I’ve had an opportunity to sail Onawind Blue with her new rig on all points of sail but in very light airs. I couldn’t get her to sail herself efficiently in these conditions but going so slowly it hardly matters. I’m very pleased with OB as a yawl and with the smaller rudder, though I now think that my issues with the previous rudder may well have been solved (to a degree) by a balanced yawl rig. She’s still short of sailcloth but maybe that’s a good thing given the gung-ho situations she gets herself into.
After last week’s successful and immensely enjoyable cruise to Tamarit and back I’ve come down with an intense bout of daydreaming. Blissing out on the anticipation of adventures to come my plans take me all over the western Med. And while food burns in the pan as I stir it, I merely smell the dying embers of a beach campfire, lie back and let my eyes drift across the heavens. At this stage my family has to pick me up off the floor and rescue lunch, while I explain that I’m fine, absolutely fine, just thinking…you know…‘bout my boat.
Here is a short video of Onawind Blue leaving Tamarit cove last week.
As so often happens in films and photos, the sea doesn’t look quite as large as it seemed to me from in the thick of it. My experience of rowing out that morning was almost certainly intensified by worries about how the sea would develop over the day and how I would manage the journey home.
The unsightly fenders tailing behind are used to move the boat on the beach. Were I to pause to stow them before I started to row I’d quickly find the waves pushing me up against the beach and flooding the boat. Towing the fenders also thoroughly de-sands them.
I’m grateful to Pep for filming me, for getting right out there on the rocks to do it and for finding such a good angle. It’s good to see the castle coming in to shot as I forgot to get a photo of it myself.
The weather system that started on my journey back from Tamarit took a long week to develop and diffuse. Standing on the beach in the rain watching the wind and the waves I shivered to imagine Onawind Blue in the thick of it.
But anxious to learn more about handling OB in adverse conditions I took her surfing again when the sun finally reappeared. With conditions similar to those on our previous sortie I rowed out, taking a while to make myself comfortable in the aft rowing position. I find rowing from the forward thwart more comfortable, with decent legroom and at a beamier section of the boat I can stretch out and get a more efficient stroke. But for rowing in waves I wanted my weight further back, hopefully to slow the stern as it gathered pace on the wave.
As nobody could be duped into filming, my first run unfortunately went unrecorded. If every run were like that I would indeed be considered the dude on this beach. We avoided the bigger waves and I rowed hard to catch a smaller one. OB surfs easily on the right wave and with three strokes she was up, charging but stable. I stowed the oars and sat on the sternsheets facing forwards. The wave brought us right up the beach and I ran to the bows, hopped over and grabbed OB’s deadeye just as the wave receded. We were high on the beach and completely dry. I was amazed.
The second run was a total disaster. We started to surf, turned side on to the wave, went onto our beam ends, came upright half full of water and the next wave flooded over the stern leaving us brimful. I jumped out and used the force of the white water to try and beach her, but she was too heavy and the backwash dragged her into the sea. I dug my heels in.
A man stopped to help and after a long struggle we pulled her out and drained her. I know what I should have done though. I should have let her go back into the sea and then walked her over to a buoy, baled her from there and then come back into the beach dry, for another attempt.
Back in the garden I took her off the trolley, which needed some repairs, and had a look at her bottom. I haven’t seen this part of her anatomy since the launch and wasn’t surprised to find a significant amount of wear. Scratches, rubbings and fading paint, but worst was the end of the skeg which has lost its epoxy fillet and taken a few bashes right on the plywood. Also achieved this week were a new pair of thole pins. Whittled from green olive and carrying no protection I wonder how long they’ll last. The epoxied oak pair that supported the oars on last week’s mammoth row now sport deep grooves where the rope has bitten in. I have repaired a couple of pins that broke but wouldn’t trust them to row with. From left to right, repaired, oak, olive and the raw material for the next ones.
The end of September loomed and my camping/cruising plans looked doomed. The cove, El Waikiki, would remain unexplored until next year. But despite the first signs of resignation I maintained, as always, an interested eye on the weather forecasts.
