All the fun of the fair

What a day yesterday turned out to be. It started off nicely when we motored out of Howth, put the sails up and headed north. We even managed about an hour or so under the cruising chute, but then the wind died. It wasn't too bad, the sun was shining, and it was hot in the cockpit with no wind.

Then came the fog, with it the temperature dropped. Visibility came and went, but the wind never returned. The highlight of the day was a visit by a pigeon who came out of nowhere and tried to land on Pixie.



Unfortunately landing on Pixie proved a bit of a struggle, first it slipped off one of the spreaders, then went up to the mast head but had to share space with our mast head instruments which didn't go down well and in the end managed to land on the genoa sheet, before leaving, circling Pixie a few times before managing to land on a spreader. Clearly its perch of choice.

It stayed up there for four hours before leaving us to it.

Since we crossed to Ireland the engine hasn't quite been itself. Occasionally the engine would labour, before returning to normal revs. This was only happening every now and again, but over today it was happening several times a minute, and threatening to stop.

Not great when there was no wind, and fog. Because of the risk of fog I didn't want want to change the filter, so I contacted Nick Eales at Sea Start to see what he'd advise. He said reduce the revs, slow down so the engine wasn't needing so much fuel. If it did stop I might have to replace the filter, but the engine was still going.

While we were motoring slowly, it sounded like we caught something around the prop, but I couldn't see anything over the side so I put the engine in forwards, then reverse, then forwards again, and things seemed to improve.

Then the fog really came down, visibility was down to less than 1/2 a mile, we carried on towards Ardglass.



The engine kept going, but every time it laboured, I was expecting it to stop. And so when we got to within 0.4 miles from Adrglass we still couldn't see land, it wasn't until we were 1/4 of a mile from the harbour that we could make out the church spire shrouded in fog, and the dark shadow of rocks. Pixie is tooled up when it comes to electronics. It might seem like like overkill, but having the chartplotter, AIS, radar and active radar reflector, all of them earnt their place on board today. We reduced speed as we approached the harbour. As we enetered the short channel to the marina I put the engine in tickover, it carried on for a second or two before stopping. Kirsty re started the engine and if I took the engine out of gear I had to keep the revs up, before putting it in gear. It made maneouvering interesting, to say the least. Once in the berth I put the engine in neutral, and it promptly died. Once tied up I replaced the primary fuel filter, it took about 45 mins to replace and bleed the fuel system. With that finished I looked at the prop and could see some rope around it. Ten minutes with a boat hook over the side and I got it all off.



We were going to go to Bangor in Northern Ireland (not Wales) today, but after the trials of yesterday, we were too tired to get up at 5:30 to catch the tide, so we're having the day off in Ardglass.

Back in UK waters

This is what sailing is all about. Forget that saying about standing in the rain ripping up £20 notes. We are currently motoring along the Irish East coast in fog. And the engine is not happy either. We suspect that in the crossing to Ireland some gunge in the fuel tank was stirred up and it has now clogged the fuel filter. The result is that every few minutes the engine revs decrease as it is starved of fuel, then it seems to recover again. We are about 15 miles from our destination of Ardglass in Northern Ireland. Fingers crossed the engine holds out until then, otherwise we'll have to try and repair it in the open sea. Luckily, apart from the fog, the conditions are good.

Last night we had a very nice meal at Findlater in Howth, just North of Dublin. This time the steak was up to scratch and the service was good. Not pretentious at all. The marina was more like you'd expect in the Solent and lacked the charm of the last few places we have stayed. But it was good to get a nice shower and do some laundry. This morning we awoke to a blue sky. We left the marina just after 0730 BST and quickly got under way with the cruising chute up. After a couple of hours the wind dropped and our progress was slow so we stuck the engine on. We did have a good couple of sun bathing hours before the fog patches set in. And following the flight of the bumblebees we now have a new hitchhiker. A racing pigeon has been sitting on the mast spreaders for the last few hours. I think he is hoping the fog will clear and we'll sight land soon. I am not sure he has found his sea legs yet. He's probably wishing he'd picked a different boat!


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A little bit more like it

Today's sail was the sort of sail we had been waiting for, almost every day so far we've had to do at leat an hour or so motoring, some times more. Today however we managed to sail from one port to another, and at a good speed too.

