The Grand Shaft

In the wooded hills above Dover on its western flank are major and what were once, virtually impregnable military structures. The "Redoubts" were used to house troops to defend the port against French invaders.

Nestling amongst the Redoubts is the extraordinary "Grand Shaft". The shaft extends down to the port below and is surrounded by 3 spiral staircases to facilitate the swift dispatch of the British troops from the Redoubts on the hill, to port where they could then harrass the French invaders.

We discovered these fascinating structures on a rain drenched walk to the "Western Heights" earlier today.

The marina where Bonny is parked is just to the right of centre in the photo above.

Our walk took place after a very good and very late all day breakfast and a visit to the Dover Museum where we marveled at their principle exhibit - a Bronze Age boat recovered from a building site in Dover town centre in the 1990s. Apparently, at around 3000 years old it's the oldest boat in the world - even older than Bonny :)!

That's the boat in the museum. Below is a half scale 'replica' of what it is thought to have looked like (minus the red life jackets) when in use.

On our return the weather had improved and it was time to take some photos of Bonny and the crew...

Andy's missing from the above photos because he has to be home by Thursday.

We have an OKish weather window over the next few days and so we depart for Eastbourne early tomorrow morning and then intend to leave there for Plymouth on Friday and hope to get there by Sunday.

All the way to Dover

That's Basty preparing the G&T in celebration of our arrival in Dover - such a long passage - must have been at least 15 miles!

Earlier, Andy arrived in Ramsgate at about 1330 but Bonny was still pinned to the pontoon by a strong westerly wind. He only had a three days and I was getting worried that he might have to spend them all in Dover. Thankfully by 1500, the wind had moderated sufficiently to allow us to coax Bonny down to the end of the pontoon. From there, I reasoned that despite the risk of maiming some, or indeed all of the crew, we should escape close scrutiny by the Marina authorities.

Whether we did or not I'm not sure, but to my great relief and not inconsiderable surprise, we managed to extricate ourselves without damaging anything or anyone and headed out to sea. 

We then enjoyed a beat down to the South Foreland, sometimes in brisk winds. By aroumd 1900 with Dover 6 miles off our beam, the wind died and so we motored the last hour or so into Dover. 

Once inside, and under the watchful eyes of Dover Port Contry, we motored towards the new western marina. 10 minutes in, the skipper became so disorientated that we passed an East Cardinal buoy  to the West (rather than to the East which is what we should have done) causing Port Control to call us up to warn we were heading for shallow water! 

We eventually made it to the marina without mishap. Our plan to eat ashore was scuppered by torrential rain so Mick cooked up an excellent meal and a thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all.

A windy day in Ramsgate

Basty arrived around 1330, just in time to witness another round of stowage rationalisation on board the good ship Bonny, because, sure enough and as forecast it was very windy and we weren't going anywhere. 

Well that's not strictly true. We did move backwards, sideways and forwards over the course of about half an hour in the area between the long pontoon we were moored to and other pontoons opposite which created a fairway about 60 metres long and 15 metres wide. 

We had decided we would move further into the marina in an attempt to get out of the swell. The trouble was the strong wind was pinning us so hard  against the pontoon that the usual tactic of "springing off" (reversing with a line from the stern running forward to the pontoon in order to pull the stern in and therefore the bow out) was completely ineffective. Thankfully I gave up trying just in time to avoid running full tilt into the boat in front. Next I tried to reverse off the pontoon. That worked but there was just not enough room to get up enough speed to turn the boat across the wind and all I managed to do was to hold her more or less stationary across the fairway with the wind blowing from behind.

It quickly became apparent that we had little choice but to go back from whence we came. I did so by driving the bow slowly against the pontoon enabling Mick to somehow get 'ashore' and prevent serious damage as the bow then scraped alongside the pontoon. With our downeind progress halted the rest of the boat was then blown slongside the pontoon!

