Big Changes Ahead

[ChrisB]

I guess that is the difference between being 38 and 68! But the following being as second nature to me as driving to the supermarket makes me feel safe, reading the lights and marks into harbour in the dark does the same. And my Reeds has been my very best friend for over 40 years, can't turn my back on it now.m

[LondonRascal]

The real point Chris is not how the information is shown to you, (be it paper of chart), it is understanding that information and taking the right course of action - this only experience brings you and something I very much am keen to learn so I can be comfortable as you one day and not need to ask 'do you think that is right' to someone for clarification.

[Bound2Please]

29 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

I guess that is the difference between being 38 and 68! But the following being as second nature to me as driving to the supermarket makes me feel safe, reading the lights and marks into harbour in the dark does the same. And my Reeds has been my very best friend for over 40 years, can't turn my back on it now.m

Ah the Stour used to know every bouy, bank, withie and hole in that river from Bathside bay to Maningtree all via paper admiralty charts

Charlie

[grendel]

The point that is trying to be made is that supposing you have a main systems electrical failure, your batteries are fine but all your wiring has melted, you still have engines, but you are in the middle of the ocean. How do you cope, if you are fine with a small hand held, self powered system as a backup then you dont need to know how to use the charts, but suppose you enter a strange harbour, or take a pilot on board who wants to see your charts (though the pilot should of course know the waters like the back of their hand). 

I think a set of paper charts and the training to use them (even if just printouts) would be a handy thing for an emergency backup. as even the battery on a handheld device will go flat eventually.

[Bound2Please]

Mind you paper charts and electronic charts neither show withies lol

Charlie

[stumpy]

Charlie_ especially going up to the Golden Key at Snape! 

[Guest]

Have something like iNavX on your Ipad, keep a charged power bank handy and you will have a nav system independent of any boat electrical issues.

Phil

[Bound2Please]

Just now, Philosophical said:

Have something like iNavX on your Ipad, keep a charged power bank handy and you will have a nav system independent of any boat electrical issues.

Phil

Until its battery goes flat as well!

Charlie

[Guest]

12 hours + with a good power bank should be enough time to get into a safe harbor unless you are crossing the Atlantic.

[ChrisB]

18 minutes ago, Philosophical said:

12 hours + with a good power bank should be enough time to get into a safe harbor unless you are crossing the Atlantic.

Perhaps not if you were looking for a sheltered landfall in a SW blow and aiming for Bremerhavn having discounted the Staande Mast for speed on passage to Keil. This is an easy do in a boat like that is being discussed for a Baltic holiday. Remember also in a blow your cruising speed could be well under half that in benign conditions.

[NeilB]

Are you taking a trip to Southampton boat show for any inspiration?  

[LondonRascal]

Do you have any idea how many owners of large sea boats have no idea really what to do so far as navigation goes, or how well prepared they are should things not go to plan? Many. These are the people who get an iPad download an App set off from Harbour and once out of  WiFi range their map stops loading are in a right mess.

The problem is a lot of stuff you read, videos you watch are based on sailing and sailing really does need more respect about what the wind is doing and tide since to a large degree you are at its mercy. Motorboats go where they are pointed (for the most part) but the manufactures want to sell them as lifestyle accessories and thus make their use as easy and 'car like' as possible and as electronics generally have become so much part of our daily life, high end marine kit seems so clunky and outdated.

Imagine now being confronted by a chart plotter you can't use with touch - you know you would instinctively touch the screen being so used to tablets, only to find that nope it just a screen damn it. Manufactures have been in a bit of an 'arms race' over the last few years making their kit more 'iPad' and less '1990's grey PC' some had got it right others not so much.

On the latest models, you can say you are at point A and tap point B then auto route between the two. No, not a straight line, this route is based on the safety passage, least distance - knowing your draft it will keep you out of the shallows, set all your way points, talk to the auto helm and frankly all you do is press go. Of course you should check the route, know the chart data  and how to read such before you but how many would just hit go and..go. That is the joy of technology and danger because you've automated so much it makes it feel so easy and you invincible.

