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    Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log: Robinetta, #2
    Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log: Robinetta, #2
    Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log: Robinetta, #2
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log: Robinetta, #2

    By Alison Cable and Julian Cable

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    About this ebook

    This is the story of a year in the life of a small old wooden gaff rigged sailing yacht. It contains details of the maintance needed to keep a 76 year old boat going, as well as what can do wrong over the course of a season, with both boat and crew. We have owned Robinetta since 2007, and this is the year when things went wrong, as we went on our most ambitious cruise to date, from the river Blackwater in Essex, round to Cowes, and back.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAJ and Family
    Release dateNov 10, 2015
    ISBN9781519989291
    Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log: Robinetta, #2

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      Book preview

      Robinetta, There and Back Again, the 2013 log - Alison Cable

      @2017 AJ and Family

      146 Stortford Hall Park

      Bishops Stortford

      Herts

      CM23 5AP

      UK

      Introduction

      When we published Robinetta’s first collected blog on Kindle we were not sure any one would really be interested. A surprising number of people decided to buy it, so we have produced this account of our 2013 adventures in Robinetta for anyone who would like to know more of what we get up to.

      There is always a lot to do to keep an old wooden boat on the water, even a small one. Robinetta was never a classic yacht. She was designed to a price, for cruising not racing or looking good on a pontoon. At first sight she seems like one of the toy yachts that children used to play with, and her colour scheme reinforces that. She is a proper cruising yacht though, and this year we proved it for ourselves. (Previous owners had already done it of course!)

      2013 was a big year for the Old Gaffer's Association, the sailing organisation that we belong to. It was founded fifty years ago, in 1963, to promote Gaff Rig. The gaff rig is one where the sail has four corners, with the top being controlled by a gaff, which could be thought of as an extra boom holding up the top of the sail. The OGA has been very successful in its aims, as there are now many new Gaffers being designed and built. These newer boats have their own design associations and rallies, but many also belong to the OGA. So OGA boats don't have to be old!

      There are other boats that might seem equally out of place in a Gaff rig association. The Vertue is a well known Bermudan sloop design from the 1930s, but several sail with the OGA on the East Coast of England and are mentioned in this book. Over 200 Vertues have been built over the years, there are even GRP versions available, but to sail with the OGA a Bermudan yacht must be old.

      There were two events in 2013 that tried to include all the members, and Robinetta played a part in both of them. The first was a circumnavigation of Britain with as many boats as possible taking part, and the second was a party at Cowes.

      Robinetta's crew rushed through the winter work to be there to witness the first boats start their trip from Maldon where the OGA was founded (although she was not ready to follow them), and she did join the circumnavigating boats as they passed Maldon again. It is a long trip from there to Cowes in a slow boat, and we were glad we had decided not to join the mad rush to get round Britain in three months. We did want to get to the party though, so joined the fleet as it passed the East Coast ports again, and learnt how wise we were not to try to keep up for the whole trip.

      We had a good summer's sailing, despite a rather nasty accident, then moved into a winter of preparation for our own much slower trip round the British Isles. I hope you will enjoy this account of Robinetta's adventures in 2013, and a look at the preparations for her next trip in 2014.

      Most of the maintenance posts are by Alison, but this year Julian wrote most of the sailing ones. The author is marked only when the voice changes.

      Julian and Alison Cable

      A cold winter's work

      Alison

      January marked the start on getting Robinetta ready to go back in the water. Compared to last year's marathon of paint stripping and recaulking there was not nearly as much to do, but the galley needed rebuilding, and we suspected that part of the port cockpit bulwark needed replacing too.

      When Julian and I went to Mersea to take measurements on the galley we brought the heads and galley thru-hulls home to give them a thorough clean, plus the heads pump and tubing. We had some horrid smells last year, which we don't want repeated.

      We also removed the fore-hatch so we could reseal and varnish it in dry conditions as I'm fed up of getting dripped on! The bowsprit needed varnishing again, and we got that ready to bring home too, but decided to leave it at Mersea until Worm was varnolled and out of the garage to make room.

      We only got to Robinetta once in January, and it even felt too cold to go in the garage and work on the hatch we brought home. We did manage to do something though; go to the boat show and spend too much money! I needed new wet weather gear, and also ordered a small stainless steel sink to replace the ice-cream tub we had before. We also made an impulse purchase of a set of Riber Bugzy wheels. They are designed for kayaks, but our plywood dingy Worm is no heavier than a GPP kayak, and we hope they will make her easier to get Worm from the car park to the hard for launching and back.

      It was February before I finally had a free day when the weather was not too bad to face the trip. I headed off in bright sun shine, but February sunshine does not necessarily mean warmth, and it was only 2°C when I got to Mersea. I'm kind of used to the cold now.... Water pooled in the foredeck cover on either side of the raised hatch, but it was still on properly, so I did not bail it out. The water holds the cover down when the wind gets up, which is a bonus with the foredeck hatch still in the garage.

      I bailed the rain water from the bilges using the hand pump to warm myself up, then finished bailing inside with the electric pump to see if it was working. It did, showing the solar panel was giving enough power to charge the battery.

      I took the last of the formica out of the galley area, then washed the woodwork. It was still damp two hours later, so I decided to sand it down on my next visit. Julian wanted to try a different tap in the galley, so I fitted the garden hose end we bought and moved the old kitchen tap to above the basin of the vanity unit where it fited surprisingly well. The water pump did not sound so good when I tried to check the flow from the pipes. I suspect that the small amount of water we left in the tanks was frozen solid.....

      I brought the gas cooker home to give it a good clean, and tied the bowsprit on the roof. Once I got home I took it up to the spare bedroom ready for varnishing, as the garage was too cold.

      Progress was slow for the rest of the month as working outside with the temperature below 5°C is impossible, but I got an electricity hook up fitted, meaning I could run our trusty fan heater in the cabin and be snug while I worked on the galley.

      The rib at the aft of the galley (inside the cabin, but abutting the cockpit) was a cause for concern. This is the area where the work surface began to rot, and the screw holding its support in place went straight into the rib. The screw corroded totally and the rib around it was very soft. I dried it out thoroughly which firmed it up, then put wood hardener into it to prevent water getting back in. I could not tell how much structural strength remains but its position means there are a lot of other supporting timbers. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

      One of the scantlings was also soft, so soft I could carve out the rotten area with a pocket knife. This was above bulwark height though, so once I got back to solid wood I just left it until it was fully dry and painted it like the rest of the wood in the galley area, with two coats of primer.

      Once I had most of the support batons in place and painted the next job was to cut the ply for the work surface. I made a template out of corex on board, then cut the ply at home in the garage. There was no heater in the garage, unlike on Robinetta, so I did not manage to start work out there until March!

      I used marine ply for the work surface, left over from when Julian made Worm, laminating two sheets together for strength. I'm not sure it needs to be that strong, but it seemed like a good idea since I had to make a decent size cut out for the sink, which will be heavy once it gets water in it.

      I also cut another hole to let us access the awkward area beside the cooker; this has a lid with a finger hole so we can get it out easily. This will let us use the space for storage and make it possible to open and close the sink thru-hull. The pans do not fit under the sink any more, since the new sink is much deeper than the old one. I sanded the ply, then gave it a couple of coats of thin epoxy to seal the edges and stop the damp getting in. After than I glued on some flame proof formica and edged it with an oak beading.

      The rest of the galley stayed pretty much the same. Once the cooker was back

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