An extended lockdown layup!

Our plans, like those of others have been severely curtailed this year, as we are unable to visit our boat, like so many others, but at least we remain well.  With the possibility of being allowed back to Cornwall, in the next month or so, it seems timely to update the blog and once started, it is amazing how much seems to have already been achieved ashore!.

Winter projects, planned and incidental, were well underway by the first week in March with about another three weeks of work to do, after a brief skiing trip before launching by Easter.  I departed for Somerset, as it happened for my last pub meal and draft beer, leaving James, of Marine Gas Solutions still on board. I already had with me, the old switch panel with circuit breakers and I collected the re galvanised anchor on my way past back through Devon.  It has spent the last four months on the hall carpet waiting to be connected to the 55 meters of new chain! 

The spray hood brackets are awaiting re seating and fixing.  The port cockpit cupboard doors is awaiting rehanging.  The antifoul and rollers are all waiting on the coach roof, as are the cleaned and serviced Wickham Martin, backstays and blocks, bowsprit shrouds and blocks and other fittings are, hopefully, still on the coach roof awaiting my refitting and hopefully will all still be there aunder the winter cover in July!

Some of the jobs were more or less compelted including:

The heads, where a new replacement Lavac was sourced, as the cost of replacing the old seat and seals was twice as much!  It has been installed, with a shorter waste pipe, already cleaned with hydrochloric acid, leading directly to a freshly serviced Henderson Mk V pump, one of three now used in rotation and changed at least once a season, with a freshly serviced spare always aboard! A SeaSmart “toilet sanitiser” had impressed us at Southampton Boat Show and I had plumbed it into the seawater inlet pipe, just below the vent so that it would settle in the residual water in the pipe above the seacock.  Hopefully this will eliminate rotting critters and reduce unpleasant odours.  I added a toggle switch to the internal battery, so that it need only be used at the end of each voyage rather than for every flush.

The bowsprit had developed a crack at the gammon iron, around one third of it's circumference, during last season, the copper sheathing protecting the traveller from the bowsprit has also worn through underneath and I was keen to have a white tip to see better in dark anchorages!  We took it, strapped to the car roof, to David Brunyee’s team at Islington Wharf and it had returned by the end of January, with a fresh section scarfed in.  The area where the gammon iron bears was sheathed in glass fibre as was the area where the traveller bears.  Gleaming in Woodskin and with a smart white tip, we had lifted it onto the deck, fortunately under the winter cover and it is still waiting for me to service the bow roller and re seal the stem/ deck leak before re fitting the gammon iron, already re leathered by Di at Seadogs” in Penryn, who still has our living room sofa cushions for releathering!

The Taylors 803 gas oven was always rather temperamental but the dangerous process of lighting the grill, essential for crew morale in the mornings, was becoming unacceptable.  I had taken it home and dismantled it, the doors are remarkably complicated, and posted the stripped down device to Will Hayward. It had already come back from Suffolk and been re installed aboard, for James Emmerson to re site the inaccessible, screw down cut off valve, from behind the cooker to beside it, with a more effective and visible gas cut off tap.   I still look forward to inspecting his handiwork!  A new cooker would have cost little more but have been rather less robust and require considerable carpentry to fit into the allocated space in the galley. 

Photo finished cooker

With all the above done, we returned from Austria, straight back home, as instructed by the Austrian government, so we were already confined to Somerset, by the time the Government realised we really were in a pandemic, after all, at the end of March!  The first two weeks of our lock down were spent manufacturing a new switch panel, in three sections from 3mm aluminium sheets. Fortunately, I had already purchased some new pushbutton circuit breaker switches, to replace those that failed satisfactory bench testing and a new FM radio and multiple USB and 12V sockets.  So was able to fit all these and they await installation.  The mainsheet blocks have also been stripped, varnished, serviced and a second hand Walker's log fettled and the wooden case varnished.  It has all joined the anchor in the hallway!

The ongoing electrical archaeology was in full swing before lockdown, with the new panel and further wiring revision to be completed.  Many of the obsolete instruments and gadgets, including the remains of a Dolphin generator, have now been removed and I had spent about ten days tracing and removing redundant wires and cables, while labelling those that remain.   Power supply and data wires have been re routed, where necessary and some retained and labelled as spares.  The junction box at the base of the mast has been worked out and photos taken, for when the mast is un stepped for maintenance next year. There are, already, two large carrier bags of cable to be taken off the boat! There will be plenty of 12V sockets and USB chargers while the hand held VHF has it’s own dedicated supply.  A replacement FM radio, a working 12 V meter with a new shunt, all still to be fitted.

Photo panel before and after

Despite now having a conventional chart table aboard “Susan J”, we never used the Yeoman plotter or the dot matrix GPS, which was too difficult to see to be useful.  We have, however, retained the current Navtex instrument, although it may be plugged in as required, rather than permanently mounted, as, like the old one, the new panel is too narrow.  There is still much work to be done and it remains to be seen if all the instruments, in the mixed NMEA 1863 and 2000 environment, will still talk to each other.  Inevitably our venerable but now familiar C120 chart plotter and radar will need replacing, at some stage in the future and the five cockpit instruments can then be revised to one or two, leaving space for an illuminated bulkhead compass to replace the old Sestrel under the tiller. 

Photo sestrel and log

As always, one job has led to four others. Looking back, I was grateful to have planned to remove some items for refurbishment, well before Christmas and have them back aboard, if not re installed, well before the spring fit out.  Looking forward, we must never again assume that we will be back the next day, let alone the next week or quarter and I should leave everything secure, it is now four months and counting and hopefully will all still be in place!  It has been frustrating, not to be able to make use of the warm dry weather to undertake other maintenance, particularly to the bulwarks, rubbing strake and deck, which remain sound but tatty. However, in the event of further lockdown, that may be possible and she is ready for another winter but we still hope to get afloat this year!