BroadAmbition

Done. 2 minutes- sorted Griff

We had B and C both involved a Lowestoft entrance and a D at GYA. No road trip or abandon the trip Griff

The Northern contingent has arrived Griff

Yes, it was a concern but we were looking at a Plan B Griff

Northern contingent underway now past Derby on a heading of 218 105kts Griff

I have enjoyed jet skiing in the past. Only been on a jet bike once though which I thought was no challenge at all Griff

That rib is fun. The reason I didn't open it up in the marina of course is due to 1) speed limit and 2) it's a bit restricting for hitting 40kts+. It's wickedly fast though, acceleration is awesome, in the video I was only blipping the throttle open a small amount to get it to leap forward. Of course once skimming along with it being a jet drive it can operate on wet grass and will leave minimal wake too Ok, the Northern contingent of Team Indy, Myself, Howard, Brian and Wizard are all ready for our train journey in the morning, Lifts to station sorted. Donny at 0900, over to Sheffield then straight down to Guz, eta mid afternoon straight onboard. Then it's crack on with some items we have listed with hopefully not too late a finish, then no doubt off to Wetherspoons for dinner Friday morning is beckoning, about time too, it feels like we have been planning this for a year or more Griff

Yes, I was wearing it and did test it too Griff

Well, What a cracking Captains Blog update eight, brilliant write up too. Enjoyed both v. much. Some proper funny touches too. Tks for the thankyou for the lads appreciated and proper humbling. We only do this coz you are you. It's good to be in your company too, and of course you are part of 'Our' Lads week group, a 'B.A' owner, in our social circle, sort of 'One of us' if that makes any sorta sense etc. Anyroadup . . . . . enough of all that. Now, roll on Thursday, can't come quick enough Griff

Not wrong! Hopefully there will be local chippys at Yorkshire prices adjacent to the marinas we berth in so we can get our evening nosebags, complete wi mushy peas! Team Indy - Northern contingent (All Tykes) will be ready in all respects come Thursday morning, down on t trains to Guz. Yet again we will be outnumbering the Southern contingent, this time four to one although it is rumoured there are two southern passengers accompanying us for the Guz to Weymouth Leg. Then there is a Norfolkian furriner joining us on the Ramsgate to Brundall leg apparently. Bring it on, only 2 x sleeps to go. My MrsG has been over to Tennerife with some of her girly friends, she arrives home tomorrow so I should see her tomorrow after 1800. Like ships passing in the night once more (Pun intended of course) Griff

'Let Him' ?? - there is no 'Let' what with him being the owner and all. Next time owt looks dodgy, I'll take myself off for a standeasy and engage my cloaking device! Griff

Of course with all this ere new fangled expensive HD stuff with us on the sea trip, any cock ups or foopars will no doubt be now broadcast in super HD quality 1080p or some such like (No idea what I'm on about as per the norm). So, one of us other than Robin just needs to find out how to switch the camera on and record when the Rascal is on the helm in confined quarters and get our own back! Griff

What? Am I not? Better not answer that Griff

Us real men know why ladies have smaller feet then men don’t we Lads? Yep, so they can get closer to t kitchen sink and why do the majority of Brides get married in white? - all good kitchen appliances come in white Griff

Erm, can the motion stabiliser option be turned off at sea? Better increase the roll so you lot can pretend you are all ‘Roughy Toughy’ sailors Griff

My best guess:- (Seeing as the crew can't make one here) More than I can afford Griff