I am not going to Southampton Show. But would go London in January where I can then be in a position to know what I  have,  what I then need and end up with something I thought might be important but probably would not be. Even if I had money to, I would never buy a new boat.

Frankly I find a lot of the stuff produced today is poor in terms of the actual difference between designs.  It seems the key is making as many, and as large holes in the side of the hull as you can, have a master cabin in the middle of the boat which must have a seat by said windows but then blow the real cash on IPS drives and engines from Volvo Penta because - well because that just is what has become the norm increasingly. 

This  puts great pressure on the cost of the boat not to be too extreme or jump to much from a previous years model. They are trying to give their customers their cake and if not eat it, at least let them try for a bite. The interior suffers.  Less joinery, less skill, more moulded in items, modular 'set pieces' that can be slotted in, screwed down and look okay until you open a door or give it a knock and you see how it really is. The galley is a dying area too. I genuinely am waiting for the first boat where it becomes an option and not standard, instead just having a tall cupboard somewhere with a combi microwave,  coffee machine and fridge in it.

 

[Polly]

RYA , Robin? The courses are the best, and not just for sailies.

[NeilB]

7 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

I am not going to Southampton Show. But would go London in January where I can then be in a position to know what I  have,  what I then need and end up with something I thought might be important but probably would not be. Even if I had money to, I would never buy a new boat.

Frankly I find a lot of the stuff produced today is poor in terms of the actual difference between designs.  It seems the key is making as many, and as large holes in the side of the hull as you can, have a master cabin in the middle of the boat which must have a seat by said windows but then blow the real cash on IPS drives and engines from Volvo Penta because - well because that just is what has become the norm increasingly. 

This  puts great pressure on the cost of the boat not to be too extreme or jump to much from a previous years model. They are trying to give their customers their cake and if not eat it, at least let them try for a bite. The interior suffers.  Less joinery, less skill, more moulded in items, modular 'set pieces' that can be slotted in, screwed down and look okay until you open a door or give it a knock and you see how it really is. The galley is a dying area too. I genuinely am waiting for the first boat where it becomes an option and not standard, instead just having a tall cupboard somewhere with a combi microwave,  coffee machine and fridge in it.

 

Just got back from Southampton and back down next Friday to Monday, could have had a beer or 2!  Not sure if we'll be at London next year, it's going to be a bit different and although we visited for a few days this year we never had a stand.

From the 70's until fairly recently Princess and Fairline used the same designer who also designed boats for a few other builders.  Now there's more designers but only occasionally do they try something adventurous or different.  Boat building suffered terribly in the last decade or so and is only now making very slow progress, hence the cautious designs.  This is changing though and there are a couple of boats on the horizon, one is only slightly different but the other is going to be quite unusual.  Afraid I cannot say any more without getting into trouble though !!

As for blowing cash on VP IPS drives and engines - long may it continues as it pays my mortgage !!

Good luck on your plans though.  If we didn't have 3 children we would have seriously thought about a narrow boat, especially as the canal runs 1/2 mile behind the office in Warwick !

[smellyloo]

When you are the skipper of a vessel at sea you are responsible for every soul aboard your vessel.

Electronic navigation will certaily make 99.9999% of your voyages much easier, and i'm sure that in your mind you have adequate back up systems in place ....

But it is the unexpected that might prove fatal. A fire on-board and god forbid an abandon ship is called for. Then your carefully thought out emergency plan will need to come into effect. What have you stowed in your emergency bag? Do you have time to grab your chart (paper) with your last known position marked?

No, I would still need to record my positions on a paper chart and record my ships log in a book.

[Polly]

RYA. VHF course, Navigation, meteorology, COLREGS etc etc, you could have a brilliant winter getting round your theory courses, then go practical in spring. Sea safety is a blast!

[Hylander]

13 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

 The galley is a dying area too. 

 

Tell that to us cooks.      What will people do in the future ,  take a pill every morning rather than eat.       Half the pleasure of going on a boat is eating on board.

[ChrisB]

On the subject of power some of these large leisure vessels run 24 or even 48 volt systems, I guess to crank their large engines, but I don't know. I have seen a large boat running batteries in series and parallel to achieve this but I was always under the impression that lithium batteries had to be built to a voltage ie you can have them in parallel but they must not be wired in series. I must have read it somewhere because I have thought that to be so for a long while.

We need Richard, or another Electrical Engineer.

[ChrisB]

16 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

Do you have any idea how many owners of large sea boats have no idea really what to do so far as navigation goes, or how well prepared they are should things not go to plan? Many. These are the people who get an iPad download an App set off from Harbour and once out of  WiFi range their map stops loading are in a right mess.

The problem is a lot of stuff you read, videos you watch are based on sailing and sailing really does need more respect about what the wind is doing and tide since to a large degree you are at its mercy. Motorboats go where they are pointed (for the most part) but the manufactures want to sell them as lifestyle accessories and thus make their use as easy and 'car like' as possible and as electronics generally have become so much part of our daily life, high end marine kit seems so clunky and outdated.

Imagine now being confronted by a chart plotter you can't use with touch - you know you would instinctively touch the screen being so used to tablets, only to find that nope it just a screen damn it. Manufactures have been in a bit of an 'arms race' over the last few years making their kit more 'iPad' and less '1990's grey PC' some had got it right others not so much.

On the latest models, you can say you are at point A and tap point B then auto route between the two. No, not a straight line, this route is based on the safety passage, least distance - knowing your draft it will keep you out of the shallows, set all your way points, talk to the auto helm and frankly all you do is press go. Of course you should check the route, know the chart data  and how to read such before you but how many would just hit go and..go. That is the joy of technology and danger because you've automated so much it makes it feel so easy and you invincible.

I am not going to Southampton Show. But would go London in January where I can then be in a position to know what I  have,  what I then need and end up with something I thought might be important but probably would not be. Even if I had money to, I would never buy a new boat.

Frankly I find a lot of the stuff produced today is poor in terms of the actual difference between designs.  It seems the key is making as many, and as large holes in the side of the hull as you can, have a master cabin in the middle of the boat which must have a seat by said windows but then blow the real cash on IPS drives and engines from Volvo Penta because - well because that just is what has become the norm increasingly. 

This  puts great pressure on the cost of the boat not to be too extreme or jump to much from a previous years model. They are trying to give their customers their cake and if not eat it, at least let them try for a bite. The interior suffers.  Less joinery, less skill, more moulded in items, modular 'set pieces' that can be slotted in, screwed down and look okay until you open a door or give it a knock and you see how it really is. The galley is a dying area too. I genuinely am waiting for the first boat where it becomes an option and not standard, instead just having a tall cupboard somewhere with a combi microwave,  coffee machine and fridge in it.

 

In a boat that size nothing less than a washing machine, Dryer, and dishwasher would do. If they can fit them to narrow boats they must be able to fit them. Unless the pounding wrecks them. I am sure that I have seen a laundry in a Grand Banks.

[Polly]

We were advised to set our waypoints just off the standard ones to avoid meeting up too closely with others using the same ones. 

[LondonRascal]

7 hours ago, smellyloo said:

When your carefully thought out emergency plan will need to come into effect. What have you stowed in your emergency bag? Do you have time to grab your chart (paper) with your last known position marked?

Well one would hope this never would happen, but this is a good point and one would expect to have sufficient time to prepare before ditching since the only time you would ever want to get into the life raft is when all really is lost and the boat is either on fire or otherwise sinking is well underway.

I've got a ACR Electronics Rapid Ditch Bag.  In this I would keep copies of the insurance and title of the boat, a copy of my ID some spare cash.  A cheap mobile phone pre-charged ready to go with credit, it also will be the place the previously spoken about satellite phone is kept and rounding off comms will be a hand held DSC enabled VHF. Other handy items might be a spare set of house keys - sounds funny, but imagine you are rescued, boats gone down and you want to get home but know you're screwed as you could not get in as your keys went down with the boat.

I would have some drinking water in bottles, some basic medication such as pain killers, sea sickness tablets, and small first aid kit. Also some basic food stuffs,  some high energy snacks and even some good old nuts - last ages and release energy slowly.

