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Mr Kipling

John Passmore

June 19th 2018

This is me being philosophical.

Five days into a passage from Suffolk to the Outer Hebrides (which is about as far as you can go without leaving the country) and I am off the North East corner of Scotland, have been listening to gale warnings for the past 48 hours and the Navtex machine has just spewed out the following information: “Sea area Cromarty gale now ceased.”

I could have told them that. If I poke my head out of the hatch, my hat does not get blown off. Not to put too fine a point on it, there is no wind at all. None. We are going nowhere.

I woke from my afternoon nap (to differentiate it from my morning nap, my evening nap and my various night-time naps) to the sound of sails slatting from side to side, the boom banging and the self-steering clonking.

This is what happens when the wind suddenly stops. One minute it is blowing a “strong wind” as the meteorologists would have it – and the next you have a calm (I looked it up. “Sea state: Calm, glassy, like a mirror.” This was not even Force One which is “Ripples like scales are formed.”

This is when the Old Man must stop thinking about progress. After all this is not a race. I have no-one to measure myself against. So, a distraction is what is needed. There are two distractions on this boat. One is Mr Kipling’s Cherry Bakewell Tarts and the other is Mr Kipling’s French Fancies.

If you’re not familiar with British supermarket shelves, Mr Kipling is baker. He has a little corner shop just off the High Street where he produces the most wondrous cakes and pastries – a sort of Willie Wonka of the bakery world. As often as not, he will pop an extra macaroon into your paper bag with a conspiratorial wink as if to say: “Don’t tell Mrs Kipling”.

At least that is the image behind the brand dreamed up by the advertising agency employed many years ago by the vast conglomerate (Kraft? Unilever?) which owns the Mr Kipling brand.

Anyway, I was in Sainsbury’s doing the last-minute victualling (serious stuff like corned beef and porridge oats) when I couldn’t help noticing that Mr Kipling’s Cherry Bakewell Tarts and his French Fancies were on Special Offer – and we do love a special offer.

So far, so good. The colourful boxes were stowed away with everything else – at least, the Cherry Bakewell Tarts were – what happened to the French Fancies, I have not the faintest idea.

To coin a line from Titanic: “There are only so many places they can be. Find them Lovejoy. Find them…”

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. They would turn up. But a calm does funny things to the mind. Suddenly a French Fancy was the only thing that would do. Previous love affairs with Cherry Bakewell Tarts were forgotten in the frantic search – digestives cast aside – Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers chucked in with the cook-in sauces. Packets and packets of Penguin biscuits (why so many) ended up in with the rusty chopped tomatoes…

There was a moment when I sat back on my haunches in the middle of the not-very-large cabin, surrounded by packets and tins and jars and came to my senses. The logic went like this: The French Fancies were here. It was just that I couldn’t see them – like looking for the butter in the fridge (I’m looking for butter in a gold wrapper. How am I supposed to see butter in a plain wrapper).

So here was the deal: I would make a cup of tea and have one of Mr Kipling’s Cherry Bakewell tarts. Only after that would I put everything away – and if, in the course of restoring order, I happened to chance on the French Fancies, well… I could reward myself with one of those as well – and another cup of tea.

And do you think I found them? Of course I found them. Right next to the Cherry Bakewell Tarts – only they were in a slightly smaller colourful box (Fancies are smaller than Tarts – it makes sense). I was looking for a box the same size.

I had hardly finished the last mouthful, carefully collecting the crumbs by squashing them with my finger (I must be watchful for deteriorating personal habits) when I realised that the whole world had leaned over a bit and there was a delightful chuckling sound as the water started moving past the hull.

We were on our way once again.

 

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Friday the 13th

John Passmore

This was supposed to be a short stop. If you have been following events, you will know that Samsara and I arrived home in Woodbridge in mid-December. It was supposed to be just for Christmas and repairs to the damaged rail from getting clobbered by a motorboat in Brighton (not to mention my own foolishness on the River Orwell within reach of home). I had planned to be off again by the end of February.

Why do we make these plans? Has any plan actually survived a brush with reality?

First of all, if the boat was going to have to come out of the water for the work, then I might as well touch up the paint. I didn’t sound much to ask: All I needed was a couple of days with the thermometer over 10oC. And what did I get? The longest, coldest winter in living memory.

Then there was the sailmaker whose excuse was: “I’m afraid we took on too much work.”

… and the elderly engineer whose apology goes into my collection of cherished quotes: “Look, it’s going to cost me more to heat my workshop than I’m going to charge you for the work…”

So, one way and another it was Friday 13th of April when I set off.

“What time are you leaving?” said Lottie who seemed to think the correct protocol was to wave a damp hanky from the quayside.

“Oh, about 11 O’clock, I should think,” I replied with all the assurance of one who has decided to spend the night before departure on the boat, just to make sure everything would be ready.

And what didn’t I have? Possibly the most important item – and it wasn’t even on the list: Music.