We left Arklow at 10:00 and had the sails working by 10:10. We had breakfast while doing around 4 knots. Then we got out the cruising chute, and our speed went up to 6 knots, and stayed there until we had to change course and the wind went behind us. So for the first time we were able to get the spinnaker out, in all its aging rainbow glory. This big rainbow coloured sail helps us go down wind, and to day it worked perfectly. We were able to keep it flying for 3 hours up Irelands beautiful east coast. It made light going of the southerly wind. Eventually the wind increased and we had to get it down. One of the advantages of our Garmin instruments is that it’s possible to set alarms for different things, today I was using one for a high windspeed. When sailing down wind it’s easy to not realise the wind speed is increasing because it feels less than it is because we were gong down wind. I’d set the alarm to 18 knots, which isn’t that high, but it gives us warning that the wind is increasing and we should think about getting it down.









This was the first time we’d had the spinnaker up on Pixie, and so it was also the first time we had to get it down. It’s different when you’re racing and you have many hands to help you, on Pixie there is just Kirsty and myself, we have a tiller pilot, but after that took a tumble it’s just the two of us now.

I explained what should happen, Kirsty let the guy off, the idea was that it would run free out of the pole. I pulled in on the sheet. I started pulling in on the sheet and Kirsty went to release the halyard, which holds the sail up. At some point the guy managed to snag itself and stop going out. I was pulling in on the sheet when the spinnaker filled. All that was holding the weight of a full spinnaker was the halyard, the snagged guy and my hand, I felt the tension and let go. Unfortunately I didn’t let go quick enough and got a rope burn across my hand, not a bad one, but it hurt none the less.

With the guy snagged and the sheet blowing away downwind, I went to the bow and grabbed the guy and pulled it in by the armful. Kirsty let off the halyard and the sail was bundled below. Not the way it should have gone, but we got in down in one piece, and kept it out of the water.

My next silly move came when I wanted to cool my hand down. Having replaced the spinnaker with the genoa and poled it out we were doing a deceptively fast 6 knots.

I say deceptively fast, because I didn’t realise we were travelling that fast when I threw the bucket over the side. I did however realise a before the bucket hit the water, probably a fraction of a second before it hit the water. Before I could pull the bucket back it filled with water and pulled me back the length of the cockpit, only my reluctance to throw away money stopped me letting go of it. I was struggling not to either be pulled over the side or let go. In the end Kirsty turned Pixie off course and I was able to pull the bucket back on.

The water was refreshing and it cooled my hand down nicely

The rest of the sail to Howth was lovely, and sailing up through Dublin bay with the sun shining, making good progress, was memorable.

Howth marina is run by the sailing club, and the facilities were good.

Howth harbour

Turning the corner

First off, apologies for the lack of blogs, although I can text twitter I haven't set up our blog to text updates. Now we're in a foreign country it costs us for overseas roaming on our iPhones, so to avoid any unpleasant surprises we can only blog when we get to a WiFi zone.

We could get WiFi reception in the harbour masters office in Kilmore Quay, but we couldn't find any in Arklow.

We left Kilmore at 7:45 and had to motor sail into the wind toward Carnsore Point at the South East corner of this beautiful country. Once around the corner we were able to sail.

We had a visit from a Naval Patrol Boat, who radioed us up and asked us lots of details, from our names and addresses to Pixie's vital statistics. Luckily our infromation was understood, and my memory of phonetic alphabet didn't let me down. The fun started as the Naval Patrol Vessel then contact a boat sailing astern of us. Being nosey, we thought we'd listen in. It turns out they were Norweign. Picture the scene of a Norweign trying to phoneticly spell his name and his address with ø's gallore. I felt for both the operator who was having to take down this information, as well as the poor Norweign, for having to understand a strong Irish accent, and spell his and his crews names and their addresses. You could almost hear the form being torn up as the Naval Patrol Radio Operator was loosing the will to live.

The rest of the trip to Arklow started off well, the wind went round and we were able to get out the cruising chute...until the wind died and we were left no option but to motor the rest of the way.









Arklow was a prettly little place to stay the night, but a walk into the town reminded us about something we hadn't been missing. The motor car.

The bridge over the Avoca River is to us now a very busy road, not having been in contact with cars for a while, we were left a little overwhelmed by them all. Just enough time to go back to Pixie for a whisky and some chocolate.

A day of rest

After fixing Wendy's pole, it was time to relax, we went for walk along the beach, it stretches for miles, but we walked as far as we wanted to and then walked back, via the shop for an ice cream.

Kirsty with a small ice cream.