The Mestral had returned. Boisterous as ever after its summer break, it brought flurries of leaves, a change of air temperature and left no doubt that autumn had arrived. And after the Mestral easterlies threatened with their big seas, low clouds and general malevolence towards small boats.
But there was a weather window. Between Friday lunchtime and Sunday morning south, south westerlies were on the cards. Perfect for cruising down the coast. But on Friday night friends were coming for dinner. I didn’t feel justified in postponing the engagement, though Lord knows I’ve scuppered enough family plans for the sake of windsurfing. I looked ruefully at the weather forecast and went back to finishing off the repairs in the workshop. Onawind Blue wouldn’t have been ready anyway so what was the point in getting flustered.
Friday lunchtime the Mestral breathed its last and a gentle on-shore breeze set up from the south right on cue. Then my friend called canceling dinner. I was free to go. The only problem was OB—the epoxy was under 24 hours old on the rudder and it still needed varnish. But what the hell, this was probably my last chance and, in a whirlwind state of mind, I prepared the boat and sorted out my gear.
I called my friend Pep, arranged to meet for the night at El Waikiki and dragged a loaded Onawind Blue down to the water’s edge at 5.30pm. It was late, only three hours of daylight left but the wind had gone more southerly and had strengthened. I pushed out into perfect conditions—I could get a tad offshore and then reach all the way there. Three hours should have been enough.
I hoisted the sails, anxious to play with OB’s new rig. I sheeted in the main as for a close reach, then adjusted the sheeting angle on the mizzen so that as the bows started to drop away to leeward the mizzen would fill and force them back up to weather. This worked well and the smaller rudder felt much lighter but did I even need to touch it? The boat was balanced but when I let go of the tiller the latent rudder movements interfered with the work of the sails and we came head to wind. I got back on track, tied the rudder off amidships and settled back to see what would happen. The bows paid off, the mizzen caught the wind, we turned to windward, then the mizzen lost power and the bows paid off again. Onawind Blue was sailing herself. I tweaked the sheeting angles of both sails so that she sailed in a straight line and sat back in the boat, ecstatic to be freed from the tiller.
I baled the water that we’d shipped while launching and tidied up. I knotted the end of the mizzen sheet to my life jacket, reckoning that if I fell out of the boat the mizzen would sheet-in and bring us head to wind, then I opened a celebratory beer. This was the life—my boat bowling along on automatic pilot while I sipped a cold one and admired the view.
But that wasn’t exactly the view that I expected to be admiring; I should have been looking at the coast but the sea spread before me. OB’s sails were trimmed to sail close-hauled. We seemed to be bearing away but we obviously weren’t. No, it was the wind that had shifted, moving west and coming foul.
Now it would be a long slog to windward. For a moment I thought about turning back but I felt committed, ready for adventure and prepared to revise my plans depending on the weather, but that didn’t include going home. I made myself snug in the bottom of the boat for the evening was cold and continued out to sea.
I went further offshore than I’ve ever been, far enough to raise Montserrat—a mountain to the northwest, 1200 metres high, 60 km inland and Mont Caro at 1500 metres high and 120km southwest. Then I tacked and came on course for El Waikiki. We had the lowering sun on our bows and an hour and a half of daylight. Punching over the waves I moved my cosy nest forward. My weight up front evened up the boat for working to windward or, perhaps more to the point, Onawind Blue rode more comfortably through the waves, slamming and jarring far less even if it did mean an occasional earful of water. I’d discovered another advantage of letting OB sail herself, when tied to the tiller I could never get far enough forward to trim the boat on a windward course. As night crept up from the east I reviewed my position. Still a long way off shore—too far to reach anywhere before darkness I scrapped the El Waikiki plan (the easing wind put it at least an hour an a half away) and looked at the nearest port, its entrance lights winking invitingly half an hour downwind.