A couple of hours later this boat 

came charging in to moor up opposite us. One mistake would have spelt disaster for them and us! However, the young woman skipper with a sail training crew of four men handled the situation perfectly. She stopped the boat on a sixpence parallel to the pontoon and two crew immediately jumped 'ashore' to attach lines to the pontoon fore and aft. Within seconds the lines were secured and just as well, because they were immediately bar tight as the  wind did it's best to blow what was probably 7 tons of boat directly on to us.  It probably took the crew 15 minutes to manouvre their boat back the 2 or so metres the boat had been blown off whilst the crew attached the lines.

All in all a very impressive performance. I just hope no one was watching my earlier shinanigins!

In the Begining..

                 The Mate in repose!

... we didn't get up early enough and by the time we had got up, showered, done the shopping, had breakfast, turned the boat round (the boat being in Chatham Maritime Marine) to facilitate fitting the ' 'new' hydrovane rudder, it was 1300 and to make the most of the tides, we should have left at 1100! We eventually locked out at 1330. The upshot was that by 1830 when we should have been rounding North Foreland with the last of the fair ebb tide, we still had some 2-3 hours to go and were punching the foul flood tide. Fortunately, the convergence of the North Sea and Channel tidal streams around the Foreland mean that even late comers like us, still had a couple of hours of South flowing current to enjoy after low water.

I should have said earlier, that on Sharon's suggesion,  I had taken the boat into Chatham Marina on Saturday in order to facilitate the stowing of gear and stores. Charles drove down to Hoo with me and then drove my car round to Chatham where I later met up with Mick, whom Sharon and Vince had driven down. Sailing pal Tony, came down too and finished off a wood work job in the cockpit that he'd started last year. He also brouht a most welcome present of home made cake.

Then it was time to say my goodbyes to Sharon and Vince, following which Mick and I spent the next few hours re+organising the stowage so that we could squeeze the new stores in.

We finally finished around 8 pm and legged it round to the pub for a pint and a fish and chip supper. Sailing pal, Howard with his partner Victoria and his two kids Ewan ans Elsa joined us there for a very convivial evening. Maybe that's why we were rather slow to get going the following day!

With the wind behind us, the sail to Ramsgate was most enjoyable, until, after rounding NorthForeland we had to head South West directly into the blustery wind. We motored for the last hour and once in hot footed it ashore in search of a curry. Which to our great relief we found. It was very good too.

Unfortunately, tomorrow's weather looks rather grim and so we will stay put. Andy has decided not to travel down tomorrow but Basty will. At present, the outlook for Tuesday gives some reason for optimism. I just knew the long spell of easterlies would end when we started our passage west!

Countdown to departure and other snippets

You may be wondering why this shot figures in a sailing blog. Well it's to demonstrate the other challenge I have to address before casting off. The back garden is something of an unruly jungle thanks to me spending so much time prepping the boat but also due to years of neglect. Somehow, I just never noticed all the little trees and bushes were growing until... I must now belatedly dispatch the worst offenders before departure otherwise the jungle will have completely taken over by the time I get back. By the way, that's my eldest son Charles not me! I don't mind climbing masts but I draw the line at swinging a chainsaw around 20 feet up a bloody fir tree. 

That mission was a success by the way....

I tackled some more today but had to retreat to bed with a nasty upset tummy. I'll leave the details to your imagination, except to say it is worse 🤣.

Anyway what else is there to report? Well if you've read my post of 28th February which went on and on about the now cancelled cruise to the South Atlantic, you will have read about my plumbing problems. Well, they took a turn for the worst last week and because the NHS unsurprisingly cancelled my Urology appointment, I now have to go private! I just hope expensive investigations and  radical intervention can be avoided. The charming and very young GP I saw on Monday gave me cause to hope that additional meds will keep me going.

Back to sailing matters. Departure from the Medway (the state of the job list, the weather and the prostate, allowing) is set for 1st/2nd July for a shakedown cruise to Plymouth/Falmouth, then hopefully all being well, we'll depart for Madeira. We're avoiding mainland Spain and Portugal because of the still on-going Orca incidents. Bonny's keel hung rudder is probably less attractive to Orcas than modern designs, but I don't want to risk it. Also the Hydrovane rudder will be extremely vulnerable to the attentions of those inquisitive creatures.

