Silver Lining

As I said in my previous blog  we've ditched the idea of buying one of those classic looking old yachts from Taiwan, and the last week we've started looking at more modern conventional boats. This is a complete turn around I know, but we've had a big reality check after last weeks visit to see the CT41.

Now it's all Beneteau clones, as lots of modern boats look very much the same, a bit like modern cars,  I suppose. The silly thing is that before now we've passed over these ads, looking for that something a bit different, something with character, lots of wood to polish and varnish, wooden grabrails, bowsprits, some even with figureheads, a traditional wooden helm, the list goes on. What we couldn't find on all these boats though was a fair sized head, ample galley and a large cockpit, and so when we started to swallow our pride and have a look at more practical options, like the plastic tubs with a stick what did we find.

On the whole that's exactly what these newer boats have, a spacious heads, bigger galleys and large cockpits. The only thing is they're mostly fin and skeg, not your heavy displacement, long keel jobs, the ones that we've been steered towards from all the heavy weather sailing books, your first ocean crossing, secure at sea books etc, we've devoured in our quest to become navigators.

Surfing the net on this new tack, we found a boat in our back yard, at Roa Island just eight miles away. This was a Janneau sunrise, and at 34'6" just about our size. We made contact with the owner Paul and arranged to see her on Saturday morning. We chose the morning because Jackie, who had an eye on the weather reckoned it was likely to snow in the afternoon, so we arranged to meet at 11am. At 10am it started snowing.
Oh well, not the best day to see a boat that may be bound for the Caribbean. Luckily the boat, Silver Lining, was on the hard standing, but the northwesterly's were blowing in freezing rain and snow flurrys. We clambered up the ladder propped against the stern and gave the decks a miss as the boat was caked in ice. Below was cozy though, Paul had had the heaters on. First impressions were that we quite liked her, not love at first sight, but not a no no. She's a 1987 model so not too ostentatious like these production boats can be and the layout would definitely suit our list of requirements, nice heads, ok galley, largish  cockpit. And then my smart phone sounded an alarm, telling me we had to be back in Ulverston in 30 minutes, clever things these smart phones, which is why they called smart phones, I suppose.

We said to Paul we would like to see her on a better day and scurried off back to our appointment. On the way home we mulled over the pros and cons of Silver Lining and agreed that we needed another visit in more pleasant weather. By the time we reached Ulverston the snow was thick on the ground. This was not the day to view boats bound for the tropics but it lightened our hearts on a very cold and miserable winters day. Maybe our boat lay in our own backyard, just maybe. Surfing the net over lunch we found a similar boat, but a thirty eight footer just south of Glasgow about 5000 pounds cheaper. We'll arrange to check that out I'm sure, but today Silver Lining was the name of the game, an apt name for a winters day.

That rules out the Taiwanese boats then

We had a call yesterday lunch time from a guy called Richard who owns a CT 41 that's in Whitehaven. We had spotted this boat standing in the boat yard a couple of weeks ago. The boat wasn't for sale and it looked decidedly like a project boat, which it was. Being new to this boat buying game, and being romantics, we had always been drawn to the photos of these, and other Taiwanese models, the Cheoy Lee, Formosas etc. They just have that look about them, that look that turns heads as you sail into harbour, such pretty lines, they just seem to fit our ideas of what we wanted, and quite often they were cheap, within our budget.

We had asked Richard to call us whenever he was going to be visiting his boat so we could come and have a peep inside one of these, as there seem to be few, if any for sale in the UK. Although we knew this one was not for sale and that he had already begun to take her apart it was still a great opportunity to get on board and find out if this was the sort of boat we wanted to buy.

Now Richards emails had been, shall we say a little less than chatty, he seemed to communicate in lists, so I was prepared for a bit of a character, I suppose. When he rang it was a very last minute call, he was going to be there this afternoon if we wanted to come see. We were watching the Australian open final and it had just gone into the 5th set, so at first I said thanks but we may give today a miss. Anyway we were an hour and a half away and he sounded like he was only making a quick visit. Call you back, I said if we're coming. When I rang back he informed me that they would be there at 14.28. Now that was a bit weird, I thought, why not half two, mmm Richard was going to be different.

