04.30.08

Peel Traditional Boat Festival

Posted in Trips at 10:36 am by Admin

I last went to this festival about 5yrs ago on Sceptre and was keen to go again in Mercy Jane as I felt it was a good event and had enjoyed it very much and also it was an opportunity to show her off at a relatively local venue, if you can call the Isle of Man local.

After speaking to Graham about it we decided to go regardless of  weather conditions or anything else, we just needed some crew to assist, me and Graham can sail her between us but its hard work as one of us has to remain on the helm whilst the other does all the sail handling and the sails are extremely large and very heavy.

I managed to persuade both John Hindle and Steve Capstick to come along and felt we had a good bunch of lads to take Mercy Jane across the Irish Sea, which can and usually is a very uncomfortable trip.  We looked at the tide tables and agreed that the best time to go would be around 3pm on Thursday to arrive in Peel in the early hours of Friday, a crossing of around 14hrs going directly to Peel through the Calf Sound.

We got away at about 3.30pm on Thursday in bright sunshine and headed out into the channel in light winds then headed generally for the wind farm off Barrow and could see that the turbines were not moving indicating that there was no wind to speak of.  We passed quite close to the turbines and were amazed at the size of them, they towered over us like huge trees unmoving in the light airs.

Passing the wind farm we set a course for the south end of the Isle of Man, it was very clear with brilliant visibility and could clearly see the clouds over the island.  The next few hours were spent under engine with regular cups of tea making the trip very pleasant but still no wind. 

We soon could see a gas platform in the distance which gave a good target to aim for as it was bang on our course, then the Isle of Man became visible quite clearly with the setting sun highlighting the mountains and giving a spectacular sunset.

Graham had brought a home made casserole which we ate just before sunset, all sat in the cockpit, accompanied by a glass of red wine……….very civilised.
It was agreed that we would take watches through the night starting at 10pm with Graham and Steve together and me and John taking the first watch from 10pm to 12 midnight.  It was a very calm night, a flat sea and quite warm so keeping watch was quite enjoyable, so much so that we didn’t hand over till nearly 1am by which time we were ready for some sleep.  We were woken from our deep sleep just as we had emerged through the Calf Sound,it was daylight and the wind had increased to about 12 knots so we were sailing. Unfortunately the wind was not quite right to lay a course for Peel, as usual, so after 15mins or so of sailing away from the land we dropped sail and motored towards Peel which we reached about an hour later. 

On reaching the breakwater we decided to tie to it for a few hours until we could enter the inner harbour, so we bedded down again and caught up on some well earned sleep.  We must have needed it, I awoke at one point to the sound of the other three all snoring their heads off with great gusto.

We finally got into Peel inner harbour at midday on Friday and rafted up alongside another traditional boat and feeling more relaxed we had a couple of beers and generally entered into the spirit of the festival, mainly by visiting most of the local hostelries and sampling the local brews. 

One of the features of the Peel Festival is that most of the food is provided in that the organisers arrange for an evening meal at the sailing club on both days and for a bag of kippers, bread, cheese and milk to be left in the cockpit each morning, enough for a hearty breakfast, and very welcome too.
Saturday afternoons activities consisted of a race around the bay, really a display of all the traditional boats, which we entered at the last minute in bright sunshine and just a breath of wind.  We timed our crossing of the start line just about right and proceded to catch and overtake most of the other boats much to our delight till we eventually caught up with the leading pack in very light winds, making around 1-2 knots. 

The race culminated in an incident at the final buoy as we held our ground and managed to fend off the other competing boats, with a few coarse comments and a little pushing and shoving, crossing the line in front of these other boats by the finest margin.  We were jubilant as we made our way back to the harbour and decided to partake in a few more beers to celebrate.

Wots me name ??

The revelry continued on into the evening,  several beers being consumed at the Sailing Club along with trays of Queenies which were handed out by the festival organisers accompanied by some excellent traditional music from a band called King Chiaullee. 

We were very pleased to find that during the trophy presentations we had been awarded the best Bermudan rigged boat in the festival and duly collected the trophy along with several more beers. The evening continued in the same vein until around 1am we found ourselves in the cockpit entertaining ourselves with a bit of banjo music from yours truly.

Sunday arrived with the kippers as usual and a very sunny day, unfortunately we had to leave to make our way back to Fleetwood and left as soon as the gates opened, around 3pm. 

We enjoyed a leisurely sail down to Calf Sound then turning into the wind we had to rely on the engine once more.  Despite our best efforts to get back to Fleetwood in time to catch the gates open we missed it by 30 mins or so had to anchor in a small pool just outside the marina which allowed us to remain for the day waiting for the gates to open again at the next tide.

We did eventually tie up in our usual berth and made our way home after a very memorable weekend.

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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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