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2022 towards St Kilda: launching.

As in previous years I will be posting as and when I can, it would be best for new readers to check out my new (Nov 2022) introduction to the blog (Opens in a new tab / window) that explains how I go about writing the blog, its limitations whilst I am writing it whilst cruising and what some terms mean.

St Kilda (left) about 45 miles west of Harris in the Outer Hebrides.
In a small sailing boat, the lack of a protected anchorage and
a safe all weather passage back through or around the outer Isles,
at least a week of fair weather it required to safety visit.

I will probably have Iridium tracking on around the Scottish Islands and the Outer Hebrides but have not yet made a decision as to when I will activate it. I will turn if off when I am confident of getting timely weather reports and some email connectivity by other means for the rest of the trip, again see my "Tracking Sancerre page" for the Iridium tracking reports.

The Launch

Sancerre was launched on the 9th of March and I took her down river to one of the RAFYC's berths for a night before putting her on the mooring. 

Quite a pleasant 2 mile trip up the river in the dinghy. This is
the easiest way to get the car and the boat down to the RAFYC
 single handed. Pic about half way between Port Hamble and
Mercury marinas looking upstream on the first of the flood tide. 

Looking downstream from about the same point. When I came back
down, against the tide, there was also a force 5 wind on the nose
which would not have been pleasant in the dinghy..

Nicolson 55 "Lord Portal" moored near the top of the river, I sailed
on her in the 70s when she was one of 2 Nic 55's used by the RAF
for adventure training.

Launching at Deacon's yard, once a very traditional boat yard but
now under new ownership it is being modernised and homogenised,
probably not for the better, prices are certainly going up quickly so I'll
probably not be there next year, or at least not for as long.

Sancerre was launched @ 10:00 an hour and a bit after low water, 2 hours ahead of the orriginal schedule, I was told the previous afternoon so had to leave early to get down in time. Its a long drop to the water even two days off of neaps, I don't think they launch so near to low water on spring tides. The yard was busy that day so they moved the boat launched before Sancerre (On the pontoon at the end of the jetty in the pic above, waiting to be towed over to Swanwick marina, AKA Moody's) into the slings the previous day and parked Sancerre right behind for a quick start, when I left at c 10:45 a third boat was going in.

Whilst moored at the RAFYC I loaded heavy and awkward sized items that it was not sensible to do when she was ashore, set up the running rigging that was removed for the winter and fitted the mainsail, stack pack and lazy-jacks. I was lucky with the weather this morning, the wind being much lighter than forecast, so I was also able to get the 150% genoa rigged as well, a bit of a struggle single handed in any wind.

Most of the tinned food is loaded so after a few more hours of work and loading the rest of the food, clothes and bedding suitable for spring, and hopefully summer, I will be ready to go. 

Update 20th March: With the revised start date (see update at the end of the previous post) I loaded the rest of the non-perishable stores today and finished the odd jobs and the boat is ready to go, I just need to load clothes, perishable food and get the car home. to leave on the 25th or 26th.

Click here for day 1 of the trip.

Preparing for launch and the 2022 cruise towards St Kilda.

In anticipation of the web site disappearing (probably in the distant future) I have converted the more important threads into PDF documents so I'll have a continuing record. These are somewhat easier to read, I have not made any significant edits but there are fewer pictures and no video. Links from downloaded copies should still work if on line. I may later put further links to Flickr for videos but probably not for the slide shows because of the effort required and the likely hood of the Flickr library disappearing with the web site (with thousands of images it has to be paid for). 2022 S. Uist

Spoiler: Unfortunately the weather defeated me, I made it to South Uist in the outer Hebrides before running for shelter behind the Isle of Skye as the first of several gales approached, three weeks later there was no sign of a window opening either on the models or after talking to a forecaster so I headed for home to leave time for a late summer cruise around the Celtic Sea. 

Click here to jump to day 1 of the trip skipping the pre-amble.

As ever there was a number of minor jobs to do on the boat in addition to a good clean, routine maintenance and the more major jobs already on the Blog that were finished a while ago and I also ticked off a good number of things that have been on my list for a while. Now the boat is ready to go in the water and the plan is to launch on the 9th March and to go onto the RAFYC pontoon for a couple of days to fit the running rigging and load heavy and awkward sized items before moving to the mooring.

Then it will be down to the weather and tides, if the former cooperates I plan to be away on the neap tides the weekend before Easter hopefully taking advantage of easterly winds that frequently blow during April and which caused me a lot of grief last year when going the other way. That start date would enable me to break the trip west at Portland leaving there via the inshore route at dawn, it also gives plenty of time to get to Newlyn for a rounding of Lands End with favourable tides. 

The main objective for this cruise is to visit St Kilda and the Outer Hebrides that the weather and time pressures stymied last year.

