Coming up next

Yeah it´s been a while, quite busy,

But coming up next:

• my personal test about rope clutches

• and my winter building project a self build wind steering by Walt Murray design I will blog about my progress. For a short information look at this website

A charttable on a Delanta 80

What I always missed on Geronimo was a charttable. Yes you have the table in the main cabin, but you have lunch,diner on it,at night you have to lower him, to get a bed. Not very handy, if you want to do your chartwork.
So I came up with the idea, to build a portable charttable in the aft cabin. I am able to hang the table at the roof of the aft cabin and I fix it by two clamps at the bottom. I stabilize the plate with aluminium profiles.

If I have guests, it must be easy to store, to get one more sleeping place in the aft cabin. I simply hang it over the bed. Up to now I never get complains from my friends or guests.

Totally this charttable costs me 20 €.

Part Three " A trip to London and back"

Day 6 A day off in London (0nm)

The crews had two days off in London. The skipper of the Freedom spent the day searching for the fault in his engine. My father and I went over and asked him what the problem was. After he explained it to us, we were able to give him a hint: “You have run your engine dry of fuel and you are likely to have an air bubble in your system. Just follow the fuel line and pump the air out.” He didn´t take our advice. On the second day, he got a mechanic to have a look, who just pumped the air out the system. Well,……

Do It in the Limehouse Basin

So here is a short summary of the day: Greenwich, nice, National Maritime Museum, very nice…

 The Meridan

Day 7 Second day off (My Birthday)(0nm)

 Well it was my birthday. For dinner, all crews came together in a nice pub. Not just because of my birthday, but also because the plan is to separate after the jump back to the mainland, so we celebrated our small fleet. I´m  not a fan of yelling out “It´s my birthday”, I like to have my peace. What I didn´t count on was Hank, he organized for the whole fleet to sing “Happy Birthday” in the pub, in Dutch. Imagine the scene: over 20 Dutch people, singing “Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag”, in a British pub, for a German guy. It was one of those moments you never forget.

Another funny story is that my father and I tried to find a fuel station, wandering around with fuel canisters under our arms in Canary Wharf. Well, funny is the fact that we took the London Underground with our fuel canisters. On the way back I realised that all people in the Tube kept their distance from us.  Ooooppppsss. We are quite lucky that we weren´t shot dead, really. 

Day 8 and 9 London to Grevelingen (190nm)

Another early start to catch the tide. Many boats of our fleet first went up the Thames to Tower Bridge to get fuel and we were already on our way down. 14kn over ground, we were flying down the Thames. 

 Coming up the Thames : Grouprama  

As the sun melted into the sea once again, we reached the TSS. Nice timing, a crossing of one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, in the dark. And then the rain started. So I switched on the radar. A freighter there, an echo there, is it a fishing boat, give him a call? Yes, it was a fisherman, and he was passing right in front of us. A freighter then passed directly behind us, you could only hear his engine running.

And then a Mayday, a ferry with a fire in the engine room, 40nm away. Now the adrenalin started running through our veins. Sleep impossible, for everyone on board. I took the helm, it was still drizzling and there was no wind at all, in fact none since we entered the TSS. Our neighbour in the fleet, “Blue Peter”, mounted his 2 colour light upside down, funny. The rain water kept running down my feet and they got cold and wet. And my boots still onboard Geronimo, better planning next time, baby. A cup of soup and a cup of coffee, to raise the mood. Still this drizzle and from below on the VHF Ch16 the rescue  coordination for the ferry. You could hear the noise of a big engine somewhere out there, no lights, checked the radar, an echo passing behind us. Blue Peter suddenly changed her course directly towards us. Yelling at them, they yell back to us to keep our course. Guys, you have lost your course. They change course again, silence, no more argument. Had they fallen asleep ?