While I lowered the mainsail and lashed a light to the peak I thought about going to the port. I’ve had minimal dealings with the one of the harbour officals and consider him a first class prat—when I’d asked him where I could moor OB should I happen to come in to spend money in the restaurants or chandlers he told me that I wouldn’t be allowed access without ‘mechanical propulsion’. I railed at this seemingly ridiculous response and the abyss between two people worlds apart became glaringly apparent—I’d have to be in a real fix before I pulled in there. I hoisted the sail and looked west. There, 45º off my starboard bow shone my old friend and landmark Tamarit castle gleaming under spotlights. I adjusted my course and made for it.
Night crowded around us and I looked up at our diminutive light drawing tight ovals on the starry sky. The first slice of moon rose behind us, unrecognizable in a deep red guise. I blurted, ‘What the hell is that?’ before reason gained a footing and the moon rose higher revealing its curves and flecking the inky water, that slapped and gurgled down OB’s sides, with orange. This was beauty, all the more piercing for being threaded with cold and fear.
I turned my gaze to our destination. Landing in the dark wouldn’t be easy, I’d never landed at Tamarit before but I’ve been to the little beach by land and looked at it from the sea on two occasions. The cove is small but protected from the southwest by a rocky outcrop surrounded by large flat rocks just below the surface. The water is deep by the rocks and gets shallower towards the castle on the other side. Well at least that was the score when I was last there. With sands shifting all the time I could expect anything.
I called Pep and told him I was making for Tamarit but would wait offshore for him. When I saw his torchlight on the beach I would head in and he could help land OB—she was noticeably heavier with my gear aboard and if the beach was steep or I got a wave over the stern it would be a challenge to get her high and dry single-handed.
Remembering a buoy just off the rocks I picked a point in the night and headed towards it giving the odd pull on the oars to help us on the dying breeze. Soon I could hear the waves and make out the rocks by the light from the illuminated castle. As I came closer I nervously scanned the black water for the buoy. Too close to the rocks for comfort I was about to turn around when it appeared right on the bow. I had a rope prepared and fumbled to drop a bight over the buoy as it bumped down our starboard side and fell astern. I sheeted in the mizzen and rowed us round on to the other tack then tried again. I eventually lassoed the buoy on my fifth attempt feeling not a little exasperated with my clumsiness. Seeing no light on the beach I stowed the sails and prepared the boat for landing.
A light flashed by the rocks, I flashed back, (this was straight out of Arthur Ransome) untied and then rowed in, keeping to the deep channel. Pep met me at the water’s edge and we pulled OB ashore then put her on the fenders and rolled her to the back of the cove by a little cave that would form part of our shelter, elation apparent in my speech and in my every movement.
Under an improvised boat tent we supped on Catalan pan con tomate, Spanish omelette, ham, cheese and red wine, then yarned over whisky and chocolate until too fuddled to get into our sleeping bags without bringing in heaps of sand. I slept comfortably but woke suddenly to the sound of thunder. It was 6am, dark and cloudy. I saw no lightning but heard the thunder again. And again. No, that wasn’t thunder, but waves—large ones bashing into the hollows under the rocks with such force that they shook the beach. And that other noise? Oh, that was the rain. I put my head under the pillow and tried to make my mind go blank.
But my mind, like a train on tracks, was reviewing the options. Waves like these came from the east, the fore runners of the weather expected for Sunday. The predicted weather pattern had jumped forwards 24 hours. There would be no sunny Saturday with southwesterly force threes. Tamarit is unprotected from the east and the pounding waves brought urgency to my thoughts. Could I leave the boat here until the easterlies passed? No, I couldn’t bear to. Maybe I could launch and, if the weather became adverse, slip into the port, then try and borrow a road trailer and a towing vehicle and get her home that way? No, that was too complicated for me.
