Forethought 2003 log

January 2003: Engine is finally professionally overhauled : see this story for more information.

Shore power reappears : Original dodgy setup had been pruned off by myself as almost first thing I did after buying boat, as it was a blue metered cable attached directly to a 13 amp socket and some 2 core 3 amp wire going to a mains light on the port side.

Realised that we might as well get value for money from MDL who had stopped charging just to look at a shore power cable, if provided by the customer.
So we fitted out the boat with a damp proof box containing RCD leakage trip and 16 amp breaker, and rewired the boat with arctic blue flex (in place of 3amp lighting wiring) fitting another 2 way socket outlet on the port side.

This lets us use a B&Q dehumidifier which cost �100 and is the same as Aladdins cave �179 dehumidifier. The difference is that mine has castors that cause it to fall off tables if not tied down even in the marina.

Started battery charger project based on PC power supply but slowed down after buying a charger for �20 at Beaulieu Jumble 2003 from Poole Scouts. Its not a switchmode but has a good old boat anchor transformer in it. Cleaned off some rust and sand from inside and then found it worked.

I spent some time tracing its circuit to find how it works , and then was able to work out which adjustment does what inside.
It is branded Cetrek but made in France by Cristek. Apart from that I know little about it.

May 30 2003 : Visit to Bembridge, end of half term week.

Anchored off Seaview. Boat rolls so badly in ship wakes all night that sleep is interrupted by falling stuff.

Bembridge Harbour : New arrangement of visitors pontoon attached to shore providing excellent access to the beach on the Duwer, but makes the place more overcrowded while not yet providing new shore based facilities, beyond a harbourmasters Portakabin.
Water taxi provided Free Of Charge to marina doesnt run all the time as the channel in the harbour is completely full of boats at low water, rafted 7 deep. Local catamaran fishing boat had to push port hand marker buoy out of the way to get past raft.
Will avoid at peak times. Other Solent events probably pushed boats into Bembridge.
rafting in bembridge

Forethought is wide blue band here... All that lovely weed. Please see Boat Fishing for a new expensive activity that I nearly invented while getting the weed off the rope.

MDL special offer 12-17 June 2003

Thursday to Tuesday lift out pressure wash , store ashore and relaunch for �160.

I took advantage of this to get the boat out of the water properly for the first time in over 3 years.

Sanded down rough antifoul above waterline. Noticed that the rudder has definitely grown small osmosis pox all over the surface but decided that there was not much I could do in the time I had available. Looks like each pox is derived from hole in mesh of woven mat, as they are in a grid arrangement. At least it means it is made from woven mat ..
This pox is growing even though it is epoxied, I suspect the rudder remains full of water.

Replaced lower rudder bush as old one had gone oval which meant that the rudder hit the skeg from time to time.

Antifoul panic and choices
Strange paint colour

The Micron Optima paint I bought cheap from Compass some years earlier at the Southampton Boat show.
This was the cause of a major panic as the outer box of the International Micron Optima paint said blue in one place, white in another , the can said white and the contents were blue !!

I bought a can of Trilux to use as boot topping as recommended.
The propellor is also painted with the International Trilux boot top antifoul paint as an experiment, as the antifouling claims it works on propellors.
Forethought before band done properly

To do the boot topping I painted with the Micron up to where I thought the boot topping would start, and then working out the width of the band to mask to by looking at the mess I made.
From this I decided to tape up at 10.5 cm vertical from the top of the dark band of antifouling paint. I could be seen with a vertical tape measure stretched from my pocket to one hand and a spirit level in the other to get the horizontal intersection with the hull (approximately). For most of the hull the band has to be 13 cm wide, but from about 60% from the bows to the transom I had to line it up using the tape and level. Right at the transom the band is about 30 cm wide so I lined it up by eye (it was a small spirit level). Fortunately I could walk back to take a look.
forethought with boot top

Picture taken on Sunday night . After spending Saturday crewing in the Sigmatic Trophy on Jupa and then on most of Sunday accompanying Catrina with the Royal Southern YC splashers to Badnam Creek. On the way back she sailed with Henry in an Optimist.

Tuesday June 17th: Forethought is back in the water. Amazingly the boot topping is level and millimetres above the waterline. Thanks to MDL staff the boot topping has been patched where it is buried under the pad on the cradle.

Deck covered in rust spots from totally insane trailer construction work going on just under stern. A one tonne boat yard trailer was being jacked up and fitted with road wheels. Plenty of angle grinding and flying metal. Thanks guys. It only showed after dew formed and the metal dust rusted, of course it stains in a fairly annoying way :-(, but has since weathered away again :-)

Now for the Wednesday evening work up for the RTI next Saturday....

Round the Island 2003

This year we entered as an Island Sailing Club handicap entry because I had not bothered to renew the IRC rating as I didnt use it more than once in a year.
We managed to make the Needles just before the tide turned and so were as usual able to turn under the lighthouse and go on the wind. We didnt realise that we were in the same start as the Philips Southampton Sonata 'Sea Sprite', but as they didnt use their spinnaker, we never saw them and later found that they missed the tide at the Needles and ended up fighting tide south of the Island, and are recorded as 'Sea Spite' in the annals of the Bembridge Lifeboat (no electrical power and not enough fuel to make it round from the south side of the island)
The long beat round the south of the Island was mostly spent on the lookout for other boats, we were constantly crossing others. No near misses, just a long slog.
Looking back our mistake was to tack when we could lay Bembridge ledge from near Dunnose Head.
We lost a lot of tidal push here as we were just inside the fastest stream.
Back through the Forts where we were able to keep up with most of our neighbours on the run. Managed to saw through the mainsail with helpful crew member on the boom.As we finished, the leading Folkboats were finishing from a later start..

Summer Cruise

Summer Cruise 2003

Page � Mike James 14 December 2003

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mike@hamble.demon.co.uk