Truro and said our thanks and farewells as he headed home. After a wander into town, we met up with Norman and Julie who took us to a favourite and dog friendly pub in Devoran for lunch. Stanley seemed quite bored by things until the food arrived:

whereas Indie was ever hopeful in true labrador fashion:

It was great to see all four of them after our house / dog sitting time at the end of last year.

Maintenance news:

That pesky satellite compass had some attention. No, not from a hammer, no matter how tempting that was. The captain has a copy of the Furuno maintenance and repair manual that is given to dealers for it and so we read it carefully again. The parameter that allows the heading to be "held" and output for a while even if the GPS data gets corrupted was set to "off". We know it was "on" at the end of last year when we finished cruising. So, that was fixed and various other tests run on the three GPS antenna sitting in the dish up top:

Why the setting changed is beyond us, a bit like why the AIS changed us into a fishing vessel of 45 metres in length over one winter! Still, it has been reset and the hardware all checks out OK. One of the three GPS receivers might be in trouble? Time will tell....

Penarth to Falmouth

After many days (about 10) waiting for a lull in the seemingly never ending procession of depressions coming over the Atlantic, there was a brief weather window. It kept moving and shortening but it was there - kind of. So, we decided to use it. Simon the surveyor man joined us the night before as extra crew for the run and to get a boating fix as he is still boatless. Boatless is a nasty disease and we know a little about it, having been there briefly in 2008. A period of time we try not to remember.....

After being dropped off by his most understanding wife, Simon consoled himself with Patrick the penguin:

which was strangely disturbing in many ways. The alarm clock was duly set for a rather crazy 5:30 am lock out through the Cardiff Bay barrage locks. That meant getting off the Penarth berth a few minutes before and a 4:45am alarm call. Quite a shock to the system after months of ignoring the tides.

In the barrage locks, Simon studiously ignored the instruction signs - perhaps because this gate only spoke Welsh and he does not:

He did look the part though, proper yottie boots and all. Sadly, the weather was nothing like the forecast. What should have been a northerly wind (ie on the beam for most of the run down the Bristol Channel) and force 3 to 4, was more NW'ly and rather stronger so off the Hartland Point area we washed the anchor a few times - waves of just over 3 metres pretty much on the nose. The boat was not too concerned but the crew was struggling to get her sea-legs going after 6 months off and suffered. As we rounded the point, we passed under a clearly visible ridge in the clouds and a weather front. Things calmed down, the course change put the waves more on the beam and the stabilisers sorted them out. Life was much nicer.

The long slog down the north Cornish coast was improved by some dolphins and then, huge excitement. A couple of puffins were on the water - the first that Simon had ever seen in the flesh. He so needs to get a boat and go and anchor in the bay at Skomer. Land's End was rounded in pretty mild conditions, just the usual sloppy stuff, at night:

and to give you an idea of the geography, here is our route from the AIS system:

Once round Land's End, we knew that the forecast had the wind directly on the nose and slowly increasing all morning. To avoid letting it pick up some big waves, we had run a little faster than usual (1650 rpm) and sure enough, it hit 30 knots passing the Lizard peninsular (the sticky out bit to the south on this track image):

but we were through before it got unpleasant. We headed happily up the river Fal and onto one of our all time favourite spots - the mid-river pontoon at Ruan creek. After a much needed personal clean up and dropping the RIB for a trip to Trelissick (and a nice cream tea in the half term child infested National Trust tea rooms) we retired to the boat and opened the gin:

As it was a bit grey outside and not too photogenic, here is a picture of Simon's old yacht on exactly the same spot we used,  taken a few years ago:

As you can see, September Moon was a thing of great beauty. The ex-owner claims that he is too, you can judge that for yourselves from the photos. The run took us about 29 hours to the mooring and had a few bumpy bits to "enjoy". However, it was the first weather window in the preceding 10 days and in the following 7 so......

Maintenance News:

Not a lot really, the stern gland on the main engine was dripping a bit more than normal by the time we arrived so the bilge pump kicked in more often. Just needs tightening up a tiny bit to compensate for the run here.

Before we left Penarth, the domestic water filter was renewed - you can play the "guess which one was the new one" game:

and yes, they seem to have shrunk a bit although the price has gone up dramatically as with most things.

Most annoyingly, the Furuno Satellite compass kept losing the heading in the rougher spots when we pitched into the oncoming waves. We had seen this game before but never as badly. The technical manual is coming out to have another read. On passage, we just changed the device that gave the plotters a heading input so they were not upset. We also gave the autopilot a feed from it's own fluxgate compass so it was not upset either. Well, that is until we headed towards the north when we found that the fluxgate compass needed recalibrating / swinging! Electronics are such fun.