Simon was still on the flybridge helm and was not too happy, not with the length of time he had spent up there but the fact he was finding it increasingly difficult to handle Indy on the Stbd shaft in confined waters and plenty of other water craft around us including kyakers and a flotilla of schoolchildren in small rag-n-sticks (Yes there is no getting away from them even down here) as we approached the inner breakwater. Well I thought to mysen, Robin can do that, I'll get on the vhf and sort out the deck crew, ropes / fenders ready for coming into the lock. Nope Robin was having none of that either, so Griff was asked to take the helm. Great, just great I thought to mysen. Here I am first time on the helm ever. I now have to pilot her round all these blasted t'other craft including the rag-n-sticks, and just when did they appear? they weren't here when we departed, then get Indy into the lock, not to mention in the marina past three sets of moorings, past those buoys, then a 90 turn to port, then a 90 turn to stbd astern avoiding Mr Unhappy's neighbouring boat who no doubt will be watching like a hawk. Not knowing how she responds to the helm, one engine is no problem if it's in the centre on the keel. but twins offset with the port one dragging is a different ball game. She feels huge, she is too at 23 x tons, it's windy, there are dozens of £m gin palaces to avoid and the crew are now watching intently. So what if she is Robins new pride and joy, I couldn't afford to fuel her up let alone pay for a repair bill. Just what could possibly go wrong? I was not feeling to happy with the situation mysen I will admit. Time to gi onesen a talking to. Griffin you have done this stax of times before on one engine be it port Stbd or centre. Deep breath and I was in the zone. The first thing that struck me was the total lack of feel from the helm - None whatsoever. That hydraulic steering system must have been designed for a one armed 8 year old girly to use. (No offence intended to 8 year old one armed girlies you understand) You could have spun the helm with your little finger whilst going full ahead or astern and have not a clue just how much rudder was on or off. No rudder indicator either - There is one in the saloon helm - some comfort knowing that - not. So give her some helm and wait for a response. Ah yes, got her. Then there is the delay on those fang dangly throttle controls, give them a command and wait for what seems like an age before the brain box has worked out what command you have given it before it actually lazily decides to respond. The actual delay is probably no more than 1:5 seconds but feels like minutes when you are not used to it. (Apparently this can be dialed out and reduced, A job for Howard come Thursday) Needless to say, between us we got her alongside first time of asking with no bumps or scrapes, Robin made use of the bow/stern thrusters on our last turn to stbd astern. Mr Unhappy even came out to assist taking the ropes, then became Mr Nice when he learned we had berthed on one shaft. Now just why did Robin ask me to take the helm? - Because he is sensible skipper that's why. Trying it himself with no experience of her in a situation like this would have resulted in him putting himself under a huge amount of pressure and besides he had an asset on his shoulder who he trusted - Wise decision and if I had been in his shoes I would have done exactly the same thing. So well done Robin and much Kudos to him for his quick decision making Griff

Any old excuse Griff

And what's wrong wi going live now may I ask? Griff

'Full ahead both' Into a 35kt wind and a 5ft swell bang on the nose she managed a respectable 17-ish kts, this was SOG of course, speed through the water would have been higher but the speed log was not turning up to play either in the wheelhouse or the repeater on the flying bridge. We kept flat for no more than 5 min if that really, no sense in wasting fuel and I dread to think what two 500hp Donks at 3000rpm pushing 23:5 tons uses per minute! So round we came for the second go at it, this time with the wind and the swell. She picked up her skirts and fair flew when after only a few minutes the port engine went down to tickover revs at 1000rpm. I reached over and brought the stbd back down to about 1400rpm, the port to neutral and tickover, instructed Simon with a visible heading and with use of stbd rudder and shot into the engine room via the saloon helm to have a very quick glance at the various gauges, the port gearbox was showing very little pressure, was this the problem? Getting into the engine room from the fly bridge is not straightforward or quick either. Down about five steps off the flybridge, turn left, three steps, turn left, six steps down into the saloon, turn left 180, down four steps into the galley, about turn, lift steps above head height (On gas rams) duck down open door, then on knees crawl into the engine room. Forget relying on gauges in the saloon, do it the proper way with hands and feeling for temperature differences between engines, gearboxes, header tanks, exhausts etc etc all the while listening for any nasty sounds and eye-balling everything, three senses at once going like the clappers. I could find absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, then I thought it might be fuel starvation or air in the system - Nope, all to the good. No fluid leaks either, just what the hell was wrong? Then the port engine starting revving up and down by about 500rpms or so. I was proper annoyed that someone was up there mucking about with the throttle control whilst I was trying to fault find, right time for a bollocking no matter who was doing it. Whilst extracting mysen from the engine room and reversing the afore mentioned process, the lads up top were saying between themselves, 'Griff has taken local control in the engine room and got it sorted and is revving the port engine' ! On discovering this I realised that the electronic brain box was just doing it's own thing and had merrily decided to ignore commands from the throttles on the fly bridge. So I took the decision to shut down the port engine, I was not having it doing that whilst were now approaching restricted waters once more. That gearbox low oil pressure thing - was not an issue as it turned out, I soon realised that the gearbox oil pressure gauge registers differing levels of pressure depending on the gearbox speed so all was normal - that was me just being ignorant of the systems onboard. Time to head back to the lock, Sutton marina and Indy's berth Griff

