02.12.09

Recent improvements to Mercy Jane

Posted in Maintenance at 11:29 am by Admin

Calibrating the Autohelm in the middle of the Irish Sea

We have made several improvements in a few areas in the last 12 months. These have come about as we gain more experience in sailing Mercy Jane, some of it just myself and Graham. With just 2 on board life can get a little hectic trying to drop or reduce sail and keeping a hand on the tiller. Ideally Mercy Jane needs 3 crew minimum but as we want to get off sailing her as much as possible it sometimes comes down to just Graham and me.
The first improvement we carried out was a sprayhood which was made for us by Saturn Sails at Largs in the Clyde. They made a very good job of it and life at sea has been a lot better since, getting shelter under it makes those long trips a lot more comfortable.

Under sail and Autohelm (Bob) from Port Patrick to Campbeltown

The next improvement was to purchase an Autohelm, this is the external type that clips onto the tiller but works extremely well and is not too intrusive in the cockpit. This has made an enormous difference allowing the helm to be left whilst raising or lowering sail which is a 2 man job. It has also removed the drudgery of steering by hand for hour after hour on those long trips.
The next big change was to replace the wire halyard winch on the mast, this was selected during the restoration as being very traditional, but in practise it was a pain. The wire always bunched up on the drum and then fouled the guard around the drum so that it became a really difficult task to either raise the mainsail or try to lower it. Because Mercy Jane has such an enormous mainsail we were always concerned that we’d never get the thing down quickly enough in the event of some heavy winds or sudden squalls, it would always jam and became quite dangerous. We decided that we would replace the wire winch with a bronze self tailing 2 speed winch and change the halyard to rope. This has made an enormous difference, the sail can be hoisted now in seconds by one man with no problem and is a joy to use. When it comes to dropping sail you just release the halyard and the sail drops straight down onto the boom in no time. This has meant that we are more ready to hoist sail if it looks promising or drop it quickly if necessary, so we do more sailing, which is what it’s all about.
These 2 changes have made it possible to sail Mercy Jane with 2 on board no problem.

A big wave in Portpatrick harbour

The last big improvement has been to have a cockpit tent made, again by Saturn Sails. Again this has been beautifully made and has made life in port a lot more comfortable. It also protects the newly revarnished cockpit and provides additional space out of the wind and rain.

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04.30.08

Winter Maintenance 2006

Posted in Maintenance at 10:12 am by Admin

WINTER MAINTENANCE 2006

Although we expected the hull planking to move a bit after her first season in the water for 25 yrs or so we didn’t anticipate the amount of work it would entail.

The topsides had already been stripped back to bare wood earlier in the year and the joints splined, and  after painting had provided a first class finish.  David Moss carried out this work which involved an activity called ‘flogging off’ which is planing the hull planking by hand to a fair finish, no filler is used and any movement of the planking is reduced to a minimum.

Following the lifting out at the end of the season we could see that the bottomsides were not looking very healthy.  The planking had swollen, moved and cracked off the paint and filler we had used to fair the hull.  We were advised by David Moss that the only way to get the bottomsides looking good again was to strip off all the paint back to bare wood and repaint using a paint system that he recommended.  We decided to carry out the work ourselves to save costs and David agreed that we could do the work in the boatshed and he would repaint the topsides at the same time.

The only way to get the paint off is to burn it off,  we commenced this enormous task not fully realizing how long it would all take. 

Layers and layers of paint came off using gas guns and special scrapers, this took about 4 weekends with both of us at it.  Standing under the boat with burning strips of old paint landing on your hands and clothing is not fun.  Once the paint was stripped off we started the even bigger task of ‘flogging off’   This involves planing the hull planking by hand to get a fair finish, usually working uphill,  very difficult and very tiring work,  fortunately Graham offered to carry out this bit while I followed on with the random orbital sander taking out the smaller bumps and ridges left by the plane. The bare wood was then primed and undercoated with 8 coats of a bitumen rich paint recommended by David Moss. This job has taken a long time but has resulted in a very good looking fair hull.   Hopefully now the hull has been faired by this method it should be ok for several years.

Repainting of the hull bottomsides is due to start  with a view to launching around 25 May, 06.

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