We arrived at 3.15. Richard was in his early 60s, I would say, and a bit of a live wire. From the off he told us how this boat was not the sort of boat we should even think about buying. He piled the negatives on top of negatives and then finally invited us to climb the ladder and come see the pain that we would inherit should we be foolish enough to buy a boat like this. Jackie, declined the offer to come a board and chose to stay on terra firm and chat to his girlfriend. She had already decided that  this was not our boat, much to big, much problemo.

I followed Richard up onto the rotting deck to be shown the horrors that lay buried beneath the bowels of this project. It was dark and dingy inside and all over the place were lifted boards that revealed a couple of years of restoration that Richard was embarking upon. It was not a pretty site, although I could sense that he was committed to bringing this craft back from the brink. But as he pointed out the herculean task that he was undertaking I could see that this was not the way I wanted to go. The dream of romantic sailing craft ebbed away as fast as the falling tides of Morcombe Bay. Sure, the teak interior was lovely but the mass of rotting pipe work and fraying wires exposed soon put paid to my ambitions to own this type of vessel. Richard talked it down, and down some more. Even though for him it was going to be a labour of love he made a great job of quashing my enthusiasm, and I thank him for this. We had be seduced by the lines, the superficial shimmer of the woodwork and space that we had seen in the photos of boats like this on the web. But no longer, we came away with a reality check, and Richards wise words.

We have been barking up the wrong tree, we want to sail, not too inherit a project.

So the trip was well worth it, we have struck another set of boats off our list, and although we don't have a clue what we want now, at least we know it's not going to be some romantic notion, we will choose more wisely, and may even go for a plastic bath tub with a stick that we can sail tomorrow, not spend our time doing something up that could take years to get to be seaworthy.

No it's not a Gibsea 38

Another trip out to view another boat today, this time it's a Gib'sea 38 in Whitehaven, which is about an hour and a half up the coast from us. For a change the weather has been more like winter with clear skys and frosty mornings. It was a fine day to take a drive, a drive that took us along the coast with clear views into the mountains of the lake district as a backdrop to our mission. Lenticular clouds hung motionless over the landscape like giant almonds in a clear blue sky.

The last time we were in Whitehaven it was also a cold day, in fact so cold that the water in the marina was frozen solid. That was a couple of years ago, today it's cold but the waters are ice free. We stop the car in the car park overlooking the harbour, light a fag and watch a couple of swans perform a symmetrical dance of pre mating foreplay on the water in front of us.Then, just as it all seems to be getting serious one of them, the girl I suppose, decides it's all to public on the waterfront and glides away, followed by her suitor, later maybe he'll have more luck.

We're here to have a look at this Gibsea but we've been unable to get anyone from the brokers to come and open her up so we can get the full picture. Never the less we have decided that a look around the outside will be enough for today, and it's a good excuse to get out in this beautiful day. The yacht we are going to view is called Grumpy, not the best name for a boat. Why would you call your yacht Grumpy? We find her lying at the end of jetty QB bobbing on the slight breeze. She's a ketch with in mast furling and looking a little forlorn, in need of a little TLC but at first glance she looks in reasonable shape for her age. My mobile rings and its the broker asking if we've found her yet. Yes, we've just arrived, I say. What do you think, he asks, I say we haven't had chance to look yet but one of the stantions is a bit loose, I'll give you a call when we've had a proper look round.