I woke Pep; a large puddle accumulating in the tarpaulin above his head threatened him with a wet awakening. I asked if he could hear the thunder, he said yes, I said, ‘That’s the waves.’ He looked worried. The plan had been to sail back together but I excused him. He was far from easy about me setting off into dubious conditions and I must say that my stomach was behaving in a way that I associate with my youth—like when I was due for a beating from the headmaster. Bricking it, basically. We ate breakfast and talked through the options again but I was decided—if there was wind coming I wanted to get away long before it arrived. We tidied up, rolled OB to the water and then I set off into the green and white waves under a murky grey sky. Outside the waves I set the sails, the east wind was right on the nose and too light to make any headway. It was going to be a long row. I set off parallel to the coast keeping the wind slightly to port; this kept the sails full and to starboard giving me room to row. Every now and then a large lump of wave passed under us and the dip and splash of the oars was accompanied by the relentless surge and crash from the shore. I didn’t want to think about how I’d land when I got home—at this point it was still a question of if I got home. The sea became more difficult to handle as the beach gave way to cliffs and the waves were reflected back making a mess of jostling peaks. The wind started to rise and, although this may have been the harbinger of worse weather, at least Onawind Blue gained stability with the sails drawing and I could rest from rowing.
I was nearing the port again. I tried to persuade myself that it might be better to pull in there (I’d had phone calls updating the forecast—rain and thunderstorms but no confirmation of big constant winds) but I couldn’t justify it, especially as a healthy flock of Optimists hurried out, a flurry of sails flashing white over the green sea. I trimmed my main and mizzen and, rather than tying the tiller as I’d done the day before, simply raised the rudder out of the water. I found that I could tack very effectively by rowing round with one oar; I could also forereach and gain a little ground to windward.
I fell in with the Optimist fleet also hacking up wind and had a pleasant sail with them. The sailing instructor buzzed over to me in his RIB to ask what boat I was sailing—the yawl rig is a very unusually one out here, especially on a small boat. ‘What, no rudder?’ he shouted, ‘No, she’s balanced.’ I yelled back.
Leaving the Opi crowd behind I took a beat inshore. I failed to weather the port and had to come about again. We’d covered little ground in the past hour. Above the fading wind I could hear distant rumblings, which I immediately took to be waves, but coming from seaward they could only be thunder. As clouds thickened in the west I took up the oars again and aimed at the eye of the wind. Improvising lewd shanties I rowed hard and watched the weather.
The storm grew rapidly off my starboard quarter, a bruised sky shot through with veins of lightning hanging low over a poisonous green sea and a horizon flecked with white caps.
I’ve sailed in a Mediterranean thunderstorm before, in 42-foot aluminum blue-water cruiser, and the violence of that experience is branded on my memory. To turn back towards the port would be to turn towards the storm so, unable to out run it, I could only slog on and hope the storm would expend its wrath out at sea. I watched two sailing boats on the horizon disappear into the dark smudge and felt for them as the cloud fizzled with lightning. Then the wind dropped completely.
I didn’t want to waste time stowing the sails so sheeted out the main completely knowing the wind could suddenly spring from any direction. The storm was moving fast and passing to starboard. Relieved, I looked back at the port to find that it had disappeared.
A huge grey swathe had erased the western horizon, I could only watch as it raced up behind us with sickening inevitability.
The hail hit like a ton of freezing marbles. The sea, pounded flat by the downpour, boiled. The world closed in about us and noise blotted out thought. The hail turned to icy rain and intensified. It poured off the sails and into the boat, it beat on my face till I was forced to shut my eyes.
‘That’ll teach me to sing.’ I wryly mused. And then it passed.
I watched it go as I baled the boat. The storm had overtaken us and turned inland and the sea, subdued by its beating, rolled gently. Landing would be easier now than it had been all day and I pressed on for home arriving at my stretch of beach 45 minutes later.
I stowed the sails and rowed in judging the waves so as to let the bigger ones roll under us. Arriving at the beach I got one over the stern which half filled Onawind Blue. I had a long job pulling and baling the boat up the shore as successive waves tried to fill her. But I was on dry land; home in time for tea and smiling from ear to ear.
The Invisible Workshop was back out of the cupboard the other day and what a pleasure it was. The mess, the muddle, the umming and arring, the f-ing and blinding, the insolent whine of Bertie belt sander and the distinctive smell of epoxy. A few jobs done to my satisfaction and the day finished off with cold beer as I sat on OB’s bow.
