Steve S

For regular comedy anchor viewing Newtown IoW on any sunny day in the summer is the place! Too many boats, variable currents, narrow channels and a fair smattering of selfish or hopeless skippers. Just as an example last time I was there for just a short social lunch stop we witnessed an anchor and chain from a yacht picked up by a big Sealine crossing it's bows followed by the said yacht now under unwanted tow colliding with another yacht. Amazingly the chain did not take long to free and the hapless yacht promptly drifted into the one behind it! Meanwhile Mr S*** For Brains Sealine prowled along trying to anchor elsewhere but there was no room, didn't stop him anchoring worryingly not too far from us, the hook was maybe down a couple of minutes before drifting into the adjacent boat, they finally made off. There's more but I'm sure you get the idea. It's not awfully relaxing for the skipper with a boat to protect! Diane's refused to go there any more. Steve

A running survey of the club boats could prove rather interesting and possibly lead to safety/technical areas failure prone and hence worth concentrating on. Eg, suffer some sort of boat problem, fill out a form manly tickbox/drop down lists on the club website examples: Fault: Mechanical type: engine not starting manufacturer: Volvo Fault: Environmental type: rope round prop System: shaft drive Fault: Electronics type: VHF radio fail Nothing too onerous but a worthwhile source of information over time, any thoughts? Steve

I can see it's tough for some.... Yep I agree, seems like the mound was created, it didn't work very well but they used it to make thousands of the things anyway. Gave me backache when I used one. Steve

Sorry to hear Nige, but so good to hear of the great support you got. I hope it's something simple and cheap like the gear actuator arm split pin coming off (happened to me). Steve

Thanks for the update Paul, I'm sure you will get there with the enthusiasm and work you are putting in Steve

Ah, the question....I'm going to leave the answer to that hanging I might open up after a pint or two.

One thing that is rubbish here is the fishing, just small fish, the fish in restaurants are either farmed or not local caught. But there are other diversions here and that's all I'm going to print on the topic! Been here more than 30 times now, I've lost count. Steve

Thanks Guys, I so wish I was up early fishing, the forum is a very pleasant diversion. Unfortunately I'm on business in Shenzhen, China, our company has an office there, I'm here for at least another week. All I could manage was dinner with a couple of the office girls here followed by a Thai massage, just trying to make the best of every situation you understand... The restaurant was rather good, Japanese style, an you can eat and drink for a fixed price. Quality is excellent, a chef is at each table cooking what needs to be cooked on a hot plate. The sushi included Tuna, Salmon and Bass. Shell fish oysters, green lipped mussels. Also Steak, Lamb and other stuff I don't exactly remember. Steve

Good design Brian, looks like it will last many a year. I made my own as well from some PVC sheeting, if I'd known about the macro cutting boards I'd have probably used them. The design is similar except the tool holes are at the back and it fits into one of those round table leg stands in the middle of the cockpit. I couldn't find anything suitable to purchase, much more satisfying frankly, it is just big enough to fillet a 20lb cod. Steve

Update: I got the boat running again on Saturday with no new snags. With some trepidation I opened her up and everything was fine, phew! . SAL did a good and fast if pricey job on the salt water pump, looks like new. Went out fishing on the Sunday with Diane so not an early start... For bait I could only catch big mackerel, every one was eating size and then I made some rather poor choices on where to anchor, too much tide and wind over tide at that so not great but so nice to get out there, fishing for bass on lures didn't throw up much either. My last trip for a while as I'm out of the country on business, a bad time of the year to go with the weather looking pretty good. Fresh mackerel taste so good. Steve

Thanks for the comments guys and also offer of help and the 'inner belt tensioner' Charlie. It's a new problem, not the sender problem I had in Alderney. Basically the water pump started leaking at the seal. Around 3 weeks ago I noticed a build up of salt on the Alternator of the adjacent engine dead opposite the seal, I think it may have been leaking for a while, I just had the seal replaced, whereas I now realise I should have replaced the bearings as well because the nearest one had least had ingested sea water even though it appeared ok. The actual leak was only apparent at speed and who goes at 28 knots or more with the engine hatches open to check the engines! There didn't appear to be build up of water in the bilge. So if you have a similar thing happen remember 'sealed' bearings do not keep out sea water. In future I'll keep a close eye on that seal, the other engine appears to be fine. The pump has been rebuilt now by SAL in Lymington, they did a quick turnround for me as I just presented the pump for them to work on in the workshop, new bearings, water seal and pulley plus labour it wasn't cheap, I'm fitting it back on today. Fingers crossed it all goes fine and I'm trouble free for a while. Steve

