The bilgeboards

In spite of being described by no lesser authority than Wikipedia, my choice of bilgeboards seems to have caused immense confusion among both visitors and correspondents. So let me clarify what they are not.

• they are not centreboards; while centreboards go through the bilge, bilgeboards do not go through the centre
• they are not twin keels, because they are neither fixed nor ballasted
• for the same reason they are not bilge keels
• they are not leeboards, because they are not on the outside of the boat.
  

They are lifting boards, situated towards the side of the hull, which go through the bilges.  And I have started to make them.

This is the sort of job I like least.  It is critical that I don't make any mistakes, but they require large, heavy pieces of wood to be machined, which are difficult to handle and wearing to move around, particularly in the recent extreme heat.  I would much rather handle dinky pieces of kauri than full sheets of 12mm plywood, but the consolation is that I think I have now sawn up my final sheet of plywood.  I must be making progress! I have also needed to manhandle large saligna boards, which weigh a ton and threaten to remove my finger ends whenever I put them down.  The bilgeboards themselves are as tall as I am and nearly a metre wide, so that moving them around is a bit fraught.  However, progress is being made, as you will see.  Firstly, however, I completed the companionway, in order to keep the dust from getting inside the boat.

I loved my fold-down washboards on Fantail and decided to use them again on this boat.  My first issue was getting the acrylic cut.  I made a template that fit perfectly (for once) and took this along to my local Metroglass and asked that the pieces be cut out of 10mm acrylic ('Perspex').  After taking the acrylic back for the third time, I finished shaping it myself.  Something I could have done without, knowing how brittle and easily scratched it is.  But my patience had worn a little bit thin and so too, had that of the man at the shop.  I should have gone for a looser fit, obviously.

 The trouble with fold-down washboards is that the need hinges, my personal bête noir.  The easiest way to make sure I got this right was to fit the boards and hold them firmly in place.  I could then add the piano hinge in situ.

This is the piece that caused all the problems.  I have finally, carefully, planed and sanded it until it fits.

With the bottom hinge secured, I could put the top flap in place and mark for the middle hinge.  One advantage of it ending up too large was that it allowed me to remedy my mistake: I have asked for the pieces to be cut at right angles instead of at an angle to encourage water to drip down the lower board rather than through the gap.  However, the area has been designed in the assumption that rain and the odd splash will come down, so a slight leak won't be an issue, anyway.

When I fitted the lower hinge, I realised that I had made the 'sill' too high so had to chisel out for the nuts.  I suppose I could have put the machine screws in the other way round, but that would would have meant countersinking the acrylic and I would have been worried about cracking it.  Next time I get the yellow paint out, I'll touch it up and it will be good as new!

The 'washboards' fitted and closed.  There are two teak struts for them to land on, when opened.  This means you can safely stand or sit on them.  I ensured that it was level, too, so that it serves as a handy little table.

I had two, pre-coated sheets of 12mm plywood left over, just what was needed for the bilgeboards.  I had forgotten what hard work it is, manoeuvring these big sheets about.  When I lift them up as high as I can, they are only about 20mm off the floor!

I made a full size drawing of the bilgeboard, so that I could measure from it and match it to what I was making.  When there are plenty of things that I can get wrong, I like to make the process as fool proof as possible.

The first face of the first board, cut to size and marked out.

I had spent half a day hauling out boards of saligna from the stack and machining one of them to make the framing.  As I laid them in place I realised that they were going to make the board so heavy that I'd be unable to lift it.  Obviously, I need to be able to shift them about and ideally, without risk of injury.  Fortunately, I had some big lumps of totara, which I'd bought for another job but which had proved unsuitable.  I had just enough to do the framing and the wood was a delight to work with. 

The best thing about the totara was that it was just about the correct thickness, while the saligna needed laminating after being machined.  Instead of taking several days, I had the first board framed up in a day!

And the next day, I did the second board.

Fortunately, I can just about get the two of them on the big table and move them around.

The framework provides the basic shape of the board.  I knocked the hard edges off the high points to make it easier for the plywood to make a fair curve.