Our itinerary has been updated too. I really was very disappointed to can the South Atlantic objective. It was after all something of a consolation prize for forgoing a full circumnavigation. Therefore when Mick mentioned the possibility of heading for Canada after the Carribean I thought it a brilliant idea. It will add a completely different dimension to the venture. 

Lots of challenges to be sure, including finding the right time to head north so as to avoid hurricanes and the worst of the North American Spring storms. Too early means a greater likelihood of those, too late a greater risk of hurricanes. 

Then there's the Gulf Stream to manage. It can provide a fast track northwards from the Florida Straights as I discovered on Arctic Smoke in 2017 - we clocked 10 knots over the bottom on occasions en route to the Bahamas! However, it's a deadly fast track in strong, or even moderate northerly winds. The wind against the tide creates a very nasty confused sea - I suspect, a bit like the Portland Race on steriods and of course the area covered is vast. 

Today's marine weather forecasts provide a lot of information on ocean currents as well as the weather but of course one needs an internet connection to access them. 

To that end I've bought a clever little gizmo that, when connected to a satphone can provide a connection just about adequate for downloading graphical weather and current information. 

Of course that will eat up the £s and so the Satphone will only be used when essential. We certainly won't be able to afford to ring home every day!

In addition to the Satphone, Gizmo and weather forecasts, another much more basic piece of kit will be needed. A thermometer! Why? Well, if you recall your school Geography - you'll remember that the UK weather is so mild because it's bathed in the remnents of the warm Gulf Stream. So if we want to check whether we've escaped the Stream's warm embrace we just need to measure the sea temperature!

The jobs are slowly getting ticked off the list. Many of these have been electrical or related and Mick's expertise have been invaluable.

One, still to be done is to replace the cabling to the steaming/mast head light.

The existing cables that run up the mast to this, are domestic flex - not ideal on a boat especially when at the base of the mast one of the cable had clearly suffered an accident and had been rejoined with a normal terminal block and had been left totally unprotected. Its amazing that it survived the passage back from the Azores in 2021.

I was sure I had a replacement light fitting on the boat but I couldn't find it. Then I tackled the shed....

 .... and low and behold....

It was in the deepest darkest hole and had clearly never been any where near Bonny. It must have been Arctic Smoke's recesses I was thinking of.

Working on a boat on a mooring on the River Medway, rather than sailing one, has its compensations....

The 2023 Medway Barge Match gets underway.

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Another change of plan

Since my previous post, I have received feedback from sailing sources, and others who have visited South Africa in recent months and have heard and read various news reports on the continuing deterioration of the social and political situation in South Africa. 

Less news worthy, but no less concerning is the level of crime and social unrest in Brazil. I've been a member of a WhatsApp group focused on encouraging sailors to visit that country and its clear that plenty are doing so. However, it was after reading a post on the group that sought to reassure potential members of a planned sailing rally, that all would be well, thanks to a strong armed police presence, that I decided Brazil was also not the place for me.

Of course plenty of travellers of all types have visited strife ridden countries and have survived to tell the tale and many have considered their experiences worthwhile and of benefit to the local communties they have engaged with. 

It is also true that nowhere is without risk and that goes for my fallback destination - the islands of the Southern Caribbean. But everyone has to draw their own line.

The plan is still to head off in June/July this year once the boat is ready. We may visit Ireland first. 

A Mischievous plan, teeth, skin, tubes and other bits and bobs

A VERY rough indication of our intended 2023/24 route around the North and South Atlantic Oceans

For a number of years now, I've been contemplating a circumnavigation. Indeed that's why I bought Bonny in 2021 in the first place. Like many before me however, my plans have encountered headwinds and choppy waters. Changing family circumstances, some very welcome like a continuing supply of new grandchildren, but others less so, such as health issues affecting family members and the impact of the cost of living crisis, have required a scaling back of that ambition. 