Grrr, this should have been a catch report but instead it’s a salutary tale. A few weeks ago the water seal on the starboard D4-260 sea water pump was leaking and it was replaced, the bearings appeared to be ok so were left alone. Fast forward to the present, for a change I thought I’d try an early morning Bassing trip over some wrecks south of the Island. I was motoring down from Beaulieu at 6:30 full of hope on a wonderful flat and clear morning. Halfway to Lymington going at a reasonable lick a screech emitted from the rear of the boat ie from the engine bay. The timing was unfortunate as I’d just turned a water pump on and I assumed it must have been that, so I turned it off and waited, it did slowly die away maybe 15 seconds later (very odd) only to be replaced by the very loud engine alarm and a couple of red engine warning lights appearing. Cue engine’s off, sudden stop. Damn, I opened up the engine hatch to be greeted by smoke billowing out and a right old burning smell, mercifully no flames. Once the smoke had cleared I discovered with a sinking heart that the starboard side sea water pump had seized, the paint had blistered round one of the bearings, the smoke was from the engine belt running round the now stationary pump pulley wheel. Engine coolant was splattered around. As the engine water temp was still sky high I tried starting the engine to see if the pump would now work enough to cool the engine off, fortunately it must have unseized itself and the temperature rapidly returned to normal. Time to turn round and go home, no fishing for me , just expense. I pottered back using the port engine for drive and the starboard one just on tick over as the power steering runs off it keeping an ear out and watching the water temperature like a hawk. Back at the mooring on removing the pump, the damage appeared to be a seized bearing and a buckled pulley wheel due to the heat from the huge friction caused by the belt running over a third of the pulley only. Now I think what must have happened is that some of the sea water leaking from the seal a few weeks ago must have found in way into the ‘sealed’ bearing and mixed with the grease created some form of water, salt, grease slurry which resulted in the bearing failure although the bearing appeared good at the time of the seal change. So an expensive lesson, if the water seal leaks replace the adjacent bearings. Further compounded by mistaking the cause of the screech I failed to stop the engine promptly enough and trashed the pulley wheel. Yet more expense. . Steve

Great, glad to hear to got a result with the insurers.

I used to use NavPlanner (for 3 years), I always thought it was rather noddy. I currently use Raymarine Voyage Planner, it handles the raymarine waypoint and route file formats much better than NavPlanner. It allows you to hook up your laptop to the on boat WiFi in much the same way as the MFDs to share routes, waypoints and such like, I've never actually tried this feature though. Using It I keep my master set of waypoints (my precious) and routes on the Voyage Planner and regularly download updates to the on boat system. New waypoints and routes (only the new ones) added while on the boat are copied up to the Voyage Planner master set. These are regularly backed to another disc as well as being on the boat. The big benefit of doing this is security, accessibility and for me importantly the waypoint description field (there is also a comment field) on the Voyage Planner is very large so I can make loads of waypoint notes that the standard waypoint comment field on the plotter does not allow. These detailed waypoint notes can be exported using one of the standard output formats to an alphabeticly ordered list which can be printed or saved as a PDF. Steve

My daughter Martine is getting married on the 2nd August 2014. We are planning to have the wedding in a Marquee, we need one something like 9m x 15m. Any suggestions where to get one welcome. Steve

I wish you the very best of luck. I've had a few goes for Shark a couple of years ago in the Rips and mid channel. Closest I got was hooking up on one on a ballooned live bait only to lose after a few minutes after it went mental, it broke cut line about 20ft up, well beyond the 12ft or so wire trace. From the look of the break it had bitten the line though, really weird. I couldn't keep a tight line on the fish. I have had big shark in other parts of the world and never had one fight like it. Steve

I'll be in the Channel on Saturday, and then over to the Channel Islands. Diane and I are having a bit of a cruise for 4-5 days. We may fit a little fishing in I'm hoping the members bad luck recently is not contagious... I'm not sure what time we will be mid channel yet, I'm doing exact planning tonight. I'll give to a call when we are out there. Steve

Seems like boats are dropping like ninepins A note of caution, it's possible that the gearbox failed in some way and exploded outwards leaving a hole, so you may have difficulty with the insurance claim. Steve