It’s enough to make me want to start on another boatbuilding project. To put into practice all those skills acquired in the construction of Onawind Blue before lack of use dulls them.
And I know which boat I’d build now, given the chance. Given a decent indoor space, no wind, no rain, no neighbours and a constant temperature. Given the time and the money I’d build the Light Trow again.
I could do it justice now. I’d change a few things, I wouldn’t use cleats on the frames for example and I’d box in the centerboard case for more storage and buoyancy. But more than anything I’d just like to improve on general build quality. Like many aspects of life that really matter, building a boat isn’t so much about the finished article (though of course that is the goal) as about getting every aspect, every detail just right no matter how difficult or time consuming that may be. It is a mistake to see one job as less important than another simply because proportionally it adds little to the boat’s general advancement.
The next one will be much better.
Personal criticism aside, I have started on some pressing jobs. First the rig, which I’ve managed to complete by making a mizzen with the top half of an old windsurfing sail. The colours are lurid but the size is right. I asked a professional for a quote and he came back with a whacking 700 euros for two sails. So the possibility of having pristine white, professionally made sails drops back under the horizon. OB will still be slightly underpowered with her new rig but at least we’ll be able to play around with balance—I’m hoping she’ll sail herself. I’ve sawn off a chunk of rudder and reshaped the remaining blade; it now needs a couple of coats of epoxy and some varnish. I’ve made a new mastfoot adaptor (the hole in the mast step is too large for my present mast) and I’ve experimentally screwed some Perspex onto the oar supports to stop them wearing.
At last OB and I have the beach to ourselves. Gone are the suicidal bathers that swam in the navigation channel, gone are the sunbathers that would use Onawind blue as a convenient backrest or table for their drinks, gone are the children who found it such fun to fill the boat with sand. Alone at last we no longer have to respect the areas designated to bathers and can launch from where ever we like, sail close to the beach and anchor in shallow water.
Calm weather has followed a few days of persistent easterlies, which, at their peak, reached 25 knots and kicked up great rolling seas. (I went windsurfing on my wave board and skittered over waves so large and menacing that just their whitecaps would have rolled Onawind blue. My stomach dropped at the thought of ever being in a small boat in such a blow.) And in these calm conditions I’ve at last managed to get some OB shots that are close-up, clear and not forced into fuzziness by the straining zoom.
And despite the migration of summer crowds back to the cities, compliments continue to rain down upon us. And why not—just look at those lines!
Onawind blue and I were beam on to an unusually large green blue wave—just rearing up, when I heard a crack like a gunshot and the starboard oar came away from the boat, the broken thole pin still lashed to the shaft. I dug the port oar in hard and pedalled round like a bird with a broken wing.
The peaking wave caught us on the starboard bow. Onawind blue rose to it but she had little forward momentum and the wave pushed her backwards. Her stern caught and she started to slew to port, but I was in no mood to go over the falls and with three mighty, adrenaline fueled strokes to our single oar I manoeuvered her bows round and the wave passed under us.
I stowed the good oar, grabbed the one that had broken its pin and paddled, Indian style, flat out at the next wave. We climbed over it, her bows nosing at the sky before coming down with a crash.
‘What the hell am I doing?’ I asked myself as I paddled over to a buoy where I could tie on, bale out and take stock of the situation.
The day before I’d had a great sail, my father as crew. We’d sailed for a couple of hours on a deep blue sea in a brisk force three; long close reaches towards the horizon and back, ruefully mulling over the apparently insignificant details that change lives, carving our own mellow groove across the water. We’d tied up to a buoy while I brailed up the sail, unshipped the centreboard and tidied the boat in preparation for the row in to the shore—the gauntlet that OB and I run every time we come in from sailing in a decent breeze.
