Still here!!!

So its been a long time and many miles under the keel since I added anything here. What happened? Well, as for the blog, while we were cruising abroad Hestur, Charlottes blog somewhat took over - She is a much better writer and more diligent, so with limited internet while traveling it was best she kept hers going rather that us both fighting over one laptop. So the rest of our Atlantic adventures can found at starting here https://starboardlocker.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/the-rvier-gambia/ wher i seem to have stopped writing.
After Crossing the Atlantic in January 2014 (cant believe it was that long ago) with relentless strong tradewinds in 18 days we spent the season cruising the Eastern Carribean. Following Antigua Classics week we set sail for the Azores but ended up in Bermuda mainly due to a severe lack of wind from the right direction (10 days sail). Then across to the Azores in 18 days and back north to Scotland via Ireland and Wales. Really really great sailing all the way with with a mix of lows and highs in the north atlantic.

Hestur continues to be the perfect boat for us - in fact she has become a 'family boat' as Ella was born on 22/10/2015. She enjoyed her first summer cruising this year around the Outer Isles in north west Scotland.

I have been fully engaged boatbuilding since we arrived home - I have now joined forces with Tim Loftus who has moved back to Ullapool with his family. We have our workshop here and will soon have a boatyard and slipway opening up in summer 2017.

We now trade as Johnson & Loftus Boatbuilders and our website can be found here:

http://www.johnsonandloftus.co.uk

My interest in Junk Rig continues to develop - I have converted a 30' yacht to cambered Junk for a client last year. I need to write that up........ whooo believe me that camber adds power!!

Down to Gambia

So then its been a while, I thought there would be plenty of time to write blog posts while cruising, but this is not the case!

We spent about a month exploring the Canaria Islands. Great Islands if a little short of good anchorages so ended up in quite a few marinas. Our favourite place was probably the little island of Graciosa just north of Lanzarote, it has one bay that you are allowed to anchor in and a small marina in the village, which i believe is trick to get a place in unless you are 'local'! Its a paradise island with beautiful sandy beaches with great swimming in crystal clear water. There are no roads just sandy tracks even in the one small town on the island. Its also quite (tourist wise) compared to mainland canaries.

While in the Canaries we got ourselves and the boat ready to go to Africa. This involved finding charts (unsuccessful so got from UK) sorting vaccination for Yellow Fever and getting anti malarias. 

We set sail for the Gambia on the 12th November from Porto Rico and 8 days and 951nm later arrived in Banjul the capital and only port of entry into the Gambia. It was a great down wind sail with the wind never dropping below 15 knots, usually 20. It was a busy passage as a lot of ships use this run down the west coast of Africa, on average 10+ per day. We passed within 10 miles of Dakar, so close that we could smell sweet exotic smells and also make use of their mobile phone network! Another 24 hours and we were anchored off the docks in Banjul.

Customs, immigration and harbour authorities took about 5 hours to clear and not too much bother.

Next came the trip of a lifetime which took us 200nm up the river and into the wild.

The people here are really very nice and always on hand to help, also they generally speak english although this gets less further up river. There are a lot of French speaking Senegalese fishermen up river too.

Its been a proper safari with Hippos, Crocodiles,  Chimps, monkeys, to name a few and an astonishing number of beautiful  birds. The flora has also been very interesting, starting with low mangroves then changing to palms and mahogany trees as the river changed from saltwater to fresh.  

We have just returned to the Banjul area (Denton Bridge) to re stock ready for the next leg West.

I will write more details of the river journey in time.....

 

12 months adrift....

JunkDory

Can't belive it , its now been one year since we uped sticks and left Ullapool, pointing the bows south on an open ended adventure. When we left we had no real fixed plan we just new to head south and take everything as it comes... And that is just what we do and we love it. Adventures and experiences unfold at every junction we come to, no planning could ever organise such a trip. You obviously need some sort of planning, for the safty of the boat and crew, but this is usually only a month/day/hour or so ahead of where we are. We have met quite a few boats in the early stages of a 'trip' who tell us grand plans of "going  around the world" and i have to wonder how many of them atually do so.