When I first started using the big woodworking machines, I was terrified of them and didn't dare adjust the table.  Now I tilt it without a second thought.  (The bandsaw I am more reluctant to adjust, because it is difficult to put it back plumb.

As much out of curiosity as anything else, I decided to try the basic board in the slot - while I could still move it around.  The flat side goes outboard, which seems odd to my tidy mine - surely the curve should follow the curve of the hull?  Of course, it's obvious that the shape of the board has little to do with the shape of the hull: it is a wing and the curve is to help "lift" the boat to windward.

In reality, it won't come down quite as far as this.  It is designed so that about 1 metre of board protrudes when it is down.

With all the other things in the photo, it's not really that clear, but you can just about see the shape of the board created by the framing.

And this is the view from above, with a couple of wedges pushed in, to hold it into place.

In the hope of producing the desired result, I followed David's design slavishly.  I check both the dimensions of the machined wood and the gaps in between carefully, before gluing them into place.

If I had known then what I know now ...  Once again, the 6mm plywood was more difficult to bend than I'd anticipated.  It seemed fine at the 'dry run' stage, shown here, but when I came to glue it down, it buckled along the leading edge and required a lot more screws to hold it down.  I should have used 4mm - it would have taken a little longer, but been a lot less stressful - especially with temperatures in the 30s.  Even the super slow hardener was starting to kick off.

As you can see, the leading edge looks fine, here.

In this photo, it is obvious that I've doubled the number of screws.  To add to my woes, I had heaps of 4mm plywood knocking around and had to go and buy an additional half sheet of 6mm to finish the job!

After gluing down the first layer, I then cut out the slot.  A block is attached at the lower part of this to allow the board to be raised and lowered.

Temporarily, I left the boards alone to do another job.  I had been given some fibreglass stanchions, but when I came to consider fitting them, they were really too big for my little boat, being 35mm at the base and about 32mm at the top.  The size meant I needed to make bases, too and I could get them fairly inexpensively via E-Bay.  The extreme camber of the deck meant that they needed big wedges of teak to level them up.  The extreme expense of teak meant that I essentially had to make it from thinner stock and then shape it on the bandsaw.

And because Thinking Ahead doesn't come naturally to me, I had to cut the toerail back to fit the stanchions.  The stanchion bases I chose (ie the ones I could afford) were high aspect ratio, which meant that the teak needed to be even thicker at the outboard edge.

Cutting the wedges so that the stanchions will be (more or less) vertical took a bit of working out, but I am happy with the results.

I held them down with long, 12g screws.  They were then backed out and reset with the WEST hardware bonding method.  I am always worried about shearing screws off when doing this: you don't want to leave traces of grease when something is a permanent fitting, so the only way to back them out is, ideally, just before the glue sets.  Using an electric screwdriver is asking for trouble.  My cranked, ratchet screwdriver gives sufficient leverage to slowly break the screw out.  Square head drives are almost essential for this type of work.

There are three stanchions each side.  The middle ones needed a different base, because the triangular ones wouldn't fit against the hinged lid.  No doubt the pundits will tell me that the rectangular ones fitted here will pull out.  Tough.

That job done: back to the bilgeboards, but that will have to wait for the next time I blog!

Sometime I sits and thinks; sometimes I just sits

I've been doing a lot of thinking, tooth-sucking and head-scratching recently and a lot of it has ended up with me sitting in a numbed daze.  Two issues are exercising my mind of late.  The first is my fruitless quest for a nice wood-burning stove - preferably one that will burn coal on occasion.

About a year ago, I discovered the most beautiful tiny stove in the world, made by a craftsman near Wellington.  As well as being beautifully made, carefully thought out, the right size and having the essential glass door, it had an additional gorgeous feature: both of the dampers had a huge glass marble set into them through which the light would refract, making glorious colours on the deckhead.  I should have bought it then and there but, foolishly put it off, not wanting it to be kicking around too long in case it got damaged.  A few months later I wrote to buy it and David, the creator, wrote back to say he was sorry, but he'd gone out of business.  People just weren't prepared to pay for good stoves and he couldn't afford to keep his workshop going.  And it wasn't even particularly expensive.  I could have wept - very nearly did in fact.

