Sea trials

Saturday was summer this year! It was also our day for hanking on sails and testing the engine and propeller and it was a bright and warm one, bright sunshine and a lovely 15knot sea breeze. These days come less frequently than we hope and so it had to be used to its full advantage.   

Rigged n ready

We motored rather gingerly out of the river whilst we got the feel of the boat and the new propeller. Out into the Solent and then hoisted the sails for the first time including the staysail and wow, Seascape was off like a rocket with indicated log readings ranging from 7 to 8 knots and a supreme feeling of stability and lack of concern as the wind topped 19 knots even though we were fully canvassed.  A delight to be out on the water after months of hard work, almost everything worked perfectly except the fridge which is a disappointing beer cooler and needs a regas and the radar which is just a disappointment as it decides when it wants to work. All in all a lovely start  Well done Seascape, well done crew!   Thanks also to Peter and Ros for their splendid canvas work which is shown off in the photo above, Bimini, wheel cover and stackpack are beautiful, a rhapsody in blue!

Splash down

So the lift in day arrived and a few walks around the hull were required to make absolutely sure that nothing had been forgotten while the hull was still dry! Phil had confided that he had been having nightmares for the last week about Seascape sliding off the lift as the slings separated, he was clearly worried about all of the ensuing GRP work. Recent events at the yard had wound up both our concerns, my nightmare was based on being leant on by Seascape squishing me between her and a container wall! Reminder to eat less cheese. On her way despite nearly taking out the fishmongers super truck on the way down the hill we got there safely, lift out had been the 26th February and lift in was the 13th July four and a half months of work had gone into her and it certainly shows. What was even better is that the launch occurred on a beautiful day weather wise and at the bottom of the tide in slack water so manoeuvring was completed without huge anxiety, this was the first time out with the new prop and only the second ever movement with me in charge so best not to ding it!  

 

Splendid

 

Art and design

So the saga of the sail drive is reaching its conclusion Having found the Volvo fixed prop to be worn out and the strong recommendation from the Volvo shop not to replace it with another I did some research and settled on a Featherstream propeller from uk company Darglow. With a two week lead time it was I hope worth the wait, so as you might gather , life does not always run so smoothly. Despite the propeller being delivered by the courier to the marina it was taken away again, the reason! Because the scanner did not work and the courier could not sign it off. It then got taken to and rejected by another business on site and despite being marked as signed for on the system it was eventually put back in the van and taken away.  Shit happens as they say and yet again it happens on my power train, lucky me! After another 36 hour delay the "delivered" prop turned up again and I got a phone call from the marina office saying they had captured it. In the interim of course I had been chasing it on the inter web, by phone (my thanks to Trish at Darglow for her patience in helping me track the prop) what a rigmarole - thanks NOT to DPD for misleading, lying, bullsh@@@ to us all, very professional. Anyway the prop is now on and it looks Fantastic

Shiny

Oh and I also fitted the signage on the bow to finish off the ship properly, pretty lovely too  

Bow signage

   

Blow by blow

Today was a mix of chores , finish servicing the engine, continue fitting the SSB and get to test the wiring for the radar. The SSB was too deep for the navigators cabinet and was going to protrude from the face of the panel by at least a couple of inches and so a frame needed to be made.

Panel

The challenge is compounded by the fact that the ply panel is a very tight fit in the headlining and bulkhead and its removal requires it to be dropped an inch or so before withdrawing. Of course putting a 15kg radio in a slot can have adverse consequences. The next challenge given the lack of depth is how to connect up the cables at the back given the fact that the panel is sealed  it looks like it will be necessary to cut an access hatch in the back of the galley cabinet to connect up the cables. My next job was to fit the diesel filter/separator in the engine bay which is designed to filter the fuel going into the engine and remove any condensing water before it gets to the injectors. This required an early trip to the hydraulic shop for fittings to connect to the fuel pipes, in addition the water filter had to be wriggled a bit to make some space. Thee diesel filter was topped up from a can, the fuel tank then turned on and using the diesel lift pump the fuel was pumped through the system until a little tell tale spurt appeared at the injector! Job done.

Filter

Two other things were urgently required to finish the engine service, emptying the old oil using a pump to extract the 10litres or so of 15W40 oil and to find out why the cooling water was leaking and filling the sump with bright green antifreeze laden water, After much pumping the oil was sucked out into the Pela pump amounting to almost 9 litres, not bad for a beginner! The water leak was traced to the radiator / exchanger where a connector on top was wobbling with an old and dodgy seal. A trip to RK marine and fifteen quid would get me a new seal and what the engineers call a "titty" that covered the access tube for oil extraction and would discourage the oil from slopping out into the bilges. On the way to the Volvo dealer in the car I turned the corner to be confronted with the following sight which took my breath away!

Ouch

Car crusher

Nobody injured

Absolute chaos when a large yacht being brought ashore had decided that it was to slide off the mobile cradle, selecting a couple of cars to rest upon. Luckily the mast missed the offices by a few feet, the hull missed the poor fella who was doing a dent repair on the car next to his, which was crushed (irony) the fella was able to escape injury and the yard hands all rushed to assist. First inspection seems to point to a bolt on the cradle arm shearing under lad, releasing the hull Not a good thing to happen, I am sure a serious review will take place and any consequential lessons will be learned. In the meantime thank heavens that no one was injured. My sympathy and best wishes have to go to the owners though who watched the whole shenanigans, next week this could have been Seascape!!