Well firstly I would like to say sorry for the big gap in my posts.
I had to return home to AUS because my Grandma was unwell. I got home in time to see her before she past away. She will be dearly missed, and always remembered. I love you NANA. I stayed on for four or so months as a very good friend was getting married.
I have been back in the UK now for five weeks and have been very busy working on other boats.
The next announcement to make is that, I will now be starting my circumnavigation of the UK early next year. About March 2015, So that will be seven years since rescuing Valmik from the bonfire. I am not sure if time has gone quickly or slowly, but I am pretty sure it has gone:-) I have learnt so much over the years and could bore all of you by talking about it again, If I haven't already! But I wont, instead how about an exciting sailing adventure story with some mishap? Yes That is what you all want to hear. What this blog is meant for!
Well Valmik looked Great when I returned to check on her after four cold months (Nice and warm for me though). Those old mushroom vents were working very well (My special thanks to the guy who sold me one for £2 not knowing what it was, cheers) and there was not a spot of mold anywhere. The best thing is, that I was returning to a boat that was ready to go for a sail. That beautiful old seagull outboard started on the second pull and with small supplies and three crew we were off for a short sail. It was my first sail on Valmik for this year and everything worked really well. We were not planning on going far, just playing about with the boat, relaxing and enjoying the water. Everyone on board was happy to sit back and enjoy the lovely day and let me do all the sailing. I decided to test my sailing skills through close maneuvering around a line of buoys. I did quite a few figure of eights around them with a fast ebbing tide. I was a little bit sloppy getting the sheets sorted out in the quick short tacks to begin with. And my tidal offset judgment needed quick improvement as the poor old dingy, still lashed to the starboard quarter, started riding up over the buoys as I cut it far too close, twice. Wind was quite light about 12 knots and I was once again very impressed with Valmik's ability to hold her course on all points of sailing in these light conditions. Lashing the tiller but not really even needing too, she can be left for quite a while, I can not wait to test how much she strays off course on longer runs. This will all be a different story once the wind started picking up I am sure.
Anyway so we are all quite relaxed, I am steering us straight at this little island that is not too far away. I was thinking about tacking very shortly, and asked my crew to please move slightly out of the way so I could see the depth sounder, but it was too late I felt her ride up on a hard patch of mud and heel over a little instantly. With a tide fast falling there was little we could do to get her off. I had fouled on Fowley island! I rowed out two anchors but could not budge her. My last option was a line lead from an anchor in deep water up into the rigging and down to a winch. She would heel over and be pulled out at the same time. I chose not to adopt this method and my crew were not too keen on it either. So we went about setting her up for the boat to go over on her side and rest on fenders. Not like last time I went aground in soft mud and kept her safely upright. As we started heeling over the top planks started getting wet and because they had dried out a bit they started letting water in. We pumped and bailed this out as it came in. I re routed one of my big manual bilge pumps to the side of the hull as this was fast becoming the lowest point and where the water was gathering. We then had time to relax although at a slight angle. And I repositioned the two anchors to get better use of them before the tide came up.
I will now write a little bit from my diary about how I was feeling at this point.
Diary
"I started to feel upset and disappointed with myself for not being more vigilant and tacking earlier. It is hard to describe how I felt, but a little like this. A sort of adrenalin low mixed with a slight amount of dread and consciousness of one's own failure, with an uneasiness feeling about the near future."
We were safe for a while and we all managed to get some rest. And we got a nice hot meal, luckily my gimbaled stove goes over to 45 degrees. I was a little worried about the amount of water that came in, and hoped that when Valmik rested on her side that the planking would not shift too much and create more water ingress when the tide came up again. There were a few rocks about, as you can see above, but the hull looked all good. I called the coast guard to inform them of our position in case we needed assistance with some more pumps. I told them I was confident we would be all good and they decided to sent out a boat just to make sure. As a friend likes to say :-o "better safe than soggy".
Now here is a funny little technical bit,
One of my crew asked me if I had wooden plugs for my skin fittings during the action. I have seven skinfittings in total, two sea-cocks which close and open for the self draining cockpit and one for the depth sounder. These are all not a problem for water ingress, unless they are damaged on the inside. But he was talking about water siphoning in. I also have two skin fittings for the manual pumps which do not have closing valves, but that do have diaphragms which stop the water coming in. So these are also not a problem. One of my 12 volt electric pumps has a ball valve attached to the skin fitting the other does not. A ball valve is like a manual tap which you can turn on and off. In the very early stages of the restoration I fitted a non return valve on my then, one and only, electric pump. This created problems for the electric pump to push water out past the air in the hose and I removed it and probably thought the ball valve would suffice. I then fitted a bigger electric pump much later without a ball valve. So when Valmik heeled over and these two skin fittings (one on either side) went under water they started filling the boat with water. One was on a float switch which would of pumped it out when it filled. Essentially working hard to pump out the water it let in. I do not know how this problem escaped me but am sort of glad we had all of these drama's to show up the fault. So when my crew asked me this question I told him not to worry.
Well it is funny how we can get stuck in our ways of thinking sometimes. For some reason I didn't think it possible for water to get in through there, or more to the point, did not think! I thank you now Pete although I did not before. I ended up finding this problem by myself anyway, after stupidly disregarding and failing to see my crews point and the bigger picture. I decided to improve on my bigger pump's position about 30mins before the water drew nearer. It had a fixed location at a higher point in the bilge which I wanted to change. I also wanted to give it the freedom to roam to either side of the hull in case of future similar episodes which will try to be avoided. First thing I did was remove the hose from the pump. And what did I find in the pump to make me feel like an idiot. Click here to find out Ha ha,It could have only come in from one way. And I am lucky we went down right one top of it as there would of been no other evidence otherwise.
Now I knew my two electric pumps both let water into my boat when heeled over. I drew an image a week later and literally kicked myself after I had illustrated it.
Back to the story, and I am afraid the exciting parts are over but a funny one to come.
Well I felt like a down right Fool, Obviously, And the life boat was on the way to check on us. When the water reached us and rose up I did not expect any water to come in, and not much did at all. Well the life boat was nearing us now and they were just coming to check we were all right. We could of had structural damage after all, and they would of been 30 mins away after calling them again. So as they were getting closer and the bilge was not filling, I was filling. Filling with the sense that I have wasted their time. Filling, I suggested to my crew that we chuck a couple of buckets of water into the boat. They did not see the funny side! I was joking of course. Well that the funny part! and Yes it Was quite funny even if I say so.
After the life boat saw that we were not sinking, we had our anchors out ready and we had half a brain they left, with our thanks for being there just in case. We got lifted off the hard mud by the tide as expected and then the wind and tide managed to pin us against our own anchor line. It was really weird! The anchor line left the bow went down along the hull on the down tide and leeward side of Valmik and was quite happy to stay there. We were anchored from the bow but at the stern. With a good suggestion from Terry we just spun her around using the outboard then motored back in to our mooring in the dark. It was a little bit hairy but educational going up a thin creek at night. We escaped with only a minor cut to Kate's finger whilst cooking.
I will try to put up a funny little video on face book shortly. Yes it is Funny! follow the link
Thats all folks boats.
