Haslar Boat Jumble Weekend

Saturday 18^th  February… It was a foggy start at home this morning, but WOW it’s sunny and warm on the South Coast!  Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but for the time of year it’s a super day. Not a cloud in the sky and plenty of people about in the Marina.  It’s the first boat jumble of the year tomorrow at Haslar Marina, and as always we’re looking forward to finding some bargains to walk away with. 

Anyway, we were happy to find Thesee’s new lazy bag waiting for us. Unfortunately the wind (albeit slight) was from the South East and so we had to turn Thesee around before we could put the main sail up and fit the lazy bag. Everything seems to be fine now that the canvas maker has added an extra piece. (You may remember in the last blog, I talked about it being too small to enclose the sail and zip up). 

Putting the batons into the new lazy bag

Let’s see how we get on with it next time we go for a sail (tomorrow afternoon fingers crossed). Don’t forget you can track us on our travels at www.vesselfinder.com or www.marinetraffic.com 

Dean fitted the new serpentine belt, so that’s all sorted until he can get to fit the new alternator. I’m not even going into the ins and outs of this because it’s way past my thought process. Let’s hope Saffy does the blogging that weekend.

The old alternator with new belt and adjuster

Sunday 19^th February… Up bright and early after a really cosy sleep last night. We set off to the boat jumble at 9.15am giving ourselves plenty of time to amble across to Haslar Marina, walking Saffy through the model boating lake park on the way. There was a fairly long queue to get in, much longer than last year. We managed to find a couple of things to buy, the biggest bargain being a spare electric plug-in cable for a fiver. It’s so long Dean reckons it’ll reach the Isle of Wight!

We got back to Thesee about lunchtime and went with our plan to sail across to Priory Bay (near Bembridge). Yippee, finally we can do some sailing…the first since New Year. En-route we called up Gosport NCI (National Coastguard Institution) for a radio check on Channel 65. The NCI is an entirely voluntary organisation keeping a visual watch along UK shores. The yachting magazines are always reminding us to use this channel for radio checks and weather information, instead of calling Solent Coastguard on Channel 67. 

Making our way out of Portsmouth

There's a posh hotel inside here

It was a good sail and only takes about 1.5 hrs, and we had decided if we felt happy we would stay overnight. It’s not easy to sleep at anchor because you are always on edge, listening to the creaks and wondering whether all is well. The weather is calm tonight so it’s a good opportunity to get some practise in. 

Monday 20^th February… It was a night of broken sleep as expected. However we’re glad to report no mishaps at anchor, just 3 weary crew today. We were up at 6am as daylight broke and ready for the off by 8am. We had the Solent to ourselves apart from a couple of ferries, one hovercraft, one dredger and HMS Blazer. Arriving back at base, Linda was feeling brave and took the chance to practise berthing Thesee in the calm conditions.

Not many photo opportunities today, so the best thing I can show you is Dean’s latest project. 

These are low friction rings which he picked up at the boat jumble yesterday. They’ll be used instead of blocks (pulleys to me and you) when rigging the parasailor. I don’t know how he thinks it all up. 

Linda spent half an hour organising the waypoints on the Chartplotter. Wikipedia states, "A waypoint is a term used to refer to an intermediate point or place on a route or line of travel, a stopping point or point at which course is changed". Next time we're here we hope to sail to Portland, so as Navigator she's added some appropriate waypoints to head for.

It feels good to get out sailing again. Unfortunately the marine growth on Thesee's bottom is looking rather grim. Maybe time for another jet-wash?

New Goodies Weekend

Saturday 4th February... It's been a whole 18 days since we last visited Thesee. We actually missed two weekends due to having other hobbies to deal with! But now we're back here in Gosport and what a lot of goodies we had to look forward to. We unloaded the car into two, yes two trollies.

Dean has been having some canvas work done, and on arrival we saw that the new sprayhood has been fitted. Wow, it's gorgeous! Just look at this beauty....

Now we can see where we're going 

We can actually see through the windows now! We didn't realise how bad the old one was. It makes the companion way and bridge deck area seem huge.... we love it. The window in the top has been moved forward too so that we can fit an extra solar panel. 

Next job was was attaching the new sunshade panels to the bimini. Don't think we'll have much use for them in the UK, but hopefully they'll come in useful when we go on our travels. 

It goes on the outside Dean

Looking good, need some sunshine now

Then it was time for waterproofing the bimini cover....

Dean do you ever stop working??

Next on the agenda was to see whether the modified Parasailor collar would fit down the sail hatch, and we're very pleased to say that it did. So far so good, we just need to try it out for real to check it still works OK.

Three big sails live down here now

The smallest job of the day was trying the new ATN tacker for size, as we thought we may have ordered a size too big, but it seems fine. What's an ATN tacker then? Well apparantly it's a device that lets you use your symmetric spinnaker like an asymmetric spinnaker, when sailing on a beam reach or broad reaching without the need of pole. In other words, it keeps the tack (corner) of the sail on the centreline of the boat. 

Final job for the day was fitting the new lazy bag, but unfortunately we had to abandon this as the wind picked up and was coming from the south so we couldn't get the main sail up safely. So we took a walk into town to visit Dean's favourite Chandlery instead. Oh well, it keeps him happy...

Sunday 5th February... Seems the BBC wind forecast was correct and the wind veered to the North this morning. This was good news for us as it meant we could safely raise the main sail, remove the existing lazy bag (this is the bag that the main sail sits in), and attach the new one. 

Lazy bag in situ, now to attach the lazy lines

The job didn't go quite to plan, but after a couple of hiccups we had the new bag secured. It was all looking good until Dean tried to zip it up and found that it wasn't big enough to enclose all of the sail. More to follow on this.... However the new snood seems to fit fine. The snood is a cover which sits around the sail bag next to the mast. It stops UV rays from damaging the sail, and also keeps the birds from nesting. 

Lazy bag looks good, but it won't zip up

Dean then added his new 'accents' to Thésée's name on the stern of the boat. Well it has to be right you know.

 Le nom de Thésée est complet

After lunch it was back indoors and time for Dean to start work on fitting the new alternator, pulleys, and serpentine belt. The alternator will be more powerful and efficient than the existing one. He has to check whether it will all fit before he can move forward with this project. So far so good, and there will be more news on this next time. Incredibly, Linda is now an expert on Serpentine Belt sizes after an afternoon spent researching the internet. Thanks for that job Dean!

Can we just go sailing tomorrow?...... pleeeeez??

Monday 6th February... Freezing cold this morning, and the boat decks covered with ice. The canvas maker arrived at 7.30am to take a look at the ill fitting lazy bag. He's taken it away with him for amendment, so the old one is back on again. 

Dean then turned his attention to Solar Panels. As always with Dean, the fitting has to be carried out to perfection. We now have two on the sprayhood, that brings the total solar panels to four.

A very neat job Dean, well done

Linda spent the morning spring cleaning and making an inventory of galley equipment. She also has made a designated bad weather food cupboard. When we go sailing further afield this cupboard will be stocked with quick and easy to prepare meals, snacks, and chocolate....lots of chocolate. 

At 12 noon we almost jumped out of our skin when the 21 gun salute started in Portsmouth Harbour to mark the Queen's Sapphire Jubilee. What an honour to witness this event live from across the water. Linda reckons it was for her own birthday instead.... it's this week Dean....just a reminder. 

The flags fly on HMS Warrior for the Queen's Sapphire Jubilee

No we didn't go sailing today 😞 .... we hugged the fan heater instead. 

Roll on Summer! x