Bedding down for winter and the beginning of a new rig

Off to Balvicar at 08:30 last Thursday, to make sure that Vagabond was settled for the winter.  Arrived, hot and sweaty (the car, not me) about 9 hours later, to find Vagabond apparently quite happy under the tarpaulin.

Pottered about the following morning, replacing the piece of string that controlled the jib roller mechanism with one of a smaller size. Several times now, I had tried to furl the jib in strong winds, only to find that there were insufficient turns on the winch to fully furl the sail, despite the winch being "full" when the jib is flying. Replacing the furl line with a smaller size has let me load the winch with a couple more turns. Sods law suggests that the next thing that will happen will be that the furl line will break under the strain. It's bound to be during some critical event........

I waited for the post - the day I left for Scotland, Swallow Boats had dispatched to me, c/o the boatyard, a couple of D rings - but they didn't arrive on Friday.

Off to the local pub in the evening, to be entertained by a duo singing Andy Williams songs out of key......The beer and food were OK but the noise was beyond suffering so back to the Herbalists daughters cottage to the book.  (How many apostrophes should be in that sentence?)

Next morning saw me varnishing the rails and checking one or two things. To my surprise, the after ballast tank was still full of water. No wonder the tow from Lossiemouth to Balvicar had been a nightmare, with the dreaded snaking cutting in at about 45 mph...Just to help matters, various rollers on the trailer prevented me from opening the drain, so my arms got some much needed exercise using the pump.

By noon on Saturday, the D rings had arrived, complete with instructions for positioning them on the cabin top.

Matt (owner of and designer for Swallow Boats) has introduced a new, stiffer rig for the Bay Cruiser 23. It was on display at the Southampton boat show and includes an extra set of stays and spreaders on the mast. Big boat stuff....He and I had discussed rig stiffness after Vagabonds interesting voyage from Holyhead to the Isle of Man last year and I like to think this new rig is a result of that conversation but there again......



Drilled holes in the cabin roof

Covered for the winter

Anyway, I had decided that it was worth considering as a retrofit on Vagabond. So, on  Saturday afternoon, taking the Power Drill in hand, I set to work drilling six holes in the cabin roof.......The process involved removing the cabin headlining, drilling the holes, cleaning the foam core way from around the holes and refilling holes with epoxy, before redrilling to size and screwing on the rings.

I got as for as filling the holes with epoxy before the weather turned awful and I covered Vagbond with the tarpaulin for the winter.

The following morning the weather was still poor, so there was no point in staying. I pointed the car south and all was fine until the M6 froze solid for half an hour or so, just south of Stafford....