Since then I've been looking for an alternative.  I want it to be attractive, I want it to have a glass door, but the space for it is only 12"/300 mm wide, and I need to have an air gap between the stove and the settee.  Thus far it's impossible to find what I want.  So if anyone knows of a nice wood/coal burner, maximum 10"/250mm wide, but preferably less, with a window in the door at an affordable price (ie maximum NZ$1,000), please let me know.

The other thing that has been exercising my mind is a cooker.  I don't want gas - the bottles that are easy to refill weigh too much to manhandle out of the dinghy when they are full, and even when empty are a mission to lug along the street.  Getting small ones filled is difficult and expensive and they only last a week or so in winter.  I cook a lot: I get through gas.  And that, of course, is before the safety debate, the complex plumbing, etc, etc. 

Paraffin/kerosene is no longer cheap nor readily available (of good quality) and the spares for a primus-type cooker are very expensive.  I've cooked on paraffin for several decades, but it makes the deckhead grubby and the whole boat ends up smelling of it.  It's a marvellous way of cooking, but ...

Alcohol is the obvious way to go.  However, the Maxie  that I had on Fantail, while an excellent concept, was not well made and corroded out as I looked at it.  It wasn't cheap, either.  I didn't want another one.

I got hold of a pressure alcohol cooker, but spare burners seem impossible to find and as I've no idea how long they last, used on a daily basis, I chickened out - not wanting to have to rebuild my galley around a different cooker.

I was going to go and buy an Origo alcohol cooker, but David, who designed SibLim, says they are useless and that I'll regret it.  There has been some discussion on a JRA forum about them and I must admit that they sound less than perfect.  I had also seriously considered fitting one of their ovens and had even worked out how to get it from the US (they are unavailable here), but after due thought have probably scrapped that idea.  They are eyewateringly expensive and it would be a bit of a shoehorn fit.  I suddenly had visions of what would happen if it turned out to be 5mm too big and got cold feet. As well, I had a horrible feeling that in this case, More might turn out to be Less.  KISS.

In the meantime, David, has decided to make the perfect alcohol cooker, tentatively knows as TGO eco-oker.  He is a very clever man and may well produce something that works, but why, oh why, does no-one produce a good, fast, well-made alcohol cooker for heaven's sake?

In the meantime, I've been trying to work out just what my galley and saloon are going to look like and this, in turn, has put me off installing the deck beams once again.  For me to visualise how it's all going to work, I need the cabin sole down - or most of it.  And that is a big piece of plywood. 

So that led me on to doing a job that I'd been putting off - finishing off the floors in the saloon/galley area and filleting and coating the bulkheads, where necessary, and the bilge area.

Somewhere in the past, I had a panic attack that the cedar floors were a bit dainty and decided to reinforce them with purpleheart ones.  Now I feel that this is entirely unnecessary - there's not much leverage from a 150mm keel that's glued to the bottom of the boat!  However, I'd fitted some forward, so I did the same aft.  they look reassuring.  The photos shows the final one in place, with lead weights and temporary fastenings holding it in place until the epoxy cures.

The next job was to fillet everything - structural fillets along the bottom and up the plywood floor.  Before this could be done, everything had to be cleaned, sanded, scraped where necessary, and generally made ready.  I did it section by section; there was a lot of hand sanding and my fingertips were rubbed raw!

Finally, it was all coated.  In due course, the sides of the hull will be painted, but I shall at least dry fit (some of) the furniture first, to minimise the amount of paint that will have to be taken off again.  However, painting before locker lids go in place is worth a lot of time and grief.

So it doesn't look like a lot has been done, but that's boatbuilding for you!