 So then, in the first 12 months away from 'home', we have spent 6 of them cruising on board Hestur and 6 of them in Bristol (a new city to us).

I thought I would go through the log book and tott up some figures for 6 months cruising:

Total nautical miles:   2582nm

Best days run (24hours):   135nm
Brompton (folding bike) miles: 117

Nights at anchor: 120

Nights at sea: 18

Nights on pontoons: 5   (all in south Cornwall  and free of charge in winter)

Nights in marinas: 19   (14 of which have been here in Madiera)

Nights on random moorings: 18 (all free of charge)

Paraffin (for cooker): 25 litres 

Engine hours: 241 

Diesel used: 275 litres 

Fuel consumption: 1.1 litres per hour

Hestur has required very little maintenance over the last year, the biggest thing was to
find and fit a new Windlass as the old one (a Lofrans Royal manual) gave up - it was already 15 years old. I bought second-hand Simpson Lawrence Seatiger555 for £500 then had to spend another £235 to get a new gypsy to fit our chain.  Despite the expense it really is the RollsRoyce of manual windlasses.  I sure would not have an electric one. We have 10mm heavy gauge chain and 20kg (44lbs) Rocna . Grips like hell.

We scrubbed and applied new antifoul in Falmouth and now the varnish work on the rubbing strake could do with a refresh. The rig needs very little attention, sometimes having to replace the odd bit of cord (usually the yard to sail lashing where it rubs on the mast) . One oil change on the engine. 

Our tender could do with a repaint but that can wait as i don't mind it looking a little scruffy as it may stop people borrowing it! I have recently chanced the mast head light bulb for the LED type which saves a huge amount of battery power while sailing overnight. 

Porto Santo

Blue water at last!

Here Charlotte is painting on the harbour wall Porto Santo.

Had great run from Lisbon 512nm in 95 hours.....

Spain

A ha,
We seem to have made it to Spain!,
Here is a quick movie i made! Went Via France then north coast of spain and now we are in Coruna.

will add more when i have chance......

Finished in Bristol...

So its been a while since the last post here, it all been going on .... Where do i start?! Better start with where I left, in Bristol.
Tim and i finished the 17' Gartside Yawl with great results if i may say so myself. She is a fine boat to sail and look at, as with all of Paul Gartside's boats.
After the Yawl was finished myself and Ben Punter laid a new teak Deck on a 42' Swan yacht. This took us through to mid May.

I have to say working with Tim Loftus (& Ben) at the Underfall Yard Bristol was the best, great guys and great work - also all the other top people in
the yard from Star Yachts and RB boatbuilding (WildSailing.com) Cheers and I hope to be back some time. Bristol in general was a really fantastic place to stay,
so much going on from sailing in the docks, climbing in the gorge , great cycling , much music, caving adventures...... the list go's on!

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........

Hestur News

Just realised that i have not put up any 'Hestur news' recently and people may be thinking that we have drifted off - O no , not yet.... I just cant believe its been nearly two months since we launched.

So that first little 'test sail' south - as a briefly said in the last post we had made it down to Oban where we left Hestur for a week. After that Charlotte and I returned to sail north again back to Ullapool. Of course we were hit by 5 days of north east winds (absolutely our direction of travel) This would really show us how Junks go to windward - they do. Heading north we decided to go inside Mull then outside Skye taking in the Outer Hebridies (Barra) . This proved to be a good plan as the Minch provides a great seaway for tacking against northerly winds! Heading west across the Minch towards Barra we experienced our first largish sea and strongish wind aboard Heatur - F6 with 10foot crashers. She performed perfectly with nothing unexpected (sometimes big bangs when breaking seas slap big flat topsides) and we were broad reaching at 6knots + with two pannels up on foresail and 3 in main. Very easy sailing with no deck work - all reefing done from cockpit (sometimes we need to go and tie last batten down at forward end when reefing the foresail??!! main reefs fine).

