Plymouth Progress 5 - A Great Week

Current Location: Boat, Plymouth. Us, Stroud

So, where do I start. A great week. Rain, a bit of snow, gorgeous blue skies, crisp icy pontoons and great friends.

It was blowing a gale as we arrived at Plymouth. The usual carting of stuff from the car to the boat and opening Mehalah up for business is getting more and more slick. The heating works (mostly) and we were soon toasty warm. The forecast though was not good. More wind and cold.

Before turning in I decided to attack the recalcitrant winch from below. Down with the ceiling only to be met by a mess of wires. Most led to old lights that did not work so I started sorting it all out with decent connectors and capping off the redundant wires. But best of all I removed the winch for work the next day.

The wiring mess and the base of the obstinate mainsheet winch

Contrary to the forecast we woke next day to a beautiful winter's day. Blue sky and not a breath of wind. Quick. Get those sails down. And down they came. The yankee (front sail) and staysail (next sail back) succombed quickly but then it was the main. There's a tricky gate at the bottom of the mast where the sail slides up. It stops the sail sliding back out again. It's plastic, costs £80 and is easily snapped. I was careful. I couldn't get it out despite the manual saying only 'remove the entire gate'. So we rang the sail makers and asked them to come and collect the sails. And while you are about it can you take the gate out too. They arrived just as we had removed battens and were starting on the reefing lines. They were odd too so they helped us with them as well. Next time we can do it. Here she is, naked...

Look. No sails on a gloomy midday in February.

By lunch time our great friends Hugh and Linda had arrived from  Reading. We gave then their jobs for the week. Hugh mostly woodworking tasks - freeing doors, completing the last bits on the cooker, replacing bits removed from when the riggers were with us and other sundry items. Linda was stainless cleaner and issue spotter, chain painter and storage advisor. Before she arrived we spent as much time hunting for stuff as we did working on things. Now it's all neatly arranged and labelled. Except for the things we can't find that is.

My job was to remove the first leaking tank.

The first leaking tank to be exposed....

....and the hole if left.

By now Hugh had set up an entire carpenter's shop on the pontoon and was cracking through the broken hinges, sticky doors and collapsed floors. Wherever we go now we say 'This is great, thank you Hugh'.

Hugh at work on one of many woodworking projects

A door that closes and a bilge opening that is well supported.

He was so pleased with himself by the time lunchtime arrived he took his trousers off!

The Down Side - Hugh recovering in his fetching Long Johns!

And so to work on the winch.

Winch servicing.

The pin in the middle of the next photo is the one Jenny and I could not pull out from the top. Once removed it only took a few gentle taps with a metal spike and out it came.

The base of the winch showing the recalcitrant pin starting to be pushed out.

Once the pin was out the often sticky clickers could be removed, cleaned, oiled and replaced.

The little clickers. They were, of course, perfectly fine but it's good to know.

And here it is. All dismantled, refurbished and ready to go back together again. Hopefully this important winch will serve us well now for several thousand miles.

The anatomy of a winch.

With three people working on jobs Gilly became everyone's goffer. She got to know the manager of Nuts and Bolts, Screwfix, Force 4. She provided sustenance to all and still managed to polish more stainless steel.

Meanwhile Linda was busy performing a winch-ectomy on the chain. Gilly had already painted marks on the chain every 10 metres so we will know how much chain we have out but we wanted to add a big red section at the end of the chain where it joins 24m of further rope. If you look carefully you can see my lovely rope to chain splice [I love splicing] as well as Linda's metre of entrails.

Linda with a tasty metre of anchor chain entrails!

The final job before Hugh and Linda took their leave of us was to try and free the leg of the Aries wind steering mechanism. You may remember I bought this on Preloved (similar to eBay). I managed to get £200 off because the leg was stuck. All efforts had so far failed to free it but I had watched a video by the manufacturer of these amazing bits of kit where he said. "Heat it up with a blow torch, tap the bit that's stuck with a hammer, heat it up with a blow torch, tap the bit that's stuck with a hammer, heat it up with a blow torch, tap the bit that's stuck with a hammer, and eventually it will unstick. And it did. Amazing!!

Working to free the self steering gear. Voted the most useful thing on the boat on our Atlantic crossing.

We slowed down a bit for the last few days but I managed to install a nice surround to Harry's aunt's microwave which hid the unsightly roughly cut hole.

The microwave. Finally complete with a nice white surround.

Next up, the brand new generator which was still seeping diesel around the injector. Mike Stone, our resident marine consultant helped me get it out and off it went to the injector tester for review. A few hours later he rang to say there was nothing wrong with it. Gill went to collect. She was amused to find herself in the middle of a very male oriented discussion about top caps, central disks and annealed copper washers. Safe to say, she held her own in the discussions.

Scary. My first attempt at removing a diesel injector.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Mehalah has been the wetness in the boat. It's hard to say how much of this is due to condensation from all our breath and how much is actually 'leaky boat'. Gill spent a lot of time exposing bits of wall and ceiling and fitting some super Screwfix aluminium insulation wherever she could, particularly in the forward cabin and anchor locker. And what a difference it makes. We think we will continue this exercise  throughout the boat at least in the easily accessible parts. Then, once we set off we can see whether there are also leaks that need to be addressed. But most of those can wait.

Insulation from Screwfix. One thin layer = 25mm of polystyrene. No more damp beds.

We also started to chase the spaghetti of hoses. Gilly spent most of the last day working out which toilet was fed by which hose and what we might need to change to make them sea water fed rather than fresh water fed. This will help save our valuable fresh water when it is hard to come by.

The final job was to take a look at the the windlass that winds the anchor chain up. Not good. Whilst the above deck mechanism looks OK, the motor I fear may be knackered beyond repair. It works fine but it is VERY rusty. A spare is probably required which we can install if and when the current one finally rusts through. Meanwhile the boatie forums suggest protecting it with an upturned flowerpot!!

Windlass motor disconnected. Another nasty mess I fear.

And finally, finally Mike Stone popped round and we designed the structure to support the wind steering. That is being made.


Back in Stroud, we've taken the leaking tank to Tek Tanks - the best marine tank makers in our opinion. We need a new one, it's too poorly to repair. Ouch!

And I've specced up a design for the solar charging system. So that'll get ordered in the next few days. Hopefully I can start installation of that next time we are down.

Chris is up in Cumbria working on the Arduino driven shaft brake and Hugh has done a lovely job on a tricky shelf behind the cooker. And I, of course, have replaced the little leg from Hugh's Black and Decker Workmate that fell into the water. What a team!

It felt like a great leap forward last week. Many jobs were completed, many started and very, very few went backwards A rare week indeed! And she is starting to feel like our boat now that we understand how the majority of things work.

Next week Chris and Audrey will be our willing volunteers. Don't worry we'll find find some cracking jobs for you both!