Last time I did this sort of thing, I had a plastic suitcase full of tape cassettes (remember them?) Oh, the pain of trying to decide what to leave behind (Frank Sinatra made it, Fred Astaire didn’t). Now, of course, you can take all the world’s music on Spotify. Except my phone seemed to have forgotten the lot. One way and another, by the time I had downloaded it all again (and walked the dogs since I was home anyway – and taken that cheque to the bank…) I was late leaving.

Now, here’s the thing: If this was a strange port, any competent skipper would check the tides, read up on the pilotage information, have the chart ready…

If it’s your home port, you assume you know everything – at least I do. I’ve sailed a Laser around here every summer Saturday for years. I left (but never returned) with the catamaran Lottie Warren. But Samsara is rather a different prospect. For instance, a Laser has a centreboard. Lottie Warren drew 0.7metres. Samsara draws 1.5metres and her keel is most certainly fixed … as became clear when we reached the shallows off Kyson Point.

The river path down to Kyson is where everyone walks their dogs – it’s where I walk the dogs. This is how I know how fascinating it is to stop and inspect the yachts that misjudge the turn and spend six hours settling comfortably to an angle of 45 degrees on the mud.

By the time I floated again, it was dark with no moon and this is when I made the next  discovery: That the night vision gadget Tamsin gave me for Christmas is not as simple as the instructions would have you believe. In the end, I groped my way down the river with a torch until I found a mooring in what appeared to be deep enough water (it wasn’t, as became evident when things started falling off the chart table at 4.00 a.m.) But by then I was past caring.

 

Now, I don’t care anyway. On Saturday the 14th, I have sailed all the way down the river in beautiful spring sunshine and as I write this, the stove is going, The Frankie is on Spotify and in a minute, I shall get up and cook myself some dinner.

There’s still a long list of things to do and for the first week, I shall be holed up in an Essex creek painting the decks. But for the meantime there is an immense sense of contentment in the fact that at last The Adventure has begun.

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The Gold Line

John Passmore

Here’s a picture of my old Rival 32, Largo, in a lock somewhere on the North coast of Brittany, I should imagine. If you look very carefully, you will see the lovely gold line along the rubbing strake.

I always thought it looked like solid gold – which it was… well not actually solid gold but it wasn’t gold paint. It was gold adhesive tape and it had the look of a chunk of gold that had been hammered into the hull all the way down. It looked particularly good against the dark blue of the strake.

Samsara, being the same design, has a rubbing strake too but hers hasn’t been painted. I did think of it but, to be honest, it was a lot of trouble and if I want to paint it in years to come, there’s always the option.

But I did want a gold line. I told Barry Lovell from TLC Marine all about it. I was still enthusing about the solid gold Sellotape when I realised he was shaking his head.

“It comes off,” he said. “Just doesn’t stick.”

“Nonsense,” I told him. “It lasted for years last time I used it. In fact, I think I only replaced it once in more than ten years.”

“Doesn’t last,” he repeated. “Gold paint. That’s what you want. Gold paint and then when it gets a bit dull, you just go over it again.”

There are many things – in fact most things – on which I would take Barry’s advice. But a gold line is not one of them. With all the passion of someone who is particularly attached to gold lines, I remained adamant and went and ordered a roll of the stuff from the chandlery.

For the next few weeks that gold line was admired many times – not only by people who stopped to nod approvingly as they walked their dogs across the boatyard, but also on Facebook and on any occasion when people were too slow to run away before I found an opportunity to point it out.

Then I made the terrible mistake of putting the boat in the water and going sailing – and, on the very first day, I looked admiringly at the creaming wake … and saw a flash of gold. There, twisting and turning like a very ostentatious mackerel line, was 30ft of gold tape trailing behind the boat.

So we sailed all the way round the West Country and the South Coast looking just a little shabby. However, now that the thermometer has finally reached the 10oC required for painting, I’m pleased to say, the gold line is back.

Now all I have to do is touch up the white paint around it…

 

Rival 32

A new suit of clothes

John Passmore

It’s more than three months since I first saw Samsara. I went up North Wales on the train and, after checking into the cheapest B&B (the whole place smelled of stale milk) I walked down to the marina for a preview.

A preview is always a good idea. You don’t want the vendor to witness your first impression…

Actually, in this instance, it might not have been such a bad idea. The first impression was that this had been a wasted journey: While it is one thing for an old boat to show her age – you don’t want an antique to look as though it just came out factory – it is quite another when the words “shabby”, “a sorry state” and “sadly neglected” come to mind.

Wherever you looked there were scuffs and chips and poorly-filled holes. The scuppers were clogged with leaves and filth and there were things growing in the cockpit grating. One glance at the stem showed that the ancient 35lbs CQR had been taking bites out of it for years – to the point where the owner seemed to have given up worrying about it.

But I was looking for a boat to be my pride and joy – a joy for years to come. But I was not looking for “project”. All the same it was a long way to come and not see the whole boat – so the next morning found me returning at the appointed time to find the owner had clearly been there for some while attempting to put an encouraging gloss on things.

He needn’t have bothered because, as I mentioned in the last post, it was at this point that the boat took over. Little by little – without a lot of fuss or ostentation – she revealed herself to be just what I had been looking for all my life.

I won’t go into this now because I intend to have far too much fun writing at leisure about the way each little discoveries came to light. But let’s just say that 30 years ago when I sat drifting on my old Rival 32 Largo and made a list of all the improvements I would like to see, almost all of them had already been incorporated into Samsara. As for the scuffs and chips and holes… well, they were cosmetic. The main thing was that the boat was sound. Best of all, she was another Rival 32 – and surely I could find someone with an electric polisher…

In fact, I did better than that. I found a wonderful man called Barry Lovell and his little company TLC Boat Repair. It was the fact that the celebrated yachting writer Tom Cunliffe had trusted him with his Constance that decided me. After all Tom is a noted perfectionist.

But it wasn’t just that Barry and his team made such a wonderful job of the new locker lids in the cockpit or replacing the dreadful black rubber toe-rail with yards of teak or that they scrabbled around underneath scraping off years of antifouling – or even that he never charged for fixing the leak in the water tank. What made all the difference was that Barry knows everyone. Very early on in our friendship he made it very clear: “John,” he said. “Whatever you need, you come to me. I’ll look after you.”

For there was I, a stranger in town – 300 miles from home – knowing no-one and about to take a leap of faith with my pride and joy – and Barry put me on to all the right people.

There was Richie Williams in a workshop which looked as though it was waiting to be condemned who took the Aries self-steering piece by piece, understood instinctively how it worked – even though he had never seen one before – and put it back together again like a sewing machine.

There was Dave Worthington who worried away at the prop shaft so that I could have a feathering propeller which is as exciting as other men getting a Ferrari. There was Mike Kelly the stainless steel specialist who worked up until midnight because I forgot to tell him I wasn’t going in the water the next day after all.

Dave Evans with his brilliant idea for the new gas locker… Dave Jones who calmly accepted my electronic foibles like getting a regulator from Singapore instead of Milton Keynes.

Over three and a half months they came and they worked and they humoured me and if the launch date was put off and put off again until here we are going in the water in September, none of this matters if we get it right in the end.

And we have. In fact I have decided to add an extra page to the blog – a page of links to the people who have made it all possible.

It’s the least I can do.

The Old Man

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Choosing an anchor

John Passmore

If you buy an old boat, the chances are you are going to buy an old anchor.

I happen to think it’s something to get excited about – the fact that my “new” boat, Samsara, is 44 years old. At that age, a boat is ageing gracefully and improving in those important ways that people so often ignore – steadfastness, dependability…

Since I have been telling people that I have bought a Rival 32 again, I have been overwhelmed with comments such as “lovely boats” and “she’ll look after you…”

And she comes with an antique anchor: A venerable 35 lbs CQR which has served her well through all her adventures on both sides of the Atlantic.

After all, in 1973, the CQR was the anchor of choice for the cruising yachtsman – actually, there wasn’t much choice. That and a Danforth kedge seemed to see most people through most situations. But times have moved on. We now have the New Generation Anchors – and in any comparison test you care to look at, the dear old CQR comes out very poorly. The main problem is that you have to drag it around the anchorage before it will set  – which may have been fine when anchorages were less crowded but try that in the Newtown River on a Saturday night and you’ll be very unpopular.

These days there are anchor manufacturers who claim their product will set in less than a metre.

Besides, the hinge on the old CQR had experienced 35 years of wear and – while there was still plenty of “drop-forged steel” to hold it together – I suspect that the geometry has gone to pot, making setting even more of a problem.

So I did my research and I’ve gone for a New Zealand-designed Rocna.

The next choice was the size. According to the company’s chart, the 15kg would be ample – that’s 33lb. The trouble was, my eye kept sliding across to the next column, the 20kg (44lb). For a 32ft boat, that would be considered a storm anchor.

It is argued that boats heading for extended cruising should carry a storm anchor. It is also argued that by the time you realise you should have set the storm anchor, it will not be a very good moment to try and do so. You will sleep a lot better if you know it’s down there already.

So it was back onto Google for more research. This was when I stumbled on advice from the Rocna people saying they discourage going up a size. They had already factored in everything the prudent yachtsman would need for peace of mind.

So I called up Pirates Cave to order the 15kg.

“There’s been a run on them,” said Nathan. “In fact, our supplier – the only supplier in the UK – won’t be getting any until September.”

That was no good. I needed to get the new bow roller measured – and the piece of stainless steel to protect the hull where the tip will rest…

“I can do the 20kg,” said the voice on the other end. “I can get that out to you today…”

In end it doesn’t look out of place on the bow – and best of all, it might have been made for its passage-making stowage in the fo’c’sle.

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