The Sea Trial day. We woz proper busy on the Saturday (Well tbh we woz proper busy every day, we weren't down in Guz for a social time that is for sure) Due to having to move Indy back alongside the finger pontoon we couldn't launch the Rib, and the clock was fast beating us to boot, the Rib would have to wait until the Sunday Now here's something I do nearly everytime I am about to slip from any moorings, be it on the Broads or otherwise, I take mysen away somewhere quiet-ish away from anyone else had have a proper serious think to mysen about the forthcoming evolution. The wind was really picking up in the Marina and I was having concerns whether it was wise to proceed to sea or put it off til Sunday. Time to Consult Simon who is local to the area, had sailed in/out of this area countless of times, is ex-Rn and indeed where he lives has a birds eye view of the area we were to be operating in. He assured me we would be fine and could stay relatively protected should we feel the need. That helped in my decision making, we were good to go. So I got us all together on the sun deck and we did the safetey breif thing to include, fire, flood, Man overboard etc, the allocated responsibilities to the deck crew, which was all of bar Robin Actually moving Indy from her berth to the lock was not straight forward either, everything is just so big! Apart from the area of safe water directly in front of us with a line of marker buoys to Port that we needed to keep to port, so as soon as Indy's port quarter was clear of the pontoon Robin made good use of the bow thruster and we proceeded slowly into the lock. We didn't need to pass any lines to shore in the lock as there are well fendered floating pontoon to lie alongside, just as well too as getting those lines over the pontoon and onto terra firma would have been a challenge. Robin was on the helm still, the gates opened, Simon joined him on the fly bridge to point out where we should be going, the rest of us got the ropes and fenders stowed. in no time at all we were past the inner breakwater heading for the outer break water, the swell was round 5ft and it was hardly noticeable onboard, what was noticeable was the strength of the wind. I left Robin and Simon to it other than to issue request to increase revs, and observe the GPS SOG, I was busy keeping an eye on the various gauges and listening to the engines, also familiarising myself with the buoyed channel, hazards, limits of safe water etc as we would be doing this again in a fortnight. We pressed on at a steady 12kts passed the outer breakwater, and as the headland to Stbd receded away from us the rollers got spaced out and much bigger, I would estimate up to around 18ft. Indy was handling these no problem, no banging or crashing no green water coming onto the foc'sle either which was impressive and nice to see. The wind by now was up to around the 40kt level and the wave size was increasing. I consulted with Robin, the decision made to come about. Carrying on in these wx conditions was not going to be of any benefit whatsoever. Simon was on the helm. Time for me to join him, then it was a matter of reading the swell and timing it just right, round we went to port with me on the throttles to assist a tight turn between rollers and we were round. She did roll very heavily once, healed and came straight back, at no time did I get the feeling she was going to 'Give In' The Trader certainly has impressive sea keeping qualities. Then it was just a matter of balancing the engine speed to the rollers with instructions to Simon ref the dreaded risk of broaching. Soon enough we back in calmer waters with about a 35kt wind and a 5ft swell once more. Time to test out these donkeys and bring them up for a short full power trial Griff

Brilliant, LOL and then some Griff

To give you some sort of guide - but not help - Normal cruising speed is estimated to be a max of 12kts, that is 12kts over the ground. If the tidal stream assist us and we can slow the donkeys down to decrease fuel consumption then we probably will do. It's all very well opening her up and having a bit of a thrill but that won't do Robins pocket any good. Having said that, if Breydon has Bath-Tubs a plenty - then 22kts with a huge stern wave - Here we come, and I'll pay for the extra diesel used mysen ! Griff

We should have a competition on how much fuel she uses Why not? This was mentioned previously too. Go for it. Obviously the onboard Indy crew will abstain form entering a 'Best Guess' as we will do an onboard Sweepstake between ourselves I would have thought. Four legs and the total overall consumption? However although Robin intends to fuel up at each location, in some instances we may not be able to do so, if that happens we can't promulgate that particular legs consumption figures - This lot is probably as clear a muddy sea oggin! Griff

I can confirm that we are passage planning for the following:- Fri - sail from Plymouth to Weymouth Sat - sail from Weymouth to Brighton Sun - Sail from Brighton to Ramsgate Mon - Sail from Ramsgate to GT Yarmouth, then onto Brundall (Via Goodchilds for diesel) Actual sailing times will be promulgated but I can also confirm we intend to depart Plymouth at 0800 on Friday 02nd Sailing from Ramsgate is likely to be no later than 0730 so we can meet the tide nicely at GYA for around 1300. Normally Robin would be posting this stuff, but we are trying to do as much on his behalf as we can to lighten his load as it were. One of Indy's crew (who are NBN members) no doubt will update this thread at least twice a day from Thursday 01st onwards Hope the above helps, Griff