To compliment the electronics a hand bearing compass, some flares - though I also like the new LED flares - expensive but have a 6 hour battery life and a several mile visible range. Foil blankets, gloves, and  a powerful LED torch too. A decent knife is a good idea just in case you have to cut a line suddenly.

But the point you raised was: 'do you have time to grab your chart (paper) with your last known position marked'. Now of course it depends on how often you mark positions, but in good condition what would you say every 10 minutes? You need to then take this unwieldy paper blanket off with you along with your kit. I'd rather just grab my phone - its waterproof anyway, and would have the same software running on it as the plotter - itself having its own GPS position so knowing where I was would be easy. But again it comes back multi redundancy systems since you've got a ready to go secondary waterproof GPS unit in your ditch bag should you not grab your smartphone on the way out. The confidantes therefore is bang up to date, not what happened a few minutes back.

One of the biggest issues that the Coastguard have is lack of information -  what is actually going on and where it is happening. You only have to see a few TV programs or read some MAIB reports to see how confusion began right at the point of initial call.

Many people don't follow protocol when calling in a distress (even commercial skippers) or wait too long before they do which means things have got to the stage where things really are rapidly going down hill - then you have panic and worry setting in, confusion and so on.

With items like real time location tracking even if you've been caught up in a right mess and you find yourself in a RIB or life raft and your handheld VHF is not cutting it being so low down and without the same power of the boats main one, to then be able to either make a call to the Coastguard via sat phone and then use your coordinates to say where exactly you are and what has unfolded is a great boon. An EPIRB  should be somewhere on the boat that is possible to grab and take as you leave, if not it should float free so at least gives a starting point for search and rescue to make for if all else is lost.

The generally perceived view is that an electronic devices   fail and if it does it will do so just when you need it most. It might have been the case once, but these days with solid state electronics and moisture proof enclosures they tend to be pretty stable.

What i find interesting is, so many people who sail and motorboat use paper charts - but they use a GPS receiver as an easy way to fix their location on the chart. Often the units they trust to get their fix  are more suited to fell walking and the like, they work just fine but if that fails because the AA batteries run flat or otherwise is dropped and broken, then do they have another waiting to go in the drawer?

I would not think of using a 16 year old computer to get online with or write a Word document, let alone plot my course and yet many many boats are out there with such outdated kit as primary navigation tools - I wonder too how often the map cartilages are updated on them. Worrying stuff.

When it comes down to it, I don;t want to think too much about what is going on so far as when I am, that should be easy, the harder part and issue to take real caution is the weather state and what it is forecast to do.

 

[BrundallNavy]

When we went sailing in the Med last year none of the yachts had charts on them, I had taken my own so we were ok. After 3 days the flotilla skipper produced photo copies that were years out of date which we all refused to use. It was another two days before the correct up to date ones arrived. I was gobsmacked that they would let people loose on their own with out of date or no charts at all.

 

Doug.

[LondonRascal]

So things are moving and time for an update.

I have had a few conversations with the Broker, who while acting as the typical hyperactive ‘estate agent’ character is also reasonable and helpful and not to pushing.  He has done a great deal in a short amount of time and things are looking positive.

First of all the fact the current owners are getting on in their years and no longer able to manage the boat, and indeed may have to give up boating altogether and not just downsize. This is as good as it gets so far as I am concerned since it was only owned  by one couple and they have likely had a number of different boats over the years and this was their big ticket – custom built to their design and taste (which thankfully is neutral and not garish).

The fewer people have owned a boat the less ‘tinkering’ goes on and if works have been done and it has been done by a professional it adds to the appeal so far a I am concerned. It has been on the market sometime – April 2016 and had a major price reduction this June. There is a healthy market for these types of boats, but generally people prefer the smaller engine options for increased range and economy – this having the largest engine option is perhaps therefore more niche.

I have had it confirmed that the engines have had main agent CAT service history will all relevant paperwork and invoices. Works were carried our annually with anything that was flagged up being attended to. Furthermore, every year between October and April the boat was take out the water for a full underwater check up and kept on the hard over the winter period (nice). I also guess their mooring Contract runs from April to April, and that the yearly out of water time is included in theri mooring. It would be nice if such could be transferred to me, so that I am then in no rush and paying storage fees.