Why Fantail won't be at this year's Tall Ships Regatta

A couple of days ago, this flyer came in the post:

For all the junkies in NZ, the Tall Ships Regatta has become part of our life and is our major junket.  It's the greatest fun and I'd make a huge effort not to miss it, but this year, Fantail won't be taking part.  Why?  Because in a moment of madness, I've decided to build myself a replacement boat.  It's a long story, and it will take far too long for me to write it all up here, but it's largely to do with shoal draught, simplicity and and abiding love of wooden boats.  The whole saga can be read here, on the Junk Rig Association website.

Suffice it to say, that she will be 26 ft long, shoal draught and, of course, junk rigged.

My friend David Tyler and I have combined forces on the design: he's done the clever bits on the computer and I have told him what I want and how I want it.  It's taken some thrashing out at times, but I'm very happy with what we've come up with.

David sailed down from Canada, in August, to help me get the project started.  After a lot more debating, we sorted out the details and then built a model to help finalise dimensions.  We are building the boat for me, so instead of postulating a crew of three or four 6ft people, we are working around one, 5ft 1in woman.  This has meant that some things, such as the cockpit, are non-standard.

I have made my photos on the JRA site available to non members, so if you want to see more, have a look here.

Building a boat is a very full-time job, especially with all the other chores that have to be carried out on a daily basis, so I won't get much time to post on this blog.

And of course, it means that poor little Fantail will need a new home.  Anyone with NZ$23,000 in their pocket who would like my lovely little floating home, please contact me!

A Better Choice

To those who aren't used to boats, it might seem odd to the point of unpleasant, that when two or more boat owners get together, sooner or later they start talking about toilets.  But one of the big differences between living on a boat and living in a house, is that on a boat, you are far more closely concerned with the day-to-day realities that most people ashore completely ignore.  For them it's a case of turn on a tap and out comes water: another tap produces hot water!  You pull a plug and the water vanishes.  You flush a toilet and suddenly it is filled with clean water.  On a boat, however, none of this happens automatically.  Those of us who like to keep things simple manually pump water from a tank; heat it in a kettle; possibly pump it out of the sink and as for the toilet ...

For many years the norm has been to have a marine toilet that used seawater to flush out the contents of the bowl directly over the side.  There is no real objection to this: your e.coli apparently isn't that fond of salt water and doesn't last long.  Most sailors have experienced the sight of a shoal of fish rushing to the outlet and busily feeding, so you are obviously not disposing of noxious waste.  However, where you have a lot of boats gathered together there are reasons to worry about this arrangement.  For a start many marinas and inner harbours have a lot of fresh water coming into them.  This often floats over the salt water and is a fine place for you e.coli to breed.  If there is little or no flow of water, all the stuff pumped out will sink to the bottom of the harbour and there will probably be too much of it for the local flora and fauna to deal with.  In addition, if you are anchored in a popular spot, you don't want to pump out your toilet in an area where people are swimming.  The way round this is a holding tank, which you empty at a dedicated place in a marina or yacht harbour, or which you take out to sea and empty away from beaches, anchorages etc.

But sea toilets themselves are not without their issues.  In order for them to work effectively, they need to be able to pump in plenty of sea water, but all too often these pumps leak.  Not a lot, but a little water in an otherwise dry boat goes a long way, and the salt means that it's always damp in the area.  In addition, there are often valves to turn on and off, which non-sailors find disconcerting to downright worrying.  The most effective of the marine toilets I've dealt with is the Lavac, which only requires one to shut the lid and then pump, following simple instructions displayed on the bulkhead.  But even this paragon requires that you have two holes through the boat in order for it to work.  I happen to have a prejudice about holes under the waterline.  They have to be protected by a skin fitting that allows you to seal off the hole should the pipe leading to them fracture for some reason.  In theory, this could happen at any time and ideally one would shut all these sea-cocks off every time one leaves the boat.  Most people don't of course, because they fail very rarely.  But I know of more than one boat that has been lost because something failed between the hole and whatever the pipe led to.  In an ideal world, I wouldn't have holes under the waterline.