I've therefore been looking for a voyage that I could complete in around 12 months, that would provide a sense of achievement if completed, but would also provide sufficient 'down time' to enjoy some 'sights' along the way.

Having previously completed a North Atlantic circuit (2015-17), I wanted to do something a little different this time and so started considering whether a trip into the South Atlantic and back might be feasible. 

A view of Jamestown, St Helena and its anchorage.

I'd read various accounts of visits to St Helena and Ascension.The relative isolation of these islands in the middle of the South Atlantic provides a significant enticement for me and of course, the opportunity to "cross the line" for the first time adds further spice to the proposed adventure. 

St Helena and Ascension Islands

Most sailing visitors arrive at St Helena from Cape Town during the Southern Hemisphere's late summer, hoping to ride the South East Trade Winds as far north as possible before tackling the doldrums straddling the equator. 

Ascension

That's a lot of miles to cover though, including those through the calms and squalls of the doldrums and its important to be in the right place at the right time to benefit from the prevailing weather systems and to lessen the risk of being clobbered by bad weather. Arrival at and departure from Cape Town in favourable conditions, are the most critical of considerations.  Approaching Cape Town from the South West in the Southern Summer and clearing out from there before the onset of Autumn when gales become increasingly frequent and more intense, are therefore, the key passage making objectives. To give us time to explore the Cape Town area we need to arrive as early as possible in January, or even earlier, before departing for St Helena by the end of March.

Working backwards and forwards from Cape Town's location and time window and taking into account, the seasons, general weather patterns, the inevitable delays due to boat maintenance and the time needed to explore Brazil (a little), I thought the proposed cruise looked viable, if a little on the busy side!

It seemed sensible to find out how others had fared, but after searching through the archives of the Ocean Cruising Club and the Royal Cruising Club, I couldn't find a single account of anyone undertaking such a passage. I also posted a question on the Ocean Cruising Club members forum, asking if anyone had done it, but got no response.

Surely someone must have done it by now!? Then I remembered; some years ago, I had read accounts of similar voyages undertaken by the irrepressible Bill (H.W.) Tillman back in the 1960s. The accounts are written by Tillman himself and make extremely enjoyable reading. Amongst his numerous journeys of remarkable exploration to the top and bottom of the globe, in search of isolated mountains to climb, he made two voyages that included circuits of the North and South Atlantic in 'Mischief' his venerable Bristol Pilot Cutter. One was to Kerguelen Island in the South Indian Ocean and the other to South Shetland just north of the Antarctic continent deep in the South Atlantic Ocean. On both occasions, he got to those inhospitable locations and back to the UK in around 12 months. Admittedly, he didn't dally to admire the scenery on the way - he made only short stops to re-provision in the Canaries and Cape Town on the first trip and at the Canaries and Montevideo, Uruguay, on the second. However, he did spend a lot of time venturing much further south than I intend and a lot of time climbing mountains!

Following further research I came across the very informative and helpful "The South Atlantic Circuit" by Tom Morgan. Taken together with Tillman's voyage blazing, the book convinced me the voyage was doable, potentially very enjoyable and certainly well worth attempting. Getting to Brazil early enough in the season to provide sufficient time to get through the later passage gates whilst enjoying sufficient 'down time' is the key milestone on which the rest of the circuit depended. It will require departing the Canaries early in the season when the North East Trades are less reliable, but plenty of people have done that before. However, if we do fail to make Brazil in good time, we can fall back on plan B and return to the UK from there via the Caribbean.

So the die is cast. We'll (attempt) to follow in (some of) Mischief's wake and undertake a circuit of the North and South Atlantic commencing this June. We'll head first for the Canaries, then cross to Brazil and spend a couple of months there, before crossing the South Atlantic to Cape Town in December/January. The planned route for the return leg, is via St Helena, Ascension and the Azores; then back to the UK for the summer of 2024. 

In the meantime the skipper and boat both need significant works and preparations. 

Starting with the skipper. Recent visits to the Dentist and GP have revealed the need for remedial works. My teeth have never been one of my better features and of course, the march of time has not helped, having left me short of a few! I was only a boy when the first went missing without permission. It was a boating incident. Keen to demonstrate my usefulness to my Dad; when the 'trusty' seagull outboard expired, I stood up, put the dinghy painter in my mouth and dived into the water to tow the dinghy the remaining few yards to the boat. I surfaced with an odd sensation in my mouth and then noticed looks of horror etched on the faces of those still in the dinghy. Further boating activities were put on hold whilst I was whisked off to the local dentist short of one and a half pegs!

Genetics, an aversion to the tooth brush (in my younger years), gum disease diagnosed far too late, and the ravages of time conspired to require the capping of many of my pegs and the extraction of a further two. Then on Friday, I finally plucked up the wherewithal to visit the dentist to get the odd sensation in my upper jaw checked out. It turned out I had a sizeable abcess around the root of a capped tooth which was alongside a pretty ineffective broken tooth. The Dentist was most surprised that I wasn't in agony as a consequence, but said I could just leave it alone until it started playing up when it would have to come out. The prospect of that happening mid Atlantic made me opt for the other option of having the faulty pegs removed immediately and replaced with a plate containing two false teeth! They probably wont be the last I'll need! The deed will be done in a couple of weeks.

The previous day's visit to the GP to check out the flaky skin on the bridge of my nose confirmed the need for treatment to remove sun damaged skin before anything nasty developed. A simple cream applied twice a day for 4-6 weeks will apparently do the job. The down side being I'll be wandering around with a sore red nose whilst the cream does its job. However, rather that than develop full blown skin cancer in the South Atlantic!

A few months previously, having finally got fed up with my increasingly erratic personal plumbing; blood tests, and ultra sound and another visit to the GP, led to both anticipated and unanticipated results. My PSA test was negative for prostate cancer, but the ultrasound confirmed an enlarged prostate (which I had known about for years). The Doc said I had four options: do nothing and put up with the symptoms; start a lifetime course of tablets to mitigate the symptoms; go on hormone treatment to reduce the size of the prostate; or have a course of steam treatment! Yes that's right, steam treatment! I had to ask her to repeat herself a couple of times. Apparently, some sadist has come up with the notion that squirting steam up one's willy can reduce the size of one's prostate! Now I'm not particularly squeamish but I drew the line at that! I wasn't too keen on messing about with my hormones either given I strongly suspected the ones I had left weren't in much better condition than my teeth! As an after thought the good Doc said, ".. of course I could always refer you to a Urologist..". I said yest to the tablets and to the Urologist. I have an appointment with the latter in April. Provided that is, the poor old NHS can stump one up by then. I strongly suspect, he or she, will simply advise me to keep taking the tablets but we'll see.

The result I hadn't expected but which really should not have surprised me, was that I had significantly raised cholesterol levels. Despite my Dad dying of a heart attack at the ridiculously young age of 56 and despite previous test results showing raised cholesterol, I had convinced myself that all was well with my own ticker and was not taking any steps to minimise my cholesterol levels.

I've now reluctantly stopped consuming butter and am trying to limit my consumption of other animal fats and alcohol. I hope that will stop the rot but better get tested again before we set sail for the South Atlantic.

I'm also hoping that the various aches, pains and sore joints, that come and go these days, will not develop into anything too disabling during the planned cruise.

On a more pro-active note, after a long lay off due to injury, I've also returned to running three times a week with my youngest son. At 30, he is less than half my age but is patient enough to act as a good pace maker for his old man. Before the lay off I was able to run 5k at a 6 minute average pace with his help but am only averaging around 6:15 now. Perhaps by June I'll be able to make 6 minutes once again!

