A sailing weekend

The weather this season has been very odd and hard to predict. This weekend the BBC's good days have been bad and Sunday, billed as the worst, was the best. First stop on Friday was Dave Crawford Marine to pay for the work so far and to discuss how to ensure that the unit stays reliable in the race.

I booked a pre-race engine check-in the week commencing June 2nd when the boat is back in Lymington for Scorpion to address a list of jobs driven by the race regulations - liferaft mounts, EPIRB, transponder, fuel cut off, electrical labelling etc.

Outside Dave Crawford's Lymington premises were two other boats doing the Round Britain Race - although thankfully not in our class.

The first was Chris Strickland's record breaking Scorpion cruiser which was having new stern drives fitted.

Alongside was John Caulcutt's new Revenger 32 which still had a lot of work to be done. Interestingly, he has flown in from New York two of the same engines we are using. He has a seating arrangement with three bolster seats, with electrical adjustment of the seat part.

John is one of the two competitors who did this race last time - 24 years ago - in a small Flatacraft. He did very well. This time his boat is allegedly capable of 80 mph - no doubt helped by its stepped hull. Seeing this boat with no electronics and no engines fitted - and less than a month to go - cheered me up when I compared the pages and pages of my To Do list for Black Gold.

We launched the boat after lunch and while Paul drove round to Hamble Point (he did the BP regatta this weekend), I took Black Gold round.

Even though the gearbox is still being run in, the boat beat the car in the best traditions of Top Gear. It was also a chance to try out the new Henri Lloyd salopettes that we are using for the race, and the very bulky Grabner racing life-jacket.

Both were fine, but I wanted to check that the back protection in the life-jacket didn't push me to far forward on the seat. The suspension is at the back of the seat so you need to be right back to get the benefit. On another rib in Lymington, a passenger was injured using the same seat as he lent forward to read a chart.

We had auctioned a day on our sail boat, Black Tie, in a charity event. Friday night meant a trip over to Cowes in Black Gold to collect Black Tie for a day with six friends who had paid for the pleasure of the sail - a strange concept for our three daughters to grasp ...

Needless to say, the weather turned rough. We went out in F5 and ended up finishing the day with F7. Not ideal for people who rarely go on a boat, but we did manage to fit a short rib trip in for them as well while we were in Cowes.

Browsing in the Hamble Point chandlers on Sunday morning meant that I found a radar reflector that wouldn't damage anything else, and another foghorn. The sea anchor required by the rules is a bigger challenge as not many small boats use them. We have been told of a possible source and that's a project for next weekend.

Monday (today) was planned as a rib testing day with a run to Poole and back. However a gale and driving rain meant we stayed at home.

So not a bad weekend's work and Black Gold feels like she is running well. A brief dash in the short sharp sea off Cowes in F7 left me impressed with her ability to cope with this kind of chop both upwind and down.

Gavin, Monday May 26th

Good news at last

Good news is that a new warranty Sport Master gearbox arrived from Belgium at Dave Crawford Marine on Friday. They have still to check that we have all the bits back that they took off. Once checked, we need to get Dave to put it back together with care so that we can launch next Saturday.

In the meantime here is the list of boat-related items still to be done:

Fit transponder to boat for web site feed - need to find a suitable location which is non trivial as we have few external surfaces and it has to be outside with power
Hire 4 man raft and 406 EPIRB which will both need to be securely mounted. The raft will go aft as that's where we want the weight
Fit second fire extinguisher
Get race numbers - (no response yet from chosen supplier) and stick to boat
Get an hour's tuition on the engine and gearbox from Dave Crawford Marine
Buy set of spanners for engine as current boat tool kit is all metric and the Mercury isn't
Buy a suitable sea anchor. An odd safety requirement but maybe it will be useful one day
Get compass deviation card and swing compass
Get second engine cut out lanyard as we both need one
Buy retirement flag, new foghorn, radar reflector, appropriate first aid kit, safety blanket and torch
Fit fuel cut out switch and mark battery isolator switch
Order ship's radio license - money for nothing as I have the user's certificate and a license for my sail boat Black Tie
Get satellite phone
Sort charts and batteries for Garmin Etrex pocket emergency GPS
Put National flag on boat as well as some sponsor's stickers. Not sure what these are for as we are not sponsored by these companies
Fix clothing, hotels and plan route for supporters

I visited Ribex in Cowes last weekend - an excellent show - and was really interested to meet some fellow competitors in our class. Greg Marsden looked very well prepared and had his new metal fuel locker on the foredeck of his Viper 7.8.