Sitting in the forward rowing position with my father on the aft thwart the boat was well trimmed as we came through the waves. I pulled hard on to the face of a small roller and we started to surf. I expected the wave eventually to pass under us but Onawind blue just kept forging on. As the wave began to steepen OB started to broach, I rowed madly, the situation moving so fast I barely knew what I was doing. And then, in the eerie quiet of disaster, we were on our beam-ends and going over. My old man fell out of the boat, along with the centerboard, a lifejacket and a beer can, disappearing with a fat splosh. I followed a second later; an oar loom catching between my legs on the way out but miraculously missing anything vital. I went under thinking that OB was coming down on top of me but the mast impeded her from turning turtle. We righted her in a flash. She came up half full of water and I towed her out to the nearest buoy and tied on. It would have been impossible to drag her up the beach so heavily laden. I climbed in to bale.
She was less stable with so much weight in her and water briefly gushed up through the centerboard case as I hauled myself in. She was steady enough though and stayed head to wind as I sat squarely on the sole and bucketed out the briny. When she was empty I climbed out and we accompanied her in to the beach, one on each side. On the sprint towards the sand I lost the old man again as he stood in a hole and fell beneath the waves but my priorities were such that I couldn’t stop to help him. He clambered up the shore, bedraggled but with a game smile as I pulled OB to safety.
Later that evening we discussed the physics involved in the capsize; water particles in the wave moving up and towards the shore, others moving towards the wave and OB in the middle her stern trying to overtake her bows and the conflicting forces conspiring to turn her sideways.
I felt that with intelligent use of the oars I should be able to control the boat while she surfed. I thought about what an old hand had told me: choose a day with waves and row in and out until you get it right. I agreed—it was an aspect of sailing Onawind blue that was worth getting down pat.
The next day saw very light onshore winds with a swell from the east and, retaining a few misgivings, I decided to give it a shot.
I would go out with no sail, centerboard or rudder. Just the oars, the bucket for baling, a length of rope for towing or tying on to buoys and a towel stuffed into the empty centerboard case. The boat would be light and uncluttered—just as well if I was going to capsize.
Getting out was easy, rowing straight at the waves and slowing as I went over them so as not crash down too heavily on the other side. It was once I was beyond the breakers that I started to worry. I rowed in circles trying to judge the moment to return but every time I started larger waves loomed and I’d lose my bottle and turn back out to sea. I really didn’t want to get mixed up with these rogues. If I were going to practice surfing then I’d do it on something smaller please. I turned back out to sea and then the thole pin snapped.
Everything’s relative and my father’s view from the beach, where he stood with the camera, showed nothing too dramatic; it simply looked as if I was piddling about with the oars. He wondered what I was doing as I dropped a bight of rope over a buoy, baled and began moving the oars to the forward position, where I had two brand new thole pins.
When Onawind blue was shipshape again I forced some saliva down my adrenaline dry throat and headed in. I let a couple of waves pass underneath and then rowed hard to keep well ahead of the next one. As it caught up with me I felt the boat starting to surf and dug the oars in to brake. OB slowed down and the wave passed. I rowed hard again and then, though still a short distance from the land but with a wave threatening to turn us, jumped ship and pulled her in.
It had all gone well, but did I have the cojones to do it again.
I probably wouldn’t have gone for a second run if there hadn’t been a well-disposed soul on the beach with a camera. It seemed worth it to get some footage. This time I also managed to avoid surfing anything too large but caught a little wave which brought me neatly in to the beach before dumping the bows into the sand.
I know that Gavin stipulated in the plans that the light Trow was designed for sheltered waters. Unfortunately my patch of Mediterranean, although sometimes very calm, could not be described as sheltered. But Onawind blue doesn’t seem to mind; actually she seems to have embraced all the conditions that have been thrown at her. It’s me that's been worried sick.
Here are a few short clips of the action, taken with my Nikon coolpix. The first one shows the first run in.
It has been so long since I posted that not only had I forgotten my blogger password but also, having eventually accessed the site I found the blogger interface totally unfamiliar. It has taken me two days to post but here at last is a long overdue update of our adventures.
My dream of a lazy summer sailing Onawind blue didn’t materialize and hot sticky days working in Barcelona had me in the no-sailing dumps. But with a long busy August drawing to a close I have at last managed to get some sailing done, albeit with the single sail.