After about 15 mins of crawling round her deck and peering through the windows we decide that it's probably not the boat for us. Sliding windows don't feel right, the route from the cockpit to the companion way is awkward. The jammers are too far from the helm and we don't need a separate entrance to the captains cabin. It's OK but it's not our boat. That's fine at least it's another one to tick off our list. We saunter off along the jetty and cast an eye over all the rest of the boats, although not for sale it's good to be in among lots of different craft and make mental notes of the ones we should look up on the net next time we're surfing. It's a needle and haystack business finding the boat that's just for you, unfortunately our haystack is not even a sheaf, and  today we drew another blank, but the more we see the more we eliminate. It's a long game we thinks.

After soup and a cuppa in the harbour side cafe we take a detour to the repair yard where we go looking for the boat we came to see last time we were here. There's a couple working on their boat who we discover have just returned from a two year cruise around the Caribbean and the East coast of the States. They're stripping her ready for a new paint job and we chat for a bit, about boats, what else. A few pearls of wisdom are dispensed in our direction, always a plus to talk to those who have been there, done that, got the T shirt. They're sailing a 43ft Onvi, which is way outside our league, but this chat reaffirms our idea that we need a long keel boat, an old long keel boat, and that still points to the Tayana type of thing, or perhaps an Island Packet 31, both are about within or just outside our budget of £30,000.

Home, and we drive into a sunset of baby pink clouds and misty mountains. We chat boats, and chew over our conversation with the Onvi crew. It's been a fruitful day and another step closer to finding our boat. The thing is that we don't even have the funds, as yet, until we manage to sell the bungalow, we can't buy anything anyway. It's going to be much harder to make the decision when we have the money I suspect, but for now we just have to keep on looking  because you never know when your going to stumble upon the one.   

Is this Nicholson 35 our boat?

Our search for a boat continues, and today we were at Glasson dock, a quaint old fishing hamlet near to Lancaster. There is a small marina here and we've come to have a look at a Nicholson 35 which I had arranged yesterday with Wendy from the brokerage at the chandlers. The fine still morning had turned to a low cloud and drizzle afternoon when we arrived a few minutes after two. We had been here just a couple of weeks before Christmas to see this yacht but hadn't been able to get on board as they were short staffed and couldn't let us on board by ourselves. As it turned out we had missed the owner by about 20 minutes on this occasion, so we were only able to check her out from the pontoon. She looked like a fine boat, and we were now back on a Friday to get the full picture. Unfortunately they couldn't find the key. Seemed that the owner had failed to leave a key with the broker, and he may be in Greece. We were a little deflated, to say the least, but agreed to look at another boat we had thought may be worth a look, a Colvic something or other. This boat was on the hard standing and so we would need a ladder. The problem there was that all their ladders had been recently condemned by the health and safety police. We went outside, in the drizzle, for a fag and a moan. Wendy appeared with an illegal ladder and we followed to the Colvic something or other. The moment the door was opened into the pilot house we knew we didn't want this boat, and after about 5 minutes of chit chat we climbed back to terra firma and back to the office, but taking a detour to the pontoon where the Nicholson lay to have a sniff about on deck.

We hopped aboard and at once were impressed with the her. Good sturdy oversized standing rigging, big winches, her soaring stepped mast, CQR anchor, spacious cockpit. Everything looked like a boat that was ready to cross oceans, solid, such a shame we couldn't get to investigate her below decks. We returned to the office. Here we heard that Wendy had managed to contact the owner who was on his way over, from near Blackpool, and would be with us in three quarters of an hour. We went to the local pub and ordered a pot of tea. The old Vic was empty, but with a roaring fire and was crammed with nautical memorabilia, a good place to while away half an hour on a drizzly afternoon. By the time we met Dave, the owner of the Nicholson the day was coming to its gloomy conclusion but that wasn't going to stop us having a tour of the boat.