Although this won't be the fastest boat in the class, it is being driven by a very experienced and tough looking team. Greg told me he was going to take it easy to Bangor then see where they stand. (Not sure racing a rib from Portsmouth to Bangor could be described as taking it easy, but I know what he means.)

At the other end of the class spectrum is the new Artic Blue 27 being built with twin BMW/Yanmar engines giving 520 hp and a stepped hull.

This boat should easily do 60+ knots which is just under 70 mph and with Paul Lemmer at the wheel, will be an obvious candidate for running at the front of the fleet.

Out of interest I calculated the weight of their engine installation compared with ours.

For Artic Blue it's 810kg including drive legs. Black Gold is 300kg including spare engine and fuel for the spare which is in the aft locker. So loads more power but the equivalent of 6 large men standing near the back of Artic Blue in terms of weight. No wonder they were keen to explain to me the workings of the bow ballast tank...

No boating this weekend - just a big push to get some of the items off my list.

Gavin 17th May

We know what's finer than to be in Carolina

Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina in the morning, so the song reckons, and today Gavin will know because he is arriving in Charleston for a brief visit.

Some sailing is in the offing, but mostly the dash across the Atlantic is for his work.

For most of us in Gavin's party, what would be finer than Carolina, or anything across the pond, would be for Black Gold to be perfectly tuned and ready to take on the big boys in the Round Britain Powerboat Race.

Speaking from Heathrow, Gavin confirms that Mercury, the engine manufacturers, have agreed to replace the gearbox.

Their experts believe that the seal failed on the control mechanism. That the fault is diagnosed and the repair under way is the good news from a very sad situation.

The bad news is that the engine is unlikely to be up and running by next weekend.

With just 38 days to go to the race start, the pressure is well and truly on Gavin now. Of course, his work comes first, and hence the visit to South Carolina.

In the meantime, Gavin reports that he is gradually progressing through 'a seemingly endless list of jobs.'

Gavin said, 'I visited Ribex this weekend in Cowes and met with two of the other competitors in our class.'
- From Gavin's Rib-Racing website

No boat, but preparations continue

Down to Dave Crawford marine in Lymington with Nicki on Saturday morning to pick up the errant gearbox for me to take to Belgium this weekend for exchange. Scorpion had finished their work with the aft locker floor and I also collected the bulky Austrian Grabner racing life jackets from Scorpion.

While on Black Gold, I removed the SD card chart cartridge so I could experiment at home with the PC Planner chart package and their USB multi-media reader which will allow us to plan routes remotely.

Next stop was the Rib Show at Hamble Point. I didn't want to buy anything there, but I had arranged to meet racer John Cooke (Cookee) there. John is a constant source of wisdom and advice on the Rib forums and it was good to see his race boat with many of his ideas incorporated. Main take-aways for me were:

1. Drive to finish rather than to beat the boat next to you (a good theory!!)

2. Look after the engine cradle and ensure the throttle man (Roger in our case) keeps the propeller revs down when landing

3. John uses buttons rather than switches to reduce the risk of them turning of when the boat lands hard

4. He has multiple bungees round the engine leg to reduce the movement of the leg as the power comes on and off

5. He also suggested bleeding the two stroke oil every night at the engine mounted tank as air in this can trigger the alarms

6. John also strongly recommended that I buy a device to manage and reset the Mercury alarms

Next stop was the E P Barrus stand. This is important as Barrus will be providing a three-person team and truck full of parts to support Mercury engines.

We have given them information on our engine, drive and propeller. It was very good to hear about their plans and they even wanted to know what filter elements that we have in the fuel pre filter so that they can load them on the truck.

Up at 5 am tomorrow in order to get across to the Belgian Mercury Racing dealer with my three week old gearbox.

- Gavin May 4th

Gearbox problem

All our plans for this weekend have come to nothing as we have found water in the gearbox.

While the boat was back in Lymington this week at the Scorpion yard, I asked Dave Crawford to give the engine its first service and to change the gearbox oil which several people had advised.

Dave was very busy and thought that he might not get to do it, but on Thursday he did. With hindsight, it was just as well he did because he found the oil was contaminated with sea water.

