Alison Cable - Gales every Weekend

Gales Every Weekend

Being the crew's account of Robinetta' s 2015 season sailing on the West Coast of Scotland from Crinan to Stornoway and then south into the Clyde.

Alison and Julian Cable

AJ and Family 2015

146 Stortford Hall Park

Bishop's Stortford

Herts,

CM23 5AP

England

T his book is a compilation of the Blog posts we made during 2015, relating to sailing on Robinetta , a small wooden yacht built in 1937. Last year we changed the voice of the blog so Alison was the I when we converted it to a book; this year it is Julian's turn to be the teller of the tale.

Robinetta is not the obvious boat for long passages. She is short, wide, deep and heavy with a small engine. We have done what we can with the sail plan and she can do 6 knots off the wind but that does not happen to us very often. So we passage plan on 4 knots and motor sail when we have to to keep that speed up.

Neither is she a particularly safe boat. We have no idea about her theoretical stability and her cockpit drains straight into the bilges. She used to be self draining but a previous owner put enough lead in her to lower the free-board so that the drain holes are underwater. We have a radio, carry flares, and a throw line, and wear life jackets when appropriate, but Robinetta is not big enough to carry the safety equipment considered necessary nowadays for long distance cruising; we have no life raft, or Danbuoy, or anywhere to mount them. So we are never going to take Robinetta sailing across the Atlantic; but she is strong and stiff and can be reefed single-handed from the cockpit.

In some ways she is the ideal boat for coastal passages. Her limitations force us to plan conservatively. We don't go out if bad weather beyond our experience is likely and we don't try to go further than the crew are fit for. Most importantly we never promise ourselves that we will be in a certain place at a certain time.

The crew too are not the obvious choice for long distance cruising. We didn't sail until our late thirties. We get on famously but we do bicker. We are clumsy and forgetful. So we try to sail within, or sometimes just beyond, our comfort zone.

These limitations are liberating. Without fixed goals, failure is impossible. Of course we do set goals, we just don't mind if we end up doing something else. Two that worked both involved weather too calm for sailing. Leaving Anstruther last year we were a week away from a neap passage to Orkney. A flat calm by the Bell Rock encouraged us to put on the tiller pilot and do a 24 hour passage to Peterhead, giving us two extra days to get to Wick. This year we had booked to attend the Tarbert Traditional Boat Festival in Loch Fyne but we were 200 miles away in Stornoway. Light airs let us motor sail for two long days so we could get to the Crinan Canal before bad weather set in, and we reached the Clyde in time.

More often we change plans to suit the capabilities of boat and crew. This year that meant we stopped at Plockton rather than pushing on towards Ullapool, then spent time stormbound in Mallaig, neither of which were in the original itinerary. The British Isles are a great place to sail or to be stuck in port. This is true even in places you might not think of as tourist destinations.

Alison and Julian Cable

9/03/2015

Having Robinetta so far away has made winter work an impossibility. Even if we had had the time off work to travel to Cairnbaan we would not have been able to do much. The boat is not undercover, and the days are too short and cold to dry off the dew and let us paint. When she was at West Mersea Alison would sometimes say "Oh, it's dry and warm(ish) today, I'm going to the boat!". She misses that.

Alison, Alex, and I will be heading north straight after Easter, for a week's solid work on her before she goes back in the water in mid April. With lots to do inside as well as out we will be busy whatever the sky throws at us and we are now thinking hard about what we will need to do before we leave home.

The rigging is in pretty good shape, but the hoops that hold the sail luff to the mast could do with some varnish, and some of the serving around the loops at the ends of the wire ropes is worn and needs to be renewed; nothing major, but actually making a start on it after a winter's indolence is hard going.

Adam Way never sent us the quote we asked for about stopping the leaks in the fore-hatch, so we'll have to do something about that, and about the issues highlighted in the new surveyor's report. Alison says she will be spending next week making lists of things that have to be done before Robinetta is craned in!

8/04/2015

Alison, Alex, and I got to Cairnbaan at ten this morning, and Robinetta 's covers came off to reveal her looking pretty much as she did back when Alison last saw her in November. The surveyor had taken off a little paint to examine the wood, but not so much that it would slow painting down. The bilges were pretty full, but still below the level of the floor boards and the inside did not feel too damp, although the walls are covered with black mould as normal!

The electric pump would not work as the batteries were flat, so I took the batteries out so we could charge them overnight. If they won't take a charge we will have to buy new ones, but they have already outlasted our expectations. They are only cheap caravan batteries and we bought them the first year we owned Robinetta, so they owe us nothing.

The weather was bright, dry, and warm; a little too windy for perfection, but excellent for getting on with the outside tasks. All the varnished wood on the foredeck and cabin sides got a coat of varnish, as did the bowsprit and top third of the mast. Alex touched up all the bare wood below the water line, so the hull is nearly ready for a complete layer of tie coat. We just need to get something to fill the holes the surveyor made. There are two chandlers between the cottage we are staying in and Cairnbaan, so we'll buy it in the morning.

Two more days like this, and we'll be happy. Alison says she wants the weather gods to keep smiling!

9/04/2015

The weather is holding so far, and outside work is well advanced. We got a complete layer of tie coat on before lunch, and grey metallic primer where it was needed on the topsides, then after lunch it was time for varnish on the mast and bowsprit. The first coat of anti-foul went on mid-afternoon, then the varnish on the foredeck and cabin sides got a second coat.

The essentials below the water-line are done, Robinetta could be craned in now, even if the weather broke this evening. There is still plenty of work to do, including checking the through-hulls, before she should really be launched, but the vital, weather dependent stuff is done.

Meanwhile work inside the cabin continued with only one aim, to get rid of the black mould that is growing on all the paint work. We bought some spray on anti-fungal wash from Screwfix, and we all had a go spraying and wiping throughout the day. There is still more of this wonderful task to complete tomorrow...

In between all this work we had a drink on the terrace at the Cairnbaan Hotel, and walked up the hill to show Alex the neolithic stone carvings. We ate our lunchtime sandwiches there, admiring the view down towards the canal. There are better places to keep a boat over winter, and get it prepared for launch, but on a warm sunny April day it's difficult to think of one.

0/04/2015