Dave is a youthful sixty something whos' obviously been sailing a long time, he had that air, and drove a black 4x4. Dave is very handy and has, as we discover on the tour lovingly transformed this 1978 Nicholson from a bog standard boat, to something of a work of art. He's rebuilt the galley and topped it off with some ceramic top that they make mortuary slabs out of, not sure if that was a selling point Dave. Its had a brand new engine with a "Z" coupling, built cupboards here there and everywhere, except he forgot to build one for hanging cloths. There seems to be a back up for anything that might fail, and all in all this is a fine boat, we're impressed. We even get every chart we may ever need for cruising Scotland, plus a decanter and more cutlery than we need to serve a full compliment of Nelsons Victory. Dave is the consument salesman, excited to show us each labour saving device he's incorporated into this labour of love, each safety first addition and every angle that he's covered to make this a boat that would keep you safe and sound. This is a boat that won't let you down, a boat to carry you any where you choose to go. We spent over an hour below with Dave and now it was dark. He now showed us round the deck, but I was getting cold and I'd seen enough. I'll start the engine, eh. It starts at the first attempt. Yes we're impressed but it's time to go, hang on, he says, I'll show you the flood lights that i've got here I'm going to fit on the aft end, enough, enough. Your now overselling it Dave, we like what we've seen but we now need to be on our way, which is what we do. We head off down the pontoon in the dark and find our way to our car outside a closed and deserted marina. We light a fag and Dave pulls up beside us in his 4x4 to explain we need him to open the gate to let us out. Good job he thought of that or we would have been stuck there all night.
On the way home we chew the fat and come up with the downsides of Daves' boat, there's not many, but they are there. But that's the way it is with boats, compromise, it's all compromise. As a sailing vessel it's going to be hard to fault this boat but at the price he wants it's perhaps a no no. However it's very close to what we should be looking for, and I'm not ruling it out, and it is here. But we need to look at lots more boats to know we've found our boat but I must say this was very close to the boat my head says we should have, my heart will need a little more convincing.

A day at the theatre

I wonder if I hadn't set out on this dream of crossing oceans, learning to sail, buying a yacht, exploring the islands of the Caribbean, would I be in this waiting room at Preston Royal hospital at 7.30am on Wednesday 23rd of November. Perhaps not, perhaps I would have opted for the radio therapy, a rather less painful, less radical way of dealing with my cancerous prostate gland. I may even have gone for the watchful waiting option of doing nothing. After all it may not develop into a life threatening problem at all, that's how it is with this disease. But these alternatives would mean having very regular tests to keep an eye on its progress. The idea of going cruising and having this Damocles hammer hanging over our voyaging in the end swung the decision.

So there I am at 8am with my NHS backless smock and dressing gown being escorted to the theatre clutching a pillow I've been given to carry. I'm reminded of Ford Prefect in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy who has to have a trusty towel with him prior to his excursions in hyperdrive. I don't think to ask why I'm carrying this pillow, but sheepishly follow directions as we trek the maze of corridors to finally be ushered into theatre 7, and the pre op room. Lucky 7 says my escort, but I'm not at all feeling lucky, I'm feeling distinctly nervous.

Carolyn is the antithesis and Jo her assistant, who exchange a sort of calming banter with me as I'm wired and pricked and readied for the reason I made it to here, next is oblivion until I come round in a bed on ward 15.

Jackie appears with a massive smile and a big hug, its about 3pm and my operation has been and gone. the surgeon pays a brief visit, tells me my prostate weighed 100g and is gone. Funnily enough I'm not in any pain but this tube stuck up my willie does feel decidedly odd. My only inclination of the op is a feeling in my midriff of perhaps being kicked, sort of tender but not what you'ld call painful.

 Jackie stays around until eight and we even manage a couple of games of backgammon then it's chucking out time and Jackie goes off to find a hotel for the night, and I settle in to hospital banter with the other inmates and the sights and sounds of ward 15. Next day I expect to be going home, but it doesn't quite go that way, I have to stay an extra night. Something to do with the amount of stuff in my drain bag. A bit of a disappointment but on Friday afternoon I'm out and on my way home.

