First of the storms arrives....

Well Despite the unseasonably warm weather for January, we are now being battered by the first real storms of the winter. The link below is to a light ship about 30 miles south of our berth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/buoy/index.shtml?co_channelbuoy#results

as you can see that it is getting maximum gusts of 64 knots (that's force 12, or hurricane force!) however so far on board we are only sustaining gusts of 45 to 50 knots, which is force Ten or Storm force winds.

I was up once last night as a particularly violent squall passed overhead, just to ensure everything was ok. Ah the delights of shipboard life. Wouldn't change it for anything! I've also included a picture of what our home port (Brighton Marina) looks like in a force ten. The top of the wave is about 150 ft higher than sea level! Certainly wouldn't want to be trying to make the entrance in that!



Now that I've done the very British thing and discussed the weather what else has been happening...

Nichola (aka Admiral Thompson, aka Dive Officer, aka Navigator) has been busy beginning the process of making our new spray dodgers which will run from the lifelines gate amidships to the next stanchion aft and should help keep cross seas out of the cockpit whilst hopefully not ruining too much forward visibility. She's done a great job so far.

This weekend is our annual trip to the London boat show so we only have one weekend day for jobs. Sunday, I will finish off the installation of our cockpit waterproof locker which covers the hole which the old engine instruments had created, and install our shiny new mast pulpits (granny bars) weather permitting (it is always nerve wracking drilling holes in the deck, I think I'll be measuring at least 5 times!) I'll post photos of both jobs on our refit section.

Nichola I assume will continue with her dodger manufacture, including pinching a few ideas from my old boat Galago (yes I still miss her) which is up for sale in our marina again. I am sooooooo tempted... but I shall resist! These ideas include line pockets inboard on the dodgers which helps keep furling lines and unused sheets nicely out of the way and shipshape.

The next big project is for us to completely redo the plumbing and sterilise and clean all the water tanks including new fill hoses (a pig of a job). Then install new taps and showers in the fore and aft heads as well as new kitchen taps. This should eliminate our leaking problems and will let us install our water flow meter to properly measure the volumes of each of our tanks and monitor our usage. We will also install a manual fresh water pump and salt water pump at the kitchen sink.

All that will be left on the water front to do is to install the water maker, which we won't use until in the Caribbean probably some time in 2012/2013 (gosh!)

A smaller job is to order the iroko (similar but cheaper than teak) for our jerry can lashing boards (two aft, and two amidships) and new windlass mounting block.

I'm intending to carry 120 litres of diesel fuel on deck (6 twenty litre cans) which will be lashed three either side by the shrouds amidships). This will give us 520 litres total, or 175 hours motoring at about 5 or 6 knts so giving us either 3 to 4 months at anchor for charging, or a range of about 1000 miles.

The other lashing boards are for two 20 litre water jerry cans for emergency and two dinghy fuel tanks at 25 litres and one 20 pound spare aluminium gas bottle, and one 20 litre petrol jerry can. So to recap I'll store 120 litres of diesel, 70 litres of petrol, forty litres of water, and one spare gas cylinder on deck. I think with our other fuel tanks, our water maker and our alternate energy sources we 'should' be capable of being completely self sufficient for 6 months at a time. We'll probably carry enough frozen, canned and dried foods for a year to 18 months at a time for the two of us. All in all apart from diesel and propane for cooking we'll be pretty much independent. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.

Well I've rambled long enough for now.

Skip C going clear