One can live with these niggles and worries, and most boats are bought with a sea toilet already fitted and the owners live with them.  When I bought Fantail she had a standard marine toilet, and a very indifferent holding tank.  One of my first jobs was to replace this with something a bit better and by and large things were OK.  However, the pump always dribbled sea water with the result that black mould would start growing the moment I turned my back.  I was getting increasingly irritated with this, but what finally destroyed any empathy I had for this system, was as a result from my moving from the cold waters of Tasman Bay to the warm waters of Northland.  Apparently the long, dark, inlet pipe was an ideal environment for something (I'm not sure what) to grow very happily.  But whatever it was, it liked a certain level of salt water, no more and no less, so when I stayed in a river for a while, it would grow and flourish, only to die when I went back to sea.  Then its salt water equivalent would grow and flourish only to die when I went back into a river.  How do I know?  Because each time I changed my environment, a couple of days later, the water coming into the heads would stink of sulphur and this appalling stench would last for a day or so, until all the dead matter was flushed through.  I got to the stage of dreading the change in water salinity.

I used to live with a Porta Potti, but they are heavy when full, and I didn't really relish the thought of struggling with one through the very narrow passageway into my heads compartment.  I decided to try out a composting toilet: a lot of friends have them and all spoke very positively about them.  I thought of making one, but realised that they need to be quite carefully set up for the female anatomy and I didn't really want to make one only to find it didn't quite work.  So in the end, I cashed in my savings and bought a C-Head.  These are made on a one-off basis by a chap called Sandy Graves in Florida.  It's not strictly correct to call them composting toilets: they are in fact, desiccators and to that end solids and liquids are separated.

Sandy has a variety of shapes and sizes and after we'd emailed back and forth, I decided which I wanted and it duly arrived.  It took me a while to get used to it: the dried coir bricks had to be reconstituted with water, and ended up too wet to do their job properly.  I then tried wood shavings, but found that the hardwood didn't do a very good job of absorbing moisture either.  I was seriously contemplating installing a fan to assist, although this was something I very much wished to avoid.  However, a bag of softwood shavings worked like a charm and instead of adding more medium almost every time I used the toilet, I found it stayed dry for ages.  Now that I have found the ideal medium, I am delighted with my 'composting' heads.  It is easy to empty out at sea; alternatively, you can put the solid waste into a stout bin liner, pour over half a cup of bleach and dump it ashore.  I much prefer to wait until I'm outside the 'no dumping' limits.  The website has several different ideas as to what you can use for a medium: I guess it's essentially trial and error until you find what works for you. The bottle can simply be emptied over the side, rinsed out and put back in place.

So that's two fewer holes under my boat; a toilet compartment that is easy to keep nice and clean and no smell.  I can only recommend this as a much better alternative to a conventional marine toilet.

Another junket - and Tall Ships Regatta

With a New Year comes the anticipation of another Russell Boating Club Tall Ships Regatta, and once again a number of junkies had decided to combine it with a junket.

Arcadian and Fantail briefly shared an anchorage, but a couple of days later, we came across Zebedee; Alan, Pauline and I agreed to sail up Te Puna anchor to Crowles Bay and as we sailed through Kent Passage, there was Arcadian coming in from the outer bay.  We caught them up and then had a great sail up the inlet with a splendid chance for a photo op before coming in to anchor.

Arcadian is the party boat, par excellence and the noise was soon up to acceptable levels on board.  David and Rosemary always give us the impression than they like nothing better than to have a heap of noisy, hungry people come on board, eat and drink and then go home leaving them with all the washing up.  Each boat always contributes something to the feast, and if nothing else, at least we take our pans home, but I always feel a bit guilty as we row away, leaving their home in a shambles!

For the next few days, each boat pottered around the area before meeting again for the Big Event, by which time we had been joined by La Chica and Pugwash. 

Readers of this blog will already have encountered Pugwash in his orange cover, oars poking out and looking like some sort of strange insect paddling across the water.  However, Marcus was dissatisfied with this arrangement - the cover leaked, which not only makes it a bit wet when sailing, but allows the rain into the interior, should he wish to spend the night on board.  So he had spent some time turning Pugwash into a much more sea-going boat.