This could have been very damaging. The unit needs a careful rebuild and checking in order to see how this happened after only 23 hours of use and never knowingly having anything tangle around the propeller.

We have lost a week in the schedule, but it is worth finding things like this before we start the race.

- Gavin April 26

Prep for Plymouth (again)

Our two main issues from last weekend look likely to be solved by tomorrow. The aft locker floor, which holds our spare 18hp Tohatsu outboard motor (41kg) and its 25 litre fuel tank (25kg), is being replaced in the moulding shop by Scorpion as we speak. The strain that the floor takes when we land from a wave is enormous. It is unusual to store an engine of this size here.

The fault that triggered our alarms and 4% power restriction last weekend has been identified by Dave Crawford - a loose cap on the oil tank. Not sure how it would cause this problem, nor even how it happened. Scorpion's Graham Jelley suggests that we ask the engine people for some instruction just in case something like it happens again. Graham had a similar experience near the top of Scotland once.

Meanwhile at home, MarineTrack has just delivered the satellite tracking transponder which we need to install and which ultimately should feed our position to this site during the race. And we now have the PC Planner software and card reader so that we can navigate with our laptops at night. We know how to have a good time!

The weekend's forecast looks much better than previous weekends. I'm looking forward to our first long passage.

Gavin April 25th, 2008

Gearhead stuff

It's amazing how much gear we accumulate for each new participant activity. Offshore sailing, dinghy sailing, ski-ing, hill walking, cycling are just a few before we get to ball sports. And, I have 26 sails stored in my garden shed. Part of the "fun" of going round Britain in a rib is planning how you can equip yourself to cope best with what you might have to face. Needless to say it means buying a whole lot of new stuff!

Clothing. People whose advice we respect have said you must do it in dry suits. I even have one in the wardrobe for board sailing. We have decided to go the summer comfort route and after some discussions with Henri Lloyd have gone for their TP2 Shadow smock and salopettes without the collar.

The smock as a neoprene waistband and a soft collar which tightens round your neck. June should be sunny and warm, but with a permanent headwind of circa 50 to 60 mph, different rules apply.

Gloves. You do get knocked about a bit in a rib contrary to what it says in the brochure. I don't suffer from cold hands but on a two hour run found I'd got a blister somehow from the Italian suede covered steering wheel. We will have thin sailing type gloves in the future.

Footwear. We are using toe straps with the Ullman seats so we need shoes that are smooth on top. Roger has a preference for boots so we may go that way although I hope we don't get too much water in the boat.

Helmets. We first talked to Gecko who provide the RNLI. Unfortunately their helmets aren't approved for the race and we have to have motor cycle ones. I have heard of the bucket effect if you fall out going fast with a full-face helmet so we have gone for open-face helmets with visors and separate sun shades.

Intercoms. Driving a Caterham 7, you realise how communication could be improved with an intercom system. I had looked at the ones on the lifeboats which are industrial quality. We are going for a battery-powered system which reduces hole drilling in the boat and which was developed for rally cars but which will have to live in a polythene bag.

Life jackets. We race with 13 on our sail boat. We have eight life jackets for cruising on the rib. But for the race, we need another design. We have gone for Austrian Grabner jackets which look okay and have a lot of power boat followers. The main difference for power boating is that you need foam rather than air.

Camera. We hope to take a Panasonic video camera but after just a couple of trips, my Nikon Coolpix compact has given up and I have ordered an Olympus 850 SW. The S stands for shock and the W stands for water down to 3 metres. It's great to have a camera at hand and I hope the Olympus doesn't go the same way as the Nikon! I'll still have my D200 Nikon SLR in its padded bag with me, but it's not at all easy to use under way.

Back Support. On our first runs, I used a ski back brace which has an articulated support right up the spine. This is less than perfect in the rib as it tends to push you forward in the seats.

Roger experimented with an industrial type of garment which has plenty of elastic and Velcro and can be tightened in use. I am getting the same now. Of course, you never know whether these really help, but we both recognise that a back injury could take us out of the event and once a back goes slightly wrong, ribbing is not a lot of fun!

Underwear. Last but certainly not least, early rides have demonstrated the need for getting this right. The Ullman jockey seats have a narrower part at the front which you grip with your thighs. After a couple of hours, it gets uncomfortable so I plan to use undershorts with chamois running down both legs.


We will keep you updated as we discover new needs. Gavin 21.4.08