I've been home now for a couple of days and apart from the inconvenience of having this catheter to deal with, which I've got for another ten days I'm feeling ok. It was not a very pleasant experience but by all accounts it should be a cure and that was what I wanted. The prospect of our high seas adventure without the threat of cancer hanging in the air will have made this trial more than worthwhile, although I'll have to wait about three months to get he all clear, but by all accounts it should be all behind us now.

As all this has been going on so has the ARC which has just set off from the Canaries on route for St Lucia and we've been tuning in to check their progress. We said three years ago that we would love to do this trip, before we knew how to sail, and after going through this last week trial we're starting to think seriously about entering for next year 2012. I have a feeling that we may have a plan coming together here.

Radical solution

It's been a couple of months since I was diagnosed with prostrate cancer, not the sort of news you want to hear when you've got plans for a big adventure. I was given the choice of three different treatments, which were, something called watchful waiting, which involved doing nothing except monitoring some stuff called my PSA levels in my blood. This would involve nothing more that having blood tests on a regular six monthly basis. Second was radio therapy, which would mean an 8 or ten week series of 10 minute blasts of radiation treatment. This was a painless procedure that would probably zap the little bugger, and then they would monitor me for the next 15 years or so to keep a check that it didn't return. The only down side to this was that if it returned I wouldn't be able to have an operation to take it out. Not sure why, but the radio therapy would probably work and get rid. The last, and more radical solution was to have what they now call a procedure, and have the whole prostrate removed. Radical prostectomy can leave you impotent and in the aftermath of the op leave with a catheter and wearing pads to catch the leaks, like having my own mini bilge pump. But the good news is that this situation would only last about six weeks. Afterwards the cancer would be gone, and so that's the one I decided to go for.
So a couple of days ago I took a two hour drive with the skipper to meet with the man who was to do what they now call the procedure. At the Royal Preston Hospital I met the surgeon who explained everything in a reassuringly nonchalant way, and reckoned I would only be in for about 48 hours. It will be done with whats known as key hole surgery which is less intrusive than the old method. He tells me that I will have the op. inside of 31 days which makes it before the end of this month.
Then I'll be out of action for about 8 to 10 weeks, which I'm of course not looking forward to, I'm not into pain, who is, but he tells me that after going through this I will be cured of the cancer, which has not spread anywhere else.
That is all I want because we've got this plan that's been burning brightly for almost three years and we aim to start next spring. By that time I expect to be up and running and ready to set sail. And this way means I don't have to keep having tests, worrying about this thing and can be free to enjoy the rest of my life on the ocean waves following this crazy dream. It's a bit of a radical solution but to have peace of mind instead of uncertainty seems worth the anguish and pain that I'm expecting to go through, though hopefully it won't be as bad as I'm anticipating.

Fashionably late

The landscapes of Cepheloniia and Ithica float like monochrome ghosts on  flat calm Mediterranean seas receding in graduated tones towards the distant horizons. Towering like Herculean giants above our scattered fleet of minuscule sailboats as we scatter in search of the slightest zephyr to waft us on to our next port of call. This is the scene that is to be repeated every afternoon on our weeks flotilla holiday in the Ionian seas. It's the end of September when the winds are more than predicable, according to our lead skipper, Dan, at this time of year, but for some inexplicable reason, this week the forecasters are stumped as to these freak conditions. It's always calm in the mornings, blows up through noon till late afternoon and then dies at night. This week it's   fickle winds in Fiskardo, and all around these splendid sailing grounds. Back in England they've had balmy Indian summer weather with highs of 30 degrees, unheard of in October.

Global warming brings strange bits of unlikely weather to all parts of the globe, and it looks like we got our funny bit in Greece this week.

There's ten yachts in the flotilla, and ours is called Pirgos, named after the Minoan settlement of 1450 BC.  Shes a 32ft Beneteau with in mast furling mainsail, which is a first for us and we're eager to see if we like this new fangled idea. We've only done old fashioned sails so far so this will be our chance to see if we get on with it or not.