The wee boat looked inconceivably cute, with its windows and - amazingly - a self-steering gear.  And if the idea of a self-steering gear on an 8ft 6in boat seems unlikely, perhaps the most astonishing thing about it is the fact that it works very well!

When the day of the race arrived, Marcus had difficulties getting away from the dinghy dock: everyone wanted to know all about the boat and the conversion.  They held their own in the fleet, but most people simply couldn't believe their eyes:  from the stern, Pugwash looks like a miniature Endeavour 

and the crews of the passing boats goggled at this strange apparition, and the sight of Marcus calmly drinking his home brew while his tiny ship sailed herself to windward!  They caught everybody's attention and even ended up in prime place in the local paper's coverage of the event.

In the meantime, the rest of the fleet divided into two races.  La Chica and Zebedee were obviously going to be a close-run combination.  Paul had redesigned and re-built his rudder and reckoned he would wipe the smile off Alan's face, but it was an extraordinarily close-run race and they crossed the finish line within moments of one another, La Chica just ahead.  Meanwhile, they were showing some of the other boats just what a well-rigged and well-sailed junk-rigged boat can achieve.

Roger had left Shoestring in Auckland where she is undergoing rig alterations (yet to be finalised), but took this magnificent photograph of Zebedee and La Chica jousting for position at the start line.  If you want to see some more splendid photos, please look at Roger's album here.

Arcadian, Zebedee and La Chica all counted as Tall Ships, whereas little Fantail was in another class (and poor Pugwash) was too small to be entered.  But Arcadian and Fantail ended up in their own race, which Arcadian finally won on the homeward, down wind leg, where her long waterline let her walk away from us.   

Fantail meanwhile had had a less than happy day, for some reason unable to find her rhythm in the inconstant breeze which seemed to come round to the nose every time I hoped it might just free us.  The most disappointing aspect of this was that I had a friend on board, a sceptic about junk rig, whom I'd hoped to impress.  But it was not to be.  However, we all enjoyed the fine party after the race and I think both Alan and Paul were very proud to realise how well they had done in the Tall Ships fleet, where they were placed 9th and 10th on handicap.  Fantail's only consolation was that although she was last to cross the line, she did cross the line before the final gun, unlike a lot of the competitors who had long since given up.

The Regatta might be over, but the junket carried on and a couple of days later, Zebedee, Pugwash and Fantail had a splendid sail in company together: Zebedee and Pugwash looked quite wonderful as they sailed side by side.

But Pauline and Marcus had to head back to work, so we all went our separate ways, with another splendid junket under our belts.  In truth, I'm not sure that any of us had the stamina for yet another wonderful party aboard Arcadian.  But we were all very pleased to have had no fewer than 5 junk-rigged boats at the regatta: the wonderful Christine Hall even let us have a class of our own for first across the line - won by La Chica.

A fine start to the season

I decided to spend the winter with Fantail hauled out this year.  There were a variety of reasons for this: some of them worked out, some didn't, but it saved me getting even more fouling on the boat, being bullied by the harbour master and worrying about dragging my anchor.  (Not, touch wood, that Fantail has yet done that.)

As usual, in spite of being out for so long, there were outstanding jobs uncompleted and a mad rush to get everything done so that we could go back in.  One of the jobs I did do, was to take the mast out and change the masthead fitting.  You may recall that I had a half inch bolt sheer off a few months ago.  Well, now all the bolts have been removed and instead of metal at the masthead, I have heavy a webbing strap, securely sewn, around the top, with loops for the shackles sewn to it.  (Yes, I know, stainless steel shackles, but a girl lives in hope!)

I dressed the mast once more and then rang up the friendly and obliging Bruce Yovich to come along and pop the mast back in.  Bruce has a miniature crane which is just perfect for this job: it's the real McCoy with a jib that extend to three times its telescoped length, but costs a fraction of the full-sized brute.  Anyway, along comes Bruce and 15 minutes later the mast is stepped.  I took extra pleasure in this speed and simplicity: a nearby ketch, restepping his masts, had had a crane in for 3 hours the previous day!

