Summer modifications

An unusual summer view from the sitting room. 

This year has seen a slightly different second half to the summer break.  To varying extents, family commitments, weather and car woes have resulted in no further cruising since the wonderful ECC earlier in the month. However, all that is about to change as preparations for a couple of Drascombe Association rallies take shape.  Shortly, I'll be departing for the intriguing Gloucester Ring trip and, in a few weeks, the annual Broads rally beckons, this year back on the River Yare.

Meanwhile, Daisy II is back at home on the trailer.  Four months' accumulation of sea life have necessarily been removed from the hull - plenty of urchins to slow me down during recent cruises.  Between weather systems passing through, I've much enjoyed admiring those fantastic Drascombe lines through the living room window: hence the photograph above.

I haven't been inactive: flanking the usual school master's exam results festival, I've spent four days on mother's Viking 22 river boat, cruising from Gloucester to Welford-on-Avon and several more days taking in the culture at the Edinburgh Festival.  During all of this time, the car has been off the road, suffering from 'rippedofffrontbumperitis', the blame for which lies entirely with the author.

However, all of this has also presented a welcome opportunity to do some fiddling.  To a large extent, additional to above, the catalyst for this has been observing the remarkable array of creative modifications to the continental boats during this summer's ECC.  

For one thing, it has been necessary to become better organised with storage.  Principally, my attention has turned back to the anchor.  On the ECC, I noticed that the Dutch boats used Bruce anchors, neatly stowed through the stem head, with the rode stored wedged tight up in the V of the bow.  

Following a few alarming anchor-dragging episodes with my previous Danforth, I purchased a 6kg Rocna a couple of years ago, along with 10m of 5mm chain and 25m of rope.  The anchor is fantastic, ably doing what it was designed for but the business of stowage presents a rather more problematic proposition!  

The spade is just the wrong shape to hang over the stem head since the geometry causes the point to snag on the hull, and the centre of balance causes the whole thing to tilt forward rather than rest back. The semi-circular roll bar causes further problems.  Thus far, I've simply stored the anchor loosely in the bows, and the chain and rode in the postal box in which they were stored on purchase.

I've now hit on a better, more permanent storage solution.

New anchor rode frame.  Not a neat fit, but it is a workable solution.  If it performs well at sea, I'll design a better fitting version using marine ply.  For now, my 'rough and ready' prototype will have to do.

This profiled view is especially pleasing with the anchor snugly in place and reasonably well hidden given its proportions!

The wooden frame provides a neat home for the rode and chain and the anchor fits rather well, wedged in the V of the bow.  In time, I may well devise a better fitting frame from marine ply but, for now, this uses off cuts from household spruce stored in the garage.  Fortuitously, the jib furling sheet just avoids snagging on the anchor, and there is (just) enough free space for mooring lines to pass from the mooring cleat either side through the port and starboard fairleads.

Although yet to put it to the test, I'm pleased with the solution since it keeps everything so much better organised up forward whilst keeping the anchor ready to deploy at any moment.

A key feature of this week has been to recycle rather than purchase: the frame is kept in place by some short pieces of shock cord attached to the same fairlead eyes which the former owners used to store a Danforth (now my back-up anchor).  

Overall, I'm quite pleased with this solution which leaves the anchor ready to deploy but relatively obscure from the side view profile.  The only thing to be added since the photos is a piece of shock cord to hold the anchor to the V of the bow.

I've also changed the sheeting arrangements for the mizzen boom.

New mizzen sheeting with sheeting kept central.  

This was rather an enforced change since A former snap shackle dropped into the sea when retrieving the boat from its mooring recently.  However, I also wanted to move to sheeting which pulled directly downwards rather than the previous arrangement which pulled from either side.  The new arrangement may end up passing too close to the outboard, so I have a plan B in mind to modify this if necessary.

Next, I have changed the sheeting arrangements for jib furling, bringing the boat back into line with most coasters with a cleat on the port gunwhale.

Returning the jib furling line to its usual position along the port gunwhale

Previously, the sheet passed through a pulley attached to the deck bench, then cleated centrally in the cockpit.  Whilst I can understand the benefits of a central cleaning point, I was fed up with the length of cord snagging on the various other sheets leading back to the cockpit well.  The new arrangement will probably result in shortening the sheet.  Again, in line with other modifications in this post, all parts were recycled from elsewhere, or sourced from the ship's tool box!

Next, I've changed the uphaul for the mainsail boom, leading the uphaul from the end of the boom, passing through a block at the masthead (nothing different here) but now returning via a second block at the mast foot back to the cockpit via the same route as the tack downhaul to a shared cleat.  There may be a need for another cleat in due course.

Lastly, I'm going to run a length of cord from the masthead downwards for the purposes of furling the main and keeping it furled whilst the yard is raised at sea by wrapping the line several times around the rolled main and the mast.  Photos to follow!