Lots of little things annoy us about our boat, like the position of the mirror in the heads,-too low, the silly cupboard door above the stove, how the only place to prepare food in the galley is on top of the fridge which you always want to get into, and can't because that's where your preparing stuff. There's no holders in the cockpit for a bottle or can, and no cubby holes for your bits and bobs. And most annoying of all, the wheel squeaks, this is most annoying when searching for the wind at one or two knots. Apart from that shes an adequate boat and certainly a step up from our 27ft Jag that we sailed last year. In fact when we do catch the wind she's quite fun to sail.

All in all the week was without incident for us, and we found stepping up to this larger yacht was, to say the least, a piece of piss. We handled the changes in points of sail effortlessly on 99.9% of our voyages, and when we did get into a two and eight we simply started up Mr engine Sir and promptly brought us back to where we should have been, cut the engine and sailed on like we'ld been doing this for years.

Mind you the winds were never very strong and the seas were more than kind. Only one morning were we out in anything that resembled a blow, most of the sailing was in light airs. But that meant we had to trim the sails and search out the winds. We would seek out the on shore breezes by hugging the coast, or search for dark water where there maybe a bit more wind in our sails.

In previous sails we have inadvertently found ourselves hove too, this time we deliberately tried the manoeuvre, which was successful, and we stopped for lunch miles out at sea. When we had very light winds behind us one day we set the sails goose winged, with a preventer on the mainsail to stop the boom swinging across the boat. We sailed very long tacks to catch the best of the light winds, anything to avoid turning on the engine. Often this meant that we were out much longer than most of our fleet who were often home 2 hours ahead of us, but we were there for the sailing. Perhaps many of the others were looking for a nice bay to stop for a swim, or investigate the tavernas of the next port.

One of the days saw us attempt a gallant rescue of one of our flotilla companions who had the misfortune of getting their anchor stuck whilst stopping for lunch in a small bay at the southern tip of Ithaca. We were the only boat still in the bay, except for Nericos who had tried to leave but were stuck fast unable to raise their anchor. We tried attaching a line to their anchor chain. They had moored very close to a rocky shore and try as we may we only succeeded in dragging our boat close to the perilous shore. we gave up and promised to radio our lead boat when we exited the bay and could make radio contact. This had to be done via a relay with other boats further up the coast, as the VHF only works in line of sight and Kalypso, our lead boat was already home and out of radio contact. Eventually they made contact via mobile phone, Jackie was able to find the number as they,Nericos, couldn't find it. The message came back for them to cut their anchor and we motored slowly out at sea maintaining radio contact until they finally rounded the point out of the bay and we all sailed safely to Kioni.

We were confined to port in Kioni as the winds were up the next morning and it was impossible for us to sail directly into the gale that was blowing to reach Savota. I would have loved to have gone out to test our skills in the wind but prudence kept us in port and anyway it gave us a chance to swim and paint, and chill for a day.

We not only had a squeaky wheel, we had a very reluctant furling mainsail that refused all attempts to reel, or furl in easily. When we wanted to practise our reefing skills the sail refused to slip back into the mast easily. No amount of tugging and heaving would budge it. In fact we had to use the winch to extend the sail to its full capacity and this caused the sail to pop out at the bottom of the leach which fouled the sail on the way back in. we eventually found out how to deal with this but it meant going to the mast and cajoling the bloody thing to move from there. It sort of put me off the whole idea of roller reefing mainsails.

At the end of term party at the Captains cabin in Fiskardo the lead crew handed out awards to various crews for our endeavours of the week. First up was a rambling speech about some crew that had made the best of the fickle winds of the week, a boat that was almost always last into port, and a crew that had teased the best of a week of light airs, a boat that was fashionably late into every port. And the award goes to........PIRGOS.
We were a bit pissed by the time these awards were handed out and I hadn't exactly paid attention to what was being said but when all the other awards seemed to be for calamities that had befallen various boats I felt quite proud of our plywood cutout, that now stands on our mantelshelf a testimony to our progress from novices to navigators.