On 25th November, the great team at Norsand Boatyard, who had kindly tolerated me being on my boat all winter, carefully put Fantail back in to her proper element.  They have a cunningly designed trailer that gets under the boat's cradle, trundles her down to the slipway and then slowly slides her back in to the water.  It's all a lot less nerve-wracking than watching one's pride and joy swinging through the air in the slings of a travel lift.

It was great to be back in the water and ready to go.  I pottered around with a few more jobs waiting for the SW winds to go away and on a fine December day, set off down the harbour to catch up with Zebedee at the Hen and Chickens - a group of islands about 7 miles from the entrance to Whangarei Harbour.  Well, that was the plan.  We left Parua Bay about nine o'clock and whizzed out with a strong ebb tide under us.  The forecast NW wind was in fact NE, once we got out of the lee of the land, but we could lay the islands without too much problem.  The chart showed a couple of possible anchorages, possible only in northerly conditions, after several days of light winds so that there was no swell running.  It is, as we all know, a naughty world, but I've always felt that I could rely on charts produced under the auspices of Her Majesty's New Zealand Navy; however on this occasion I was disappointed.  Sailing in confidently to anchor in somewhere under 8 metres, I was more than a little surprised to see my (resolutely Imperial) echo sounder reading 36 ft.  I dropped the sail, which seemed reluctant to come down - just what I needed - and motored further in.  And further and further.  By this time we were less than 100m off the beach with rocks all round, a gusty wind and still with over 30 ft on the echo sounder.  I don't like anchoring in such deep water and I couldn't imagine Alan being happy to sail into this constrained place and - worse - having to sail out of it again, especially with the high ground to the north of me making the wind very fluky.  So, somewhat reluctantly, I abandoned the attempt.

I sent Alan a text by cellphone and he confirmed my guess that he'd prefer not to try it either, so I hauled the sail back up and sailed back, the wind having disobligingly shifted to the NW, so that once again I was pretty much close hauled.  We planned to spend the night in Smugglers Bay, well-placed to take tomorrow's N wind down to Kawau I and the Hauraki Gulf for a little cruise in company.  Zebedee got there a few minutes before me, having sailed down from Whangaruru, and he and Pauline came over for dinner.

The wind in Smugglers had died away as I was sailing in, so I'd come in under power.  Again, the sail seemed reluctant to come down.  It had the horrible clack-clack-clack sensation that I've experienced before: it means that the sheave is badly damaged.  I didn't wish to believe this: surely there was another explanation?

Next morning dawned clear, with a light N breeze.  Perfect to get away.  The forecast was for the wind to strengthen considerably later, but if I left straight away, I should be under the lee of Kawau I before it filled in.  I shortened the anchor chain and raised the top few panels of the sail to sail out.  Once the anchor was in its roller, I went back to the cockpit to raise more sail.  This time I knew I wasn't mistaken: the sail refused to go up any further; indeed, I wondered if it would come down.  I sailed back, explained my predicament to Alan and then sadly set off back up Whangarei Harbour.  I had no spare blocks on board suitable for the job, so I'd have to buy some more.  And in the river, I had the chance of very calm conditions to go up the mast.

Back at anchor I ordered the blocks, which arrived the next day.  A Canadian cruising friend happened to be in the river, so he offered to haul me up the mast the following morning, when it should be calm.  All went according to plan; I managed to do the job at the top of the mast without succumbing to a panic attack - I absolutely loathe going up the mast - and came down before anyone went screaming past leaving a big wake, or the wind filled in.  I showed Chris the block: the sheave was absolutely shattered.  Obviously the sun had attacked the white plastic and made it brittle.  The odd thing was that last time I'd used it, it had seemed fine, and I'd have thought it would have been protected from the sun by the rope running over it.  I was glad I'd made the decision to replace both.

That afternoon I topped up my diesel - once I'd started heading up the harbour I'd motored as there was no way I could have beat up with only 3 panels of sail - and water, and was ready to leave.  That was nearly a week ago!  Since then we've had dreadful weather and I've been happy to be tucked up way up the harbour while gales and storms have blown around us.  More gales are forecast, followed by light winds and rain, rain, rain.  What's happened to summer?  I'll be lucky to be out of Whangarei for Christmas at this rate!