Celestial Navigation Homework

I also made a late New Year's Resolution to (re)learn celestial navigation. I managed to pass the Yacht Master Ocean theory course back in 2015, when, prior to pushing off on my previous Atlantic Circuit in Arctic Smoke, I fell in love with the idea of navigating properly. To my great shame, the lore of the GPS proved much to seductive and my shiny new sextant hardly left its box and it's stayed there ever since. At least it didn't get damaged. In the intervening years, I've forgotten everything I learnt on that course and only passed it because I managed to memorise (all to briefly) the various steps without ever really understanding them.

This time I have vowed it will be different. I have spent hours following this chap's Youtube tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu5R5mrrGB0 and more hours working through various examples. I've only focussed on the sun thus far and think I have almost got the hang of the basics. I've enjoyed spending the time to (try) and understand the theory this time and am hopeful that I will be able to put it into practice when we put to sea. You never know, if Putin's outrageous war on Ukraine get's even more out of hand, the Americans might start pulling the plug on GPS!

What about the boat? Well the list of potential improvements and repairs is too extensive to cover here but the main ones, in no particular order are:

Replace the lost Hydrovane rudder. The original fell off off Lands End in 2021 and the replacement I made for it last year broke off within a couple of hours. I then found a second hand one on ebay complete with a downtube and shaft for £300. 

Pictured above the "new" rudder with tube and shaft along with the now discarded skeleton of another 'to be made' rudder.

Unfortunately, the tube/shaft turned out to be incompatible with my ancient Hydrovane system and so my pal Bernie, who is  dab hand at these things, welded a new length of stainless steel rod onto the hinge (shown on top of the rudder skeleton in the above photo) onto which - thanks to a previous owner's modification - the lost rudder had been attached. 

I think this may have been undertaken with the aim of making the removal and attachment of the rudder easier. However, it had the opposite effect - it required either a dip into the water or a clamber into the dinghy to attach AND remove the rudder. At least the standard Hydrovane set-up enabled removal of the rudder from the boat.

The other end of the rod that Bernie welded onto the hinge will insert into the head of the rudder..

Looking down on the head of the new rudder

The rudder is then secure to the rod/shaft by a stainless steel pin that goes through the rudder and shaft...

Side view of the head of the rudder 

with hole through which the retaining pin is inserted.

The retaining pin - top left

It doesn't look a particularly robust arrangement does it? Others have thought the same and have tried to make it stronger by using a larger pin or by replacing the pin with a larger bolt, only to lose their rudders!

The new assembly is now on board awaiting 'passivation' to remove the microscopic welding debris that would otherwise rust and then a test sail will be required.

Installation of the  new Spectra water maker, bought last year, needs completing.

A new 12v water heater and shower needs installing (a commitment made to my youngest son in return for his generous contribution to my sailing kitty - he wants to be able to take a shower when on board).

To keep up with the extra power that will be consumed by the new appliances and the new fridge installed last year, I'd also like to install a fourth solar panel to add another 100 Watts of generation capacity to the existing 380 Watts.

I've already attached chainplates for the Jordan's Drogue (a sort of emergency brake for yachts) 

but need to finish the job by glassing the internal backing plates to the hull.

New attachment points for the spinnaker booms' halyards need to be riveted to the mast.

The deck fitting for the emergency forestay needs replacing with a stronger one.

The sacrificial strip on the Genoa as well as its leach line, needs replacing.

The life-raft needs servicing or replacing as do the fire extinguishers. 

The bottom will need scrubbing off and I want to swap the existing 3 bladed propellor for a two bladed one to reduce the drag whilst sailing.

The engine's heat exchanger needs cleaning.

Some of the seams in the rather worn teak deck need caulking.

Various additional bits of running rigging and related pulley blocks and deck fittings are need to be purchased and fitted.

A host of other, relatively minor maintenance tasks are also required.

Well that's it for now. Hopefully, my next post will confirm good progress has been made on all appropriate fronts and that we're still on for departure in June. 

Sorry about the lack of photos!