Location:Kilmore Quay

Little things mount up

After the not-so-much fun and games of yesterday, it was time to look at the problems, and ways of solving them. First off I emailed Crusader and within minutes of sending it Paul was on the phone. It turns out the battens should have been held in place by the batten car, but due to a change in the order of the mainsail, we didn't get the batten cars. Initally we were going to swap the battens and cars from our old mainsail to the new one, but Crusader just gave us new fittings, but on the order it still said we were using our existing cars, so there was no need to supply new ones. It was a simple mistake on both of our parts. Paul is going to courier the bits to us, I offered to pay, but Paul wouldn't have it. He's given us a quick fix in the mean time, so I've jut sorted that out.

Next came the problem with Wendy the wind chargers pole. In the swell yesterday it came loose and 1 of the 4 bolts holding the top half of the pole to the bottom one came loose and fell over the side. On closer inspection I discovered what had caused this. We bought the pushpit mounting poles from Marlec after we bought Wendy from them. We weren't able to spread the poles as wide as they advised, so I made up another pole using th same fittings, as well as having a stainless steel bracket made to hold the pole upright. For some reason (probably ease of distribution) Marlec use a two part pole, and while the bottom of our pole is rock solid the top has a little movement where the joint is. Although there is a stout aluminium joining piece the bolts into it are on the same axis so it will wobble.

It's this wobble that I believed caused the problem, as it moved slighly one way and then he other, the astic bush holdinthe clamps crept slightly, and over the course of the crossing the supports crept along the pushpit, this in turn caused the top to wobble more, and the brackets crept more and the cycle continued. Until the plastic bush either came out out the pole moved. Not only were the brackets moving, the non lockable bolts were also working loose. Not the best thing to happen at sea!



My solution isn't elegant, I'll be ther first to admit that, but it solid. First off to stop the bols at the joint coming loose I've done away with 4 bolts going in from the outside and use two long bolts going all the way through, secured with a lock nut, secondly there is a stainless steel hose clip around the joint so it's secured from the outside and the inside. Next inthe pole mounts I've tightened them up and covered them with tape, not pretty but the bolts won't come loose. The finally to stop the clamps creeping and moving I've put a hose clip each side. We'll see how long this lot lasts


While we had some of the items to do the repairs, we needed more bits, and a new bottle of Gaz which we were unable to find in Newlyn or Penzance. We headed off to the chandler and hardwear store, to be fair I wasn't expecting to find much, how wrong I was. Kilmore quay has a pub, and RNLI station, a chippy, a shop, a restaurant, a community centre and a scattering of houses. It aslo has one of the best stocked chandleries I ever been to. Thanks to the local fishing industry and the passing yachies on route to Irelands sceanic west, Kilmore's chandlery would put many Solent chandleries to shame. It seem to have everything. The only thing it didn't have, that we wanted was a tiller pilot.

We also bought a spare jerry can for diesel. It's, always good to carry a bit extra in reserve. Or as the harbour master succinctly put it "Better to be looking at something, than looking for it"

Anyway it's a burning hot day here, so we've just been for a walk along this beach

Ireland ahoy!

What a crossing that was! I wish I could be writing that in a good way, however we had one hell of a trip, and one that we're glad is over. Everything started off well, we had a good motor sail away from Newlyn along past Lamorna and the Minack theatre. Even past Lands End, where things can get rough, was placid for us, and things were going really well. After leaving at 12:45 by 20:00 we were well up on our track. We had a light breeze from astern, full main and a preventer to stop the boom swinging around. There was still warm sunshine about and we picked up a couple of bumble bees who stopped with us on their way from the Scillies. I nicknamed them Bill and Ben and their pre sleep washing and preening was amusing to watch.

At 20:00 we had about 12 knots of true wind so it was all pretty relaxed. The forecast looked good, south veering southwest 4 or 5 occasionally 6. I wasn't too concerned about the 6, we've been out in worse. It looked as if it was going to track through well ahead of us. So as the sun's light started to go, I went down below for a few hours sleep. During Kirsty's she saw dolphins, and when I came up for my watch she had a magical smile on her face as she told me about them. On her watch the wind had gradually increased until it was blowing around 20 knots from astern, we still has full main, and had the engine running to charge the batteries. By now it was dark and had started to rain quite heavily.

As my two hour watch went on I saw the wind starting to increase until it was gusting 26 knots, it was all getting a bit rocky so when Kirsty came back on deck after having little to no sleep I suggested that we should put a reef in. The wind was now blowing a steady 27-30 knots from behind us, the rain was heavy, and the seas were fairly big as we kept surfing down them. I thought of a line from Robin Knox Johnston's book, "It's no good lying in your bunk praying to god. God won't put a reef in for you, you have to do it yourself" so in a near gale, lashing rain, and on Pixie who was having the sleighride of her life, I went up to the mast to put two reefs in. I was more aphrehensive than scared, but I was well aware that if I lost my footing or grip in that weather, Kirsty would have a hell of a job getting me back on board, even with a safety harness. Every thing went as planned the only difficult bit for me was trying to get part of the sail over a hook, that needed both hands, and all the time, Pixie was galloping along.