A regatta

I've done two things this summer, that I have declared I will never do: gone racing and delivered a boat.  More of the latter, later

The first, to be fair, was entirely frivolous.  The delightful little Russell Boating Club holds its Tall Ships Regatta every year.  Now the Tall Ships are rarely tall and most of them would not normally be described as ships: to qualify the boat has to be over 30ft and to have two masts.  However, one or two taller and shippier vessels generally join in and a very fine spectacle the fleet makes.  In addition there are the Classics (boats over 25 years old) and, this year, there was an All Comers class for any who didn't qualify for either of the above, but wanted to join in.  This made a lot of sense, because it made for fewer spectator boats and thus a more ordered start line - and no doubt it helped swell the club's coffers.  Fantail was flattered to be described as a 'classic', although even her greatest fans might debate such a sobriquet.  Still, if age was the only qualifier, she qualified.  Two other junks, Shoestring and Zebedee also participated,

Shoestring 

Zebedee

but they qualified as Tall Ships, so we didn't sail together.  To make the day more fun, I took on board another junkie, Marcus, whose 8ft Pugwash is too small to join in.

I wasn't in the slightest interested in making 'a good start' (although my crew thought I was being a bit feeble), but was far more concerned about keeping my wee ship out of everybody's way, so (along with quite a lot of other participants) I crossed the line about 10 minutes late.  There was a thundering great cruise ship anchored slap bang in the middle of the bay, and I made the decision to keep to windward of it, even though that meant a bit of short tacking.  The other possible advantage was that the ebb tide might help us.  Both decisions paid off and we had a fine sail, close hauled up the Bay.  It soon became apparent that Fantail's closest rivals were two gaffers, Dolphin of Leith, which had sailed to New Zealand from Scotland, and another local one, whose name I can't recall, I'm afraid. 

As we headed up towards Urupukapuka, we could just crack the sheets, which made up for our considerably shorter waterline.

Fantail and Dolphin of Leith

For much of the race it was neck and neck, (even though I used the wind-vane for some of the time, so that we could eat lunch in peace) but on the final leg - a run - Fantail convincingly left the opposition behind. 

We came in 52nd out of 54, but did a lot better on handicap - 19th.  I was very pleased with my little ship, but in all truth, even more pleased with our generous handicap!!  Shoestring and Zebedee were way behind us, having made the mistake of going to leeward of the cruise ship and getting stuck there, so Fantail also had the satisfaction of soundly beating her big sisters.  Roger and Alan generously complimented me on my tactical abilities, but I have to confess it was largely luck.  The nice thing was that the boat ahead of us crossed the line 20 minutes before we did, which meant that my late start had made no difference to the end result.

The day was rounded off by a party and prize given at the Boating Club, which was a lot of fun, too, with a hangi (food cooked over stones in a covered pit) and lots of discussion about the various boats and the race.  There was no bitching about handicaps, and there were (as far as I could tell) no protests.  Very few people took the racing seriously, although most of us tried to get the best out of our boats.  And the organisation of the whole event, by dedicated volunteers (an inconceivable number of mussels were scrubbed on the morning of the race) was truly awe-inspiring.

One of the things that I appreciated, and that a lot of other participants commented on and enjoyed, is the fact that the Tall Ships Regatta  is about the boats and the people.  It's a way of bringing together lots of interesting boats to provide a spectacle both from ashore and on the water (there are many good lookout points in and around Russell), while everyone sails around having fun.   In a time where everything's value depends solely on the 'bottom line', it was refreshing to be at an event apparently run for the sake of the participants rather than to make money.  Indeed, I'm sure that if the RBC tried to make the Tall Ships Regatta into a money-making event, they would find they had killed the goose that lays the golden egg.  For those who know of it, the Tall Ships Regatta reminds me of the Dourarnenez festival, an event for the boats and the sailors that incidentally brings money into the town, rather than being held for the money and incidentally bringing in the boats.  I can understand why people join in year after year.