From Barra back across to Canna in the Small isles and up the west coast of Syke. We had a very big whale breach (jump clear of the water) about 10 foot away from the boat, never seen that before. not sure what type it was. no photo!. we then battled the north-easters for another 48 hours back to Ullapool. When sailing on the wind she will sail herself if you balance the sails - we often leave the helm quite literally for hours and hours not even lashed. This surprises me as she is a fin keeler - think it must be the substantial skeg arrangement.

In all is was a great test sail and we have learnt a lot about the boat and she has showed us a few problems that we fixed on route (most engine related! - I will write about this another time just for the engine boffs out there. lets just say valve springs oops)  

A total of 10 days 360 miles (quite a few days were windless and enginless! - not all sailing). Humm i cant think of any bad points on the boat. good. One point is she has high topsides so its a long climb from the dinghy. She is very comfy for two people cruising and 4 is no problem either - Nick and Maddy joined us for the initial sail south. 

Over the past month or so I have been slowly ticking off the remaining job list (still quite long) including a nice oak saloon table and Self steering gear - very exciting.  - home brew trim tab and wind vane..........     

Sailing Hestur !!

I have very little time to write, but here are a few pictures of the end result. Words cannot describe how delighted we are with the boat. We set off south From Ullapool on the 20th of may for a five day 'test sail' and got down to Oban. Lots happened in these few days including southerly winds and Engine failure !! all fixed now. We have been in land locked Shropshire for the last week but heading back to the boat tonight to sail back north to Ullapool (of course now we have Northerly winds!!!)

THE JUNK RIG IS AMAZING!!!

Will write more about the final rigging soon...

Sail Loft

Heres a quick clip feeding the sewing machine a 12 foot seam. This is joining the top two pannels of the sail to the bottom. These are Chinese Junk sails. I have decided to make them 'flat' rather than 'cambered' as some people are doing these days - flat sails are a bit quicker to make and as these are the first sails i have ever made I thought i should keep it simple. Below is the sail plan for Hestur as drawn by J Benford.I am using a Sailrite zig zag sewing machine which has been fantastic. Its a very solid portable (its heavy) machine with a walking foot that seems to be able to sew any thickness of canvass - if it fits under the foot it will sew it!!  My sail loft at the moment is a conservatory of around 100 square foot and the sail is 320 square foot!  I bought the Dacron sail cloth off ebay for 150pounds. good value -   I have finished the main sail and am close to finishing the fore sail so we should be test sailing towards the end of the week....

I have also been making the battens and yards from some nice Ash. getting close.....

Kind of sailing

 So we could not resist . I have not quite finished here proper junk sails so we thought we would try an old spinnaker from Maureen (our old boat). We raised it up on the main halyard to the top of the fore mast and let it fly - and we did. We had a fantastic cruise down the loch at 5 knots (relatively small spinnaker and towing heavy tender) in a F3/4. we were even able to reach across the wind with the sail flying on the port side and were very surprised at how stiff and steady the boat feels as it was quite a pull. also what was amazing was how little the masts deflected (look at main mast compared to the loaded foremast in photo).

I am back to finishing the the junk sails so more soon........

Doryman

Just woke up to find a lovely post by doryman on his fabulous blog here:  http://dory-man.blogspot.co.uk/  (not sure how to make clicky link) theres even a short movie.
cheers Doryman and thanks to chris perkins too of his great pics...
We are just off to put a few hours on the engine around the local islands. fingers crossed.

Shes a floater....

what a week i'm off to bed...
more when i wake

progress film

As I have been very slow at updating this blog I thought I would Make a movie to show progress. The Sailing season is just starting here in Ullapool with a few local boats goiing in this weekend. So not long to go......

At long last I have finished the masts, and have one coat of primer - Heres a picture of me electric plane-ing them into the round. This made my arm ache after a few days!