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Enjoying the sunshine on Ravensdale's aft deck in the Solway Firth |
It’s been another busy week on Ravensdale, including our
second trip out into the Solway Firth, further boat maintenance and Phil’s
birthday.
Our first outing from Maryport Marina in Cumbria on our 43ft
Neptunus 133 cruiser earlier this month was exciting, but in many ways the
second on Monday of this week was better.
This time the new depth sounder/log, which had to be
returned to the manufacturer because it wasn’t working properly, was back in
situ so we knew what speeds we were doing and we were able to check this
against the GPS on the plotter.
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Phil at the helm of Ravensdale at sea |
Phil took Ravensdale up to about 18 knots, which felt as
though we were moving through the water pretty fast, and she still had more to
give, but we decided not to push her any harder as the port engine seemed to be
smoking a bit at speed.
However, she seemed very happy and was smoke-free at about 8-9 knots.
We’ve spoken to a number of people who have more experience
of diesel engines than us and they didn’t seem to think it was too worrying.
It
has been suggested that we run the fuel tank down as much as possible before refuelling
to use up the old diesel before filling her up again so that's what we are planning to do.
It was a lovely calm day, with winds of just 5-6mph, so we
took the opportunity to see how the boat would behave if we put the engines in
neutral and let her drift.
And we decided this was a good time to have our first cup of
tea on the aft deck at sea.
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Making our first cup of tea at sea while the boat rocked around on the waves |
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Phil enjoys his first cup of tea at sea on the aft deck |
The thinking behind this was that we wanted to discover how
easy it would be to fish from the boat.
It seems it would be no problem at
all when there’s very little wind and we wouldn’t be going out fishing in high
winds anyway.
The rev counter on the port engine, which had been refusing
to work on our first trip out into the firth, worked this time as Phil had
checked all the connections and got it running again.
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The blown water filter gasket |
He had also replaced the gasket in the port engine water
filter that we discovered was totally blown and, before we bought the boat,
someone had used silicone sealant to seal down the perspex inspection cover
that is supposed to be removed so the filter can be checked and if necessary
cleaned out after every trip out to sea.
The lid can now be easily removed and the filter checked and cleaned.
It seems crazy that someone would seal the lid down rather than paying £11 for a new gasket, but that's what they had done.
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Fitting the new gasket to the water filter |
Sadly we still had no idea of the depth of water while we
were out as, although the depth sounder worked briefly after it returned from
the manufacturer, it packed up again just before we went out.
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The depth sounder (top left) registers "out" instead of the depth |
We’ve now decided that there must be a problem with the “through
hull” transducer. This sends a signal down to the seabed which bounces back,
giving the depth reading.
In an attempt to rectify the problem without having Ravensdale
lifted out of the water again, which would cost us more than £400, we decided
it would be cheaper to buy an “in hull” transducer in the hope we will get a
reading from that.
Phil’s in the process of fitting it as I write this, so I
will provide an update on that in my next blog post.
In the meantime, Phil celebrated his birthday last week so I
was faced with the near impossible task of finding something to get him as a
present.
He already has just about every type of fishing rod
imaginable (at least, that’s how it seems to me J)
but he’d been saying he needed uptide rods so I ordered two rods and a pair of rod
holders for his birthday.
Apparently uptide rods enable you to fish in reasonably
shallow water, allowing you to cast fairly heavy weights away from the boat.
He seemed pleased with his present, so much so that he even
went out in the rain on his birthday to fit the holders to the guard rail on
either side of the bow, then tried the rods in them when the sun came out.
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Phil fitting one of the new rod holders |
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Phil trying a rod in one of the new rod holders |
However, he hadn’t had time to sort out the rest of his
fishing gear before our trip out on Monday so that will be something to look
forward to on our next outing.
He has been busy making up traces and we’ve managed to
squeeze some frozen bait into our tiny freezer to ensure that he will be ready
to fish at a moment’s notice when we decide to go out again.
I was so glad the fishing rods and holders were a success as
my attempts at making him a cake were anything but. After bragging that I
thought I’d sussed out the temperature controls on our little oven, his
birthday cake was an unmitigated disaster.
As a change from the courgette cakes I’ve been making
lately, I decided to try a coffee and walnut cake and all went well until I got
it out of the oven to discover that the sides were burnt and the middle
immediately sank.
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My sad apology for a coffee and walnut cake |
Thankfully, Phil thought it was hilarious and decided to
share it with the local wildlife. He threw it overboard for the seagulls, who
seemed none the worse for their birthday tea.
Oh well, they say it’s the thought that counts...
And I went out and bought a Belgian chocolate cheesecake instead (no image of that I'm afraid as we ate it before I could take a photo of it :-)).
While Ravensdale was out of the water on the hard standing
earlier this year, we ordered and fitted a new trident logo to replace the
existing one on the bow which was looking more than a little the worse for
wear.
The only trouble was that we forgot to make a hole through
the vinyl logo to allow the anchor chain locker to drain.
So, while we were moving the boat across onto the adjoining
pontoon to enable Phil to clean the starboard side of the hull, I suggested
this would be a good opportunity to pull the bow around to within reach of the
pontoon to pierce the vinyl.
Poor Ravensdale looked a bit sad moored at 45 degrees to the
pontoon and I’m sure passers by must’ve thought we were really bad at parking our
boat, but it did the trick.
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Ravensdale moored at a crazy angle so we could get to the bow |
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Ravensdale moored at an angle to the pontoon |
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Ravensdale's chain locker empties into the marina |
Phil then used a hot soldering iron to make a neat hole and,
immediately he pierced the vinyl, a steady stream of water started pouring out.
And it kept running for such a long time that I can only
think it wouldn’t have been long before it would’ve started pouring out onto
the bunks in the fore cabin where the internal access to the chain locker is
situated.
We also decided it would be a good idea to try dropping the
anchor in the marina before we needed to do so at sea, just to make sure that
the winch was working properly after Phil replaced the switch and that it would
lift the anchor.
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Ravensdale drops anchor for the first time |
And it was a very good job we did...
Only about 10m of the 55m chain came out when he dropped the
anchor and he had to inspect the chain locker to see what was happening.
The main problem here being that, lack of storage space has
meant a number of homeless boxes of stuff and various other items had been “temporarily”
placed on the bunks in the forward cabin.
These all had to be removed before he could get to the chain
locker to discover that the chain was tangled up. He untangled it and the rest
of the chain slid out into the water.
And, thankfully, the winch brought the chain and anchor back
in again, but the chain needed hosing down as it went back in as it was very
dirty after being sat in the mud at the bottom of the marina.
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Washing the anchor after we tested it by dropping it in the marina |
This little exercise taught us another lesson. We need
unhindered access to the chain locker hatch while at sea.
If we’d been dropping the anchor in a rough sea, we would’ve
had a terrible job on our hands moving all our stuff out of the cabin while the
boat was being tossed around by the waves.
So we sorted all the stuff we had pulled out before putting
it back to decide what we didn’t really need on the boat and anything that was
considered unnecessary on board was taken to the storage facility we use near
Cockermouth the following day.
The access to the chain locker is now clear. The only
challenge will be keeping it that way... J