St Kilda is about 50 miles west of South Harris, with no where
to go in bad weather (except north of the Butt of Lewis, itself not
a nice place in a blow) it will need close to a week of good weather
after getting to Barra or Harris so I could be waiting a long time.

After that  I am not sure, perhaps an extended cruise around the Scottish Islands, a cruise down the west of Ireland, along the Welsh coast and the Bristol Channel, or I might head off to the Shetland Islands, going to the extreme west of UK (if you ignore the small rock of Rockall) and Muckle Flugga the extreme north has a certain attraction and if I came down the east coast for a third round Britain I would have been to the extreme south (The Lizard), west, north and east on one cruise. We shall see.

This year I have had very little planning to do as a combination of the plans for 2021, 2022 and a plan to go round Ireland after the 2021 Jester Baltimore (that didn't happen) covers most of any likely trip. Updating all of my paper charts (14 "small craft" folios plus over 30 individual charts) was a different matter and took several days. 

The one piece of planning that is worth doing is working out the best date to leave, weather permitting, so as to be able to be able to use the Portland inshore route and to get round Land's End. 

Edit: The original post on choosing a start date has been removed as it has been superseded by my page Passage Planning - The Solent to Land's End, click here to read. 

Updates: 

Six weeks out several of the long range forecasts are suggesting northerly or easterly winds for the period (fairly common in April) possibly very light as the Azores high extends northwards, if that pans out going northwards could be a problem so a visit to the Isles of Scilly to wait for a favourable wind could be an attractive option.

Three and a half weeks out and all but one of the forecasts show light or very light winds, the outlier shows F7 for a few days but I am ignoring that for the moment and have booked a berth at the RAFYC to make loading up easier (especially the dinghy and outboard) and to avoid using the water taxi / club launch to get on and off when I take the car home.

18th March and all change! easterly winds are forecast from now to the end of March and into early April so I am taking advantage and am now planning to leave late on Friday the 18th or v early on the 19th. I might need the newly installed heater, but it should be dry and sunny.

Having chatted to a forecaster at Weatherweb there is then a reasonable chance of winds from the W or SW in early or mid April which would take me up the Irish sea on the Irish side but if the easterlies persist or I make a quick passage to Newlyn I can use the easterlies to go up the Welsh coat before crossing over to take my preferred route across the North Channel leaving from Norther Ireland.

Click here for Launch Day.

Carbon Monoxide Detector

The alarm sounds at a variable level dependant on average 
levels over a period but not below 30 ppm.

Something I have been meaning to fit for a while but the need was highlighted during my very cold trip in April and May when I was using the cooker a lot for cooking and the grill occasionally to keep warm.

I finally did it and trials show that with the Dorade and washboards vents open the oven and oil lamp registered 0, a test with a small gas fire got it up to 15 ppm after 45 minutes.

Not shown is a smoke detector - just in case.

Propeller removal.

My home made prop removal tool, the steel pieces must be very strong, alloy is unlikely to be up to it, A couple of years ago I tried with two pieces of angled alloy to form a "U" and it buckled very quickly and did not work.

Some spare threaded rod  would be a good idea as its easy to damage the thread where the rod goes through the angle iron. I initially used 6mm rod but that bent, 8mm was OK on subsequent use but 10mm might be better although that may need more grunt to move.

With a minor mod it should also work as a cutlass bearing removal tool with a suitable pusher. Its a chick and egg situation but an old cutlass bearing cut in half lengthwise should work, fortunately the bearing does not need replacing so testing that will have to wait for another year.

Wood pieces are to protect the propeller blades. When really
tight a light tap on the triangular with a mallet may be helpful.

Before tightening, as it tightened I lifted it up somewhat. Mistake
No 1 is leaving the nut off, in place but eased it will stop the prop
falling off.

Lift out for the winter.

Sancerre was lifted out at Deacon's yard, Bursledon just before Christmas, fortunately it was a nice day so the two mile trip back to the RAFYC in the dinghy to get the car was actually quite pleasant.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the lack of weed on the hull, by far the best result I have had from an anti-foul even though this was the first season she had not been power washed mid season. This was largely due to the number of miles I travelled spread over the season which helps the self ablative antifouling to work, but contributing was a lot of work over the previous two seasons on surface preparation and building up a good covering so that it did not wear through or come off. There is no doubt that getting three coats on over a period of days or weeks allowing each to cure before the next coat is superior to getting a coat on between tides or using the sealift (2 coats in an afternoon and back in early next morning). 

The SeaJet "Pellercoat" on the propeller was also impressive,
the first treatment I have found that actually works, unfortunately
some was knocked off by over enthusiastic use of the power wash,
next time I will ask them not to use it on the prop rather than to be careful.

Minimal erosion on the anodes, before fitting the Galvanic Isolator
I always wrecked two of the type on the right each year. 

After the power wash and almost ready for antifouling.