The wind has generally been light, except for one memorable afternoon with 12-15 knots from the southwest. The sun has shone and the Mediterranean has sparkled as Onawind blue’s brave little bow has slid through the water.
The backlog of friends and family waiting for promised rides has been dealt with and none of OB’s guests has been dissatisfied—the aura of good vibes surrounding a homemade boat never failing to bring a smile to those who sail in her.
I’ve improved my launching and retrieving techniques to the extent where we now both enter and leave the water, if not with elegance, then at least without looking a complete mess. I’ve sailed back to the beach, rather than rowed, a couple of times which, with the rocks just below the surface, the narrow navigation channel, the suicidal bathers and the unannounced steep rogue waves rolling in from motor yachts’ wake is invariably a dry throated affair.
We haven’t done a capsize test due to lack of organization and now the cameraman has gone off to India to make a documentary, (you can follow his adventures at www.dosvelaspictures.com). Besides, with a small shark and a manta ray swimming on this stretch of the coast, it hasn’t been a summer for hanging about in the water. The shark, with a fishhook in its gullet and a harpoon wound in its dorsal fin, was eventually dragged from the sea near Tarragona while onlookers hurled insults, buckets, spades and flip-flops. The authorities took the fish to Barcelona aquarium where it died shortly afterwards. Poor sod. I had another long solo cruise to Tamarit on the windy day. With a strongish breeze I was glad that OB was under canvassed. She sailed beautifully on the 5 mile beat, having some grunt in the sail improves upwind performance and generally makes for a more immediate and decisive boat. Off Torredembarra marina I was hailed by an Argentinean in a Zodiac with the words, ‘Is that an Iain Oughtred design?’ I hove-to and we had a brief chat about small boat design and building then separated with me shouting, ‘Take a look at The Invisible Workshop.’ above the wind. Once round the marina we had a clear reach to Tamarit. I was now about a mile from a very pretty cove locally known as ‘El Waikiki’. Access isn’t easy from the land—a 15-minute walk through pinewoods keeps the crowds away and the beach is the perfect place to camp for the night. But it would have been a cold, hungry night for me with nothing more than swimming shorts and a damp tee-shirt to keep me warm, a couple of life jackets for bedding and nothing in the food locker except a few of litres of water. I tacked and loosened the sheet for the long run home resolving to try and organise a night’s camping at ‘El Waikiki’ before the end of September. I made it back to my launch spot after a four hour round trip.
Now that the holidaymakers are heading back to the cities the workshop will come back out of the cupboard and hopefully we’ll get some pressing jobs done.
The light scantlings that support the thole pins have been severely gnawed by the epoxy coated braiding on the oars. Lagging with sections of hose hasn’t proved an effective or pretty solution and something more permanent will have to be found. A split has appeared in the mast step, I think this was caused by leverage from the mast when we capsized. It will be awkward to put screws in the step so I hope that filling the split with epoxy will do. There’s also a thin split in the after end of the centerboard case—a result of the centerboard being slightly warped and me forcing it in and out of the slot. The board is much easier to insert now that the case has split so again I’ll fill it with epoxy rather than trying to close it up. I also need to address a few other signs of wear and tear; the skeg gets a severe sanding on the beach with every launch and really needs more protection than the large epoxy filet that I gave it. The anchor chain rubs on the gunnels and people and gear have added a few bruises here and there.
I still need to make a new rudder and yolk but most importantly I must get the sails made for the complete rig. I’m tossing up between getting them professionally built or buying a sewing machine and trying myself. Realistically I think it will be quicker to go to a pro while I get on with the spars.
I hope that when I do break out the workshop again, unlike with blogger, I will remember how to work with epoxy and use my tools.
Here are some pictures from the last month.
This photo from regatta day turned up. The two windsurfing rigs weren’t very satisfactory either practically or aesthetically. Here’s a lateen rigged boat seen sail in Barcelona’s large harbour. It’s a very attractive sail and in some distant future I might be tempted to build something along those lines, but please don’t tell the family! OB’s launch trolley. Rowing with my girl on a summer evening, mmm… what could be better?