Even with two reefs in the mainsail Pixies was keeping up a minimum of 6 knots and surfing along down the swell at well over 8 knots, all in control, just. Because Kirsty hadn't managed to get any sleep I did her watch, but when she came back to take over up she found the sea very disorientating, so after a while in the cockpit I sent her down again. From the cockpit I could just see waves, hear them breaking, I couldn't see a horizon, just the White foam around us. Eventually it started to clam down, back to 20 knots.

I went off watch around 4:30 when it started to get light and Kirsty could see our surroundings (and the horizon), about an hour later I got a call from Kirsty. There was now thick fog and a number of fishing boats around us. We had been using our sea~me radar enhancer since dusk, and now it was foggy I was glad we had it. Kirsty had managed to thread us though the boats we had seen on our AIS (Automatic Identification System) which is displayed on our chart plotter. The AIS we got from Digital Yacht and shows shipping details, boat names and direction is a great safety addition to the boat, it takes the guesswork out of collision avoidance. So at a quick glance I could see Kirsty was taking the correct action with each of the three vessels. Unfortunately while taking avoid action Kirsty had taken the tiller pilot off the tiller and laid it in the cockpit, an errant wave caught Pixie and it rolled off the seat and stopped working. This was around 06:30 so we'd have to steer by hand for the rest of the day. The fog stayed with us for a couple of hours and eventually cleared. The day started to get brighter and things started looking up.

Anyway with the fog gone the sun came out and the wind came around onto the nose. We started off motor sailing into the confused swell whiched worked at first but as the breeze increased Pixie was getting stopped by the waves.

Then I noticed that the wind charger (Wendy) wobbling around a bit too much. All her supporting brackets were working loose in the swell of the previous night. I got the tools out and fixed it the best I could. We'd been motor sailing as high as we could and the mainsail has been slatting every now and again. I looked up at the mainsail and noticed two battens had come loose, we dropped the main and I took the battens out so they wouldn't damage themselves or more importantly the sail. With the sail back up I got back to the cockpit and sat down. Bill and Ben the bumble bees could see what was happening around them and took the opportunity to jump ship, both flying off within minutes of each other. I'd rescued a very soggy Ben from under the genoa track at first light, poor little thing was soaked, so I sat him under the spray hood to dry out. It obviously worked because as soon as he could go, he was off.

There was still a swell running and during the night we'd been running the engine to provide the power we needed to run the auto pilot, and radar. But there is something not right about the system as the highest the voltage will get is 13.2 volts but most of the time the charge is about 13.05 volts.

We continued motor sailing, then we heard something metallic fall onto the deck, I looked up and the top battern was poking out. We thought that something had fallen from the sail, but on looking around the boat I noticed 1 of 4 bolts joining the two parts of Wendy's main pole has worked its way loose and jumped off the back of the boat. Out came the tool box again but we didn't have any replacement bolts big enough. Out came the bodge tape (duct tape to give it's trade name) and I tightened the remaining bolts before a liberal application of sticky strong black tape to stop a repeat performance from the deserter's remaining 3 friends.

Wondering what else could go wrong as Pixie seemed to fall apart around us I thought we make the most of the sunshine and instead of fight against the wind, sail as high as we could north, before tacking west. All was going well until the wind died, and what little there was when it came back had backed to the west. We kept motorsailing for the next few hours, thought the sail was more for stability than propulsion. On reaching the Saltee Islands off Kilmore Quay there was bright sunshine but little wind, so we dropped the main and motored the rest of the way.

We were directed to our berth by the harbour master, who took our lines when we arrived, he gave us a very quick run through of what's around before rushing off for his dinner. He was in danger of getting in trouble because he waited to see us in.

We set about tidying up Pixie, which didn't take long, then headed off for showers. 1 euro coin gets you a 2 min shower, we had 3 euros, so I enjoyed every second of the 1:41 shower, as it took 19 seconds to heat up! There is a timer on the wall, I wasn't sitting wait with a stop watch.

On the way back to the boat we saw a chippy, and decided that fish and chips would go down a treat.



We had two portions of beer battered haddock and chips, but to be honest we could have shared one portion and still walked away happy. They were delicious. We walked off our food by taking a stroll up the hill to the pub, had a well earned pint of Guinness, before the desire for bed took over.

Location:Kilmore Quay