Yard Mews

Its been all go this winter at the Tim Loftus Boatbuilding yard . Just before the Christmas break we finished framing up the Cubbage Wood boat. Two days of steaming and bending in one hundred 35x25mm oak frames. We have now left the Cubbage as the planking stock need more time to season as it was freshly cut only months ago. To stop us getting cold we are building a new Paul Gartside Design (see this months 'Water Craft' mag - available all good newsagents...) Its a 17foot Gaff rigged Yawl day sailer. All the details on the boat are very well thought out and beautifully designed. It has looks to die for with sleek low freeboard, plum steam  and 3/4 decked not to mention the stunning wine glass transom. Once the backbone and moulds were all in place Tim started the planking while I have been making all the spars and components for the interior fit out including rudder and centreboard box/centreboard.

8mm Larch planking with 22x12 frames every 150mm (not in yet).....  3 planks to go.

Sawn oak Stem assembled with 9mm copper clench's. Rabbet has been cut.

Building Again - a new Junk is being born.

Well I thought we were heading south to go on Holiday! We seem to have been too late in the season for getting much further south than the Uk - sure we could have but it would have been a rush down the European Atlantic coast and the weather systems were never looking great for the Biscay area so a few battering's were going to be inevitable , no thanks Mr gale.
While we were hanging around Falmouth various fishing lines were dropped in front of us with some very tasty bate that we could not resist. We took the bate and were hauled directly into Bristol docks.

I am working for Tim Loftus (www.timloftusboatbuilding.co.ok).  I arrived just as Tim was popping out over two tons of lead from a steel mold for the ballast on a new 25foot sailing boat.

Tim has designed the boat himself for Tim Start. Tim carved a half-model then lofted this full size on 8x4's which now form the side of the temporary shed we are building in. The rig ... wait for it ..............yes it's goiing to be a Junk Rig . perfect.
The construction is very traditional - oak backbone and frames with Larch planking (Carvel). not a drop of epoxy anywhere  . err.. maybe on ply deck.

 It gets more interesting as Tim Start has a woodland in Shropshire where all the timber has been taken from and he is very involved with the building of his boat too. So,  at the end of the day he will have basically grown and built his own boat . This is living the dream.  The new boat will be called Cubbage  Wood,
We have now finished the backbone and are hoping to get all the frames steamed in by Christmas. The pictures should show more about the construction than i can explain. Pictured on the left is the stern post fastened through the wood and lead ballast keel.

Here is a nice picture of Tim Start admiring his lovely new boat 'Cubbage Wood'. To the right you can see some of the larch stacked up ready for planking and the temporary molds are in position showing the outlines of a fine ship.
To add to the good work we are still afloat - living on a narrow boat in the docks. Charlotte has a great studio in the city center - see http://starboardlocker.wordpress.com
Hestur is patiently waiting for our return in April/May2013 in Falmouth Harbour.

Lands End, Lizard , Falmouth.

Well lots has been happening, sailing, biking, sunning, storming (round the Lizard..!) we ended up leaving the boat for about a week on the Menai Staits (Thanks to Denise for kind lend of mooring). We had a very fine time here where Erle and Carloe watched over the boat when we were not there as well as entertaining us when we were, thanks so much. More friends Di and Paul also were very hospitable feeding us and taking us to local music session, great times. 

We visited my parents in Shropshire where we collected our latest ebay indulgences - Brompton folding bikes. O yes . A pair of them.

 Once I had welded up a seat post extension and oiled the chains we were ready for their first test ride of 65 miles. 

Timing had been perfect to join in the first day of an 800+ mile ride to Turin ending up at the ‘slow food festival‘ 

The ride has been organized Maddy Corbin (my brothers Partner) in memory of a dear friend Philippa Corbin, and to raise awareness of depression. A very worthy cause - please look up  www.slowridetoturin.co.uk to fine out more.  a few days ago all thirty cyclists (including ma Mum and brother) finished the ride including  over the alps (you cant avoid these!) and battling headwinds (sounds like sailing). The biggest well done to you all for the ride and raising all that money for the ‘Charlie Waller Memorial Trust’ and ‘The Human Givens Foundation’.   

The Brompton bikes coped very well for the first day of 60 odd miles winding up and down through the lovely Dorset countryside from Axminster to Swanage. We are sure they are going to be fantastic for exploring ashore from the boat - we had some great rides around Anglesey never mind just nipping out to the shops (minutes by bike hours by foot).

Anyway back to Sailing the junk. We left the Menai straits on the 21st october heading south. It took 48 hours and 200nm to get to St Ives Cornwall (nice round figures arnt they!)

We had thick fog and not much wind for the second part of this. Also dolfins following us for 8 hours during the night (about 20 of them) amazing as great fosferesents (sp) made them sparkle. Also poor garden type birds joined us for hours at a time lost at sea in the fog. 