Then my father took the helm, still drizzle. After 24 hours without sleep, my feet were cold and shoes were wet, no opportunity to change socks. A kingdom for my boots. So I went down below, opened up the engine hatch, threw my shoes in it, a nice warm air stream came out of the hatch. A look on the watch, 5 in the morning, 6° C in the cabin. The warm air streaming from the hatch, so I lay down on the cabin floor, my feet in the hatch, they started getting warm, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I woke up in a rush, one of my socks caught by the engine belt, my feet ripped from my leg. What a nightmare!!  7 in the morning, my heart still hammering, cup of coffee, a small sandwich and I took the helm  again, now with dry feet. The drizzle had stopped. A grey day, no wind at all. A look on the GPS and the map, another 30nm until Roompot. My father tried to get some sleep and so did my mother, but she couldn´t find sleep either.

As we reached the lock to enter the Oosterschelde the sun broke through the grey clouds and gave us the heat to warm our bodies again. Marina Roompot, but no, we wanted a nice shower so we decided to keep going, still no wind, but sunshine. A look at the tide, yes it is with us. If not, it wouldn’t have mattered. So the engine kept running. 4 hours later we were back in our marina, a nice lunch and a shower. Journey over . More than 500nm in 5 sailing days , we were happy and very exhausted.

Would we do it again ?

 Absolutely

With the Oceanpeople? 

Not Really

Why ? 

Because they demand a minimum speed of 5kn all the time at sea. So mostly you have to run your engine to keep pace with bigger yachts. Not our style of sailing.

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Part Two " A trip to London and back"

Day 3 Nieuwport to Ramsgate [56sm]

Another day, another story. A beautiful day, wind force 3 to 4, sunny, air temperature 5° C, wave height 0,5m to 1m. Perfect weather for crossing the English Channel.

 

yeah,.. ski gloves at helm

We kept inside the sand banks and passed Dunkerque and then before Calais we went up to the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS). We crossed the TSS under engine and caught the tide perfectly so we dropped out of the TSS nearly in Ramsgate. 

 waiting for a gap

 At Ramsgate Marina we all celebrated the successful crossing. A Belgian doctor from our small fleet came up with a plastic bag full of wine and filled up our glasses with a smile on his face and the sentence “Trust me, I´m a doctor and that wine is intravenous””

And for dinner we managed to find a small Indian restaurant.

A perfect day…

Day 4 Ramsgate to Chatham, canceled

Indeed, the trip for the day was cancelled, as a force 7 hit the coast and so the fleet stayed in the marina. It was quite relaxing, so everybody had a chance to repair their boats or just read a good book or have a walk. 

On the VHF I heard a Mayday from a catamaran which was outside in the channel and their engine had died. An hour later we saw the Ramsgate Lifeguard towing him in.

At dinner my father and I started to have an argument about our fuel consumption and whether we still had enough. Eventually we agreed to walk to  the fuel station and get 3 canisters of diesel. Luckily we made this decision.  

Day 5 Ramsgate to  London (80sm)

Since the trip to Chatham had been cancelled, it was decided to go to London in one day.

The alarm clock went mad at 4 in the morning and we motored out of Ramsgate. There was nearly no wind.

 

Ramsgate at dawn

 The headless sailor

 And so we motored up to the Thames Estuary. Only as the sun comes up the wind picked up and we set sails and sailed up the Thames past the Guntowers, Dartford Brigde, Thames Barrier Millennium Dome, and Greenwich.

 Crossing the Meridian

The engine of one boat from our fleet, the Freedom, died on the Thames. Hank and Harry were able to give them a tow up to the Limehouse basin. As we met in the evening they told us their story. The tow line broke 2 times. As they reached the lock for the Limehouse basin they were quite exhausted. Everyone, even I, was focussed on trying to help the Freedom to get into the lock. Only my parents thought to help Hank and Harry in the lock, and out of this a friendship grew. Hank ended his story with the words “I’m getting too old for this b….” 

 Limehouse basin at night

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