The boat had a full survey completed in 2015. I am pleased to say that there is a pretty clean bill of health. I know that things can deteriorate but I am confident that matters should not have become suddenly shockingly bad in two years. The hull had a ‘professional’ mutli coat of Copper Coat anitfoul – but this perhaps was not done as well as could, since throughout the underside of the hull there are small 2mm-4mm blisters.  Upon removing many of these it was found to be dry and where the Coppercoat was applied trapping air between the surface of the hull and the Coppercoat. There however were found to be a small number of blisters on the starboard chine at the waterline of an Osmotic nature – being between 4mm-6mm in diameter and when checked did contain liquid. Their number is small, location limited  and to be expected with this age of boat.

Sixty moisture readings over the hull were taken using a Tramez Moisture Meter varied on a scale of 0-100 to between 5 and 20. It was considered to be in the low range and therefore satisfactory.

All sea cocks were tested and found to be free and working, the rudders are stainless steel and in good order along with the props (3 blade 37”) the cutlass bearings where possible to inspect were in good order and no play was found in the shaft, props or rudders.

It was noted the hull above waterline is in a good and well maintained and presented conditions especially considering the boats age. Internally the stringers and where inspection was possible bulkheads and were found to be in a good condition.

The recommendations where only 3 items in length:

• It is considered beneficial and good practice to remove the vessel from the water for as long as possible during the winter months in order to allow the underside to dry
• The condition of the osmotic blistering should be monitored for evidence of any further deterioration.
• The ongoing maintenance programme should continue.

So two of the recommendations are the usual given whenever any sign of Osmosis are found – and since most boats have this I can’t say this report shows anything too bothersome. It certainly does not provide anything that is needed to be carried out and a reduction in price sought on the basis of the boats structure.

So where can I get some wiggle room as to price? Well, firstly it’s been on the market for over 17 months, the sellers in this time have used the boat for 20hrs since the engine hours were taken when the boat first came to market. They are older, can’t use the boat and frankly may like to just get this boat of their hands and concentrate on retirement. The engine hours for year are a little higher than I might have liked (1,800hrs) others of similar vintage have between 860hrs and 1250hrs furthermore on the expectation of being sold, they skipped the 2017 service which is now 4 months overdue - it would be nice to have CAT do another prior to me taking the boat away to Norfolk. What I propose to do is take a risk on my part but have  large carrot for the seller.

I am going to do is go view the boat and I am sure I will be happy – then go in with a low initial offer, not subject to a further survey, and the cash can be in the Brokers account that day.  It’s taken off their hands nice and smooth and I hopefully make a good saving on the already low asking price to spend out for some cosmetic works and upgrading of the electronics (already spoken to Broker and he is clearly also keen on this score as it is their yard who would get to do the works).

I’ll update more when things begin to move – possibly in the next 10-14 days.

 

[JamesLV]

Exciting times Robin!

I'll be expecting a feature length Captains Blog comparable in length to Lord of the Rings if all goes ahead

[LondonRascal]

James, I am considering a new channel - sort of 'Cruising with Rob' and following all the progress. I am not sure yet, but it is nice to share from the beginning here.  The only thing I can see being a hiccup are:

• Someone else beats me to it.
• I change my mind suddenly because I find something majorly worrying.

The more I can take off the price, of course the better since I could then see that as simple gain and invest the initial saving to spend on the boat. Even £5,000 off the price would pay for the fuel and engine service prior to get her to Lowestoft. Every little helps.

Edited to add: I have just had a call from Broker. He says he has shown some clients' around today. Initially I think to myself 'oh no' could this suddenly mean the boat is pulled from under me, but then...Really? All this time on the market, reduced in price back in June, and now just a day after I get all the details from the Broker he is showing new people round. Hmm maybe but I am feeling this could be a tactic to make me jump.

I can't anyway, because the funds won't be with me until next Tuesday. Fingers crossed this does not turn out to be a burst bubble of dreams so far as I am concerned.