We anchored off St Ives for the afternoon and went ashore for a pasty yum. In the morning we set off on a favorable tide for rounding Lands end. We decided to push on and get around the Lizzard and in towards Falmouth. We had a f6 headwind (NE) so it was a long rough battle through the night around the Lizzard. We finally picked up a visitor mooring on the Helford river at 8am and went to bed. We had a day or two exploring the delightful area around Halford. 

We met a friend of a friend, Tim, on board his junk rigged boat ‘Santiana’ which he is currently trying to sell as he is building a new junk with trees from his own woodland with Tim Loftus, a boatbuilder friend of ours. Small world. I hope we will see him again In Falmouth to talk some more junk! 

Another short day sail into another strong headwind up to St Mawes where we dropped anchor. Its free to anchor here which was a nice surprise even though we were asked to move a few yards for some reason. Very friendly harbour staff.

Goiing across to Falmouth this afternoon where there is lots to see and do.

We have now got to plan the next stage of our voyage - we are real late in the season now for heading further south (across Biscay) so we are looking at various possibilities ...........

        

South

A bit of a late start but after what seemed like weeks of preparations we have finally set sail south.

We left Ullapool on the wednesday 3rd October, had a great sail down and inside of Skye - going under the Skye bridge at around midnight then running through Kyle Rhea (at 9knots!) under moonlight. priceless. We then anchored until daylight in Sandaig Bay.

Next day was headwinds so we bashed on to the isle of Eigg and anchored in the Bay of Laig (NW side). From here we sailed none stop to the Isle of Man (200 nM) in two days two nights. Goiing outside of all the islands (Mull, Islay etc) and then running down into the North Channel skirting northern island and out into the Irish sea.. We picked up a slightly dodgy mooring, 5am Sunday, (the pick up immediately broke off!! apart from that it seemed good) in Port St Mary on the south end of the island. After a few hours sleep Charlotte and I went ashore and had a very nice day wondering about (got steam train to Douglas- really felt like we are on Holiday!)

Yesterday (Monday 8th) we had a great sail south to Anglesey - North Wales. We ran a few miles down into the Menai Straits in the dark from the north east end and dropped anchor just off Beaumaris.

Just woke up to a beautiful morning with the sun rising behind the Welsh mountains, now waiting to get the tide through the Swellies to pick up a friends mooring for a few days while we visit friends and family.

Everyone says that the hardest thing about going cruising is getting away - I think i can totally agree with this - especially if you are starting off with a brand new boat - my list of jobs to do and finish (on Hestur) seemed endless in the last few weeks and took up most of my time - packing my bags only took a few hours! Charlotte probably had the hardest job of packing up / moving out of our little house where we were staying in Ullapool so i could spend the time getting the boat ready...

Everything is working well - the new Tender floats and fits perfectly on the fore deck - Also a dream to row - thanks so much John! The self steering works well and has steered us just about all of 350 nM in a wide variety of conditions (not always good ones!) Thank goodness for that as it was very untested.

Top photo taken just off the Small Isles when we were joined by pod o Dolphins.

Bottom picture Taken by Reiner Luyken as we sailed out of Loch Broom Ullapool. Thanks for that - great picture taken from the Ullapool - Stornoway ferry as Reiner returned from a great trip across the Minch in a open Boat.

Moor soon...

Baby Tender

 Our good friend John has been building us this fine new tender. The plan is that it will sit between the foremast and the forward bulkhead of the main cabin. It will also cover up the fore-hatch/skyelight , if all our measurements are right anyway. - the fore-hatch is just over 3foot square. this will make it much darker in the fore cabin which is a good thing if you are trying to get some sleep in daylight hours. we should also be able to open the hatch for ventilation and not take any water below in case of wave / heavy rain as the tender will act like one very big dorade vent - thats my theory anyway!

Overall dimensions are  -   length: 7 foot     beam:  4foot.

The design had been a joint effort by john and myself. The mid-ship section is roughly based on a small  traditional (larch on oak) tender i built some years ago. Pictured on the right here is John adding his magic touch of glass cloth - he is a true master of this stuff. not a crease or miss-alignment in sight.

John is, as usual, making a super job of this so it should prove to be a great 'hard tender' that is lightweight and easy to row while being very stable due to a largely flat bottom and tight turn at the bilge.

Next issue we shall go for a row and see if it fits......... maybe even a sink test?

Out Sailing and Self steering

Been getting out as much as we can while getting the boat ready to head south. I still seem to have a long list of jobs to finish.... One of the big ones has been making and fitting a self steering system. I tried direct lines to the tilled with a wind vane which works well if you are sailing to windward... but starts to fail when sailing off the wind. So decided to dry the boat out and fit a trim tab and then make the wind vane drive this. The first rig I made was very 'crude' and experimental just so i could see if it would work - and it does. you can see 'mark one' in the pictures above and below (vane not attached).

I have now taken it off to make a proper version so will add more details about the construction when i have finished it.

Engine fixin

Heres a quick video showing how we replaced the valve springs when they broke on our way to oban with no wind (we really needed it!) Note that you would normally take the cylinder head off to replace them but my brother and I came up with a plan........