Category: Sailing in General
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How long does it take to prepare for an Arctic voyage from the UK?
16th May 2023 – London Reading time: 15 minutes Clearly there is no straightforward answer to such a wishy-washy question. It depends so much on whether you, and your boat, have made previous high latitude voyages. Even the location of your boat in the UK could affect the timing. To stick my neck out, I…
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The Vertue’s Little Cockpit
28th April 2023 Reading Time Three Minutes Following in the wake of the recent post on “Sailing Mea” about stopping leaks in his cockpit, I thought I would join in the fun. All Vertues are slightly different but it seems common that the cockpit sole is very close to the waterline. Sumara’s cockpit floor was…
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Anchors and Anchoring
22nd February 2023 (updated February 2024) Reading Time 20 Minutes Before we start Sumara is a long-keeled boat, 26 foot long, weighing about 5 tonnes. She tends to lie to the current, rather than the wind. The boat does not have a windlass. My final choice of anchor tackle needed to cope with fairly extreme…
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Rudders, Tillers and Self-Steering Gear – Part Three
9th February 2023 Servo Pendulum and other Self-Steering Gear I suppose it must have been the 1995 Earls Court London Boat Show when I bought my Windpilot Self-Steering gear. Those were the days when you could browse amongst the various suppliers and compare and contrast, before getting completely slaughtered at the Guinness stand. Did you…
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Rudders, Tillers and Self-Steering Gear – Part Two
7th February 2023 Trim Tab Self-Steering Last week I had intended to just post a short piece about the repair I have just made to my rudder hangings. Then I got a bit carried away and went on (and on) about rudders in general. That spurred Bruce Morley to drop me a line about his…
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Rudders, Tillers and Self-Steering Gear – Part One
2nd February 2023 Reading Time 10 Minutes Rudders and Tillers in general My Rudder Repair I have always regarded Sumara’s rudder as being pretty bullet-proof. It pivots on a strong bronze fitting with a 3/4″ pintle at its base. It has two sets of heavy bronze castings with a long 3/4″ bronze bolt linking them…
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South Dock Marina Berths Now 100% Residential
26th January 2023 Yesterday I attended a Southwark Council Planning meeting so that I could make use of a three minute slot to voice my objection to the following proposal: TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING ACT 1990 (AS AMENDED)Town And Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 (as Amended)Our Reference: 22/AP/3036Site address: South Dock Marina…
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A West Country Jaunt – South West Coast Path Mylor Harbour to The Lizard
21st October – 31st October 2022 We took our campervan down to Cornwall. Originally, we were just planing to visit Jo, Sim and Lotte who are currently living on their boat in Mylor. We hadn’t seen them for a while, so we were keen to catch up with their news. Their boat had been hauled…
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And now long trick is finally over
Day 83 Scoresby Sund Expedition Rotherhithe, London Last Thursday we collected our Parson Russell Terrier from the Dog Sitters. My fear that Tilman would no longer recognise me was soon dispelled! It was so nice to see him again. I now can officially declare the failed Scoresby Sund Expedition is over. It is the first…
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It’s not just the boat you need to look after…..
30th May 2022 – Rotherhithe 11 days before the Scoresby Sund Expedition starts ..and I’m not even talking about the crew, what about ME! I often spot sailors lying under their yachts dry-sanding their antifouling without wearing a mask. Many of them are on tight schedules and work seven days a week and sometimes well…