Jon Fuller
numbskull
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2004
- Messages
- 15,942
- Location
- South
- Cruising area
- South Coast
- Boat name
- Leviathan
- Boat make
- Phantom 28
...following Deans lead.
Ok, after an interesting cowes 100 on Friday, all looked pretty good for Swipes for our race on Sunday. That is, until we realised late on Saturday that a hard landing the previous day had bent one of our engine mount legs. mmmn, not a good sign at all and this could well be putting our drive coupling out of alignment, also, once bent, bending it some more might well be even easier.
Right, what we'll do is....
The weather was supposed to be a W, N-W force 5 to 6, so there should be some shelter to be had from the close in course method, or 'doing a Sopwith' as it's known...thats our plan, go for a finish, can't let that Gordon fella whoop our arses again through a breakdown!
After a trundle down the Solent, we start our anti-clock muster and continue to discuss the strategy. All sounded really good on paper, from Fairway, straight across to the coast at Peveril and take the smooth, fast and engine mount friendly route to the Skerries mark....easy!
Start run & green flag away and within 30 seconds we're running into a pretty healthy swell. By the Fairway mark, we're getting air off 3 to 4 foot waves and they aint getting any smaller!..... bang, crash, wallop, OMG, that poor feckin engine mount! Quick, get over to Peveril, lets get out of this **** before summat breaks! Well, I don't reckon there was any feckin 'N' in that wind at all! little or no shelter from the shore, so we pushed on, wincing with every impact, just waiting for what seemed like the inevitable faltering stbd motor that would follow the mount failing.
As we agot got closer to Portland, there was increasing shelter and calmer sea being in the lea of the bill, but never particularly friendly to the kit.
We watched Mike Bontoft in Dry Martini taking fantastic air over to our port sort side, quite spectacular!
We approached Portland bill expecting the worst, and we weren't disappointed! The usual confused race at the bill was sending up some steep, tall water, we started taking the tops off a few and ducking to avoid the good old 'cricket bat' smash in the face, then bang, and I hear 'oh f*ck', my visors gone. Nick had failed to duck in time. Unbelievably, the wave had removed Nicks visor, but dumped it in his lap!! Off the plane and we manage to re-attach the visor. Back under way just in time to find ourselves alongside Tony Toll in the Apache. What a fab sight running along side him.
Upon rounding the awkward as Fkk bill, we run slightly north to see if the land is offering any protection, but not a chance! We quickly decide to ditch the 'Sopwith' plan and fix our course directly for the Skerries bouy, straight across the bay. 40 odd miles of breaking head sea..perfect! Just what we need for our survival with a suspect engine mount. At this stage I was convinced there was no way we'd make the 205 miles and invisaged another crawl back to Cowes in shite conditions from our usual farthest point breakdown!
We set the boat up to put the least stress on the mount, full bow tank, tabs half way down, drives tucked right in, with the bow pushing it's way though everything, running virtually downhill.
We run in company with TT for probably half of Lyme Bay, but he gradually pulled farther inshore and ahead of us until out of sight. (taking a longer route, we see him pass later on)
I found I could pick up a good 10mph by picking the tabs up a bit and trimming the drives out a tad, but the punishment on the boat increased 5 fold. As this was definitely a damage limitation exercise to try & get a finish, we opted for the slower, kinder setting.
Approaching the Skerries mark, the sea became kinder as we ran into the lea of start point and the run up to Torquay and round Torbay was absolute bliss!
Still unsure about the 'Sopwith' manoeuver and it's merits, we again headed slightly north as we left Torbay, but as we were still in the lea, it was actually pretty calm and before long we again set for a direct course across the bay to Portland.
Ten minutes later Nicks saying to me "That was a mistake Johnnyboy!", Mnnn, you might be right!
By half way across Lyme bay we were in a large, breaking following sea, with every 5th or 6th wave simply too high to keep the bow above it. The classic surfing down the backs of the waves at around 50mph, straight into the back of the next wave, with the instinctive 'duck' followed by temporary darkness & whoosh as the dark green monster passes overhead....then I hear aaahhh, bollox! my visor's gone again! This time, the monster had taken it permanently, along with our two on board cameras.
I start thinking to myself, jeez, we've got 80 miles to go yet and there's more salt spray than you can imagine coming at you like a jet wash, how on earth can Nick keep this up without a visor, he can't see ****!...then BANG, another cricket bat moment and I've been caught by one....Oh ****, my visors gone too!...hang on (still running 50mph) this all seems different, and noisy! ****, my helmets gone! I look round at Nick, he's looking back in astonishment..F*ckin ell! he says.
We drop off the plane and make a 180 to back track, but in this huge breaking water there's already no sign of where we've just come from, no white water trail, nothing, just large green bastards rolling about all over the place.
We head back on a reciprocal course and after about 1/2 mile Nick spots my helmet bobbing about. after 5 or 6 attempts we manage to retrieve it, minus the visor of course!
What a testament it is to the Greytronics Boat Intercoms system that once retrieved and back on my bonce, I plugged back in and to my relief Nick was still there, load & clear through the comms!.. now thats robust & durable electronics kit!
Back under way the sea is becoming more and more unpleasant, made worse with our lack of visors and subsequent poor visibility.
Time to try things closer to the shore! we head north again and run for 15 miles to see if things improve closer to the beach....nope! We see a boat pass making very good headway, we think this must be TT in the 41 Apache, those extra 9 feet of length, foot of beam and volume in the bow making it eat up the big following sea. 'We're in the wrong boat' I find myself thinking.
We struggle to Portland where FF takes his marvelous submarine pic and quickly tuck in behind the bill where we get a very, very welcome break from the punishing following sea, but it's short lived.
The sea continues to dish out some bloody rotten following mountains and green overhead monsters all the way back to North Head, indeed, even the Solent by now was snotty as hell (and to think I'd been dreaming of getting in the comfort of my familiar waters).
The boat refused to run any faster than 52 in the Solent, with one motor 500rpm down and a general stogy feel to things.
It turns out we had a bilge full of water as the bilge pump impellers had apparently gone awol! (handy that)
I have to say, I was pretty pleased to cross that line and drop off the plane. 4 hours 55 mins, one piss in my race suit, loss of new HD on board camera, helmet, fave sunglasses, what a day! Would I do it again?...F*ck yeah.
Ok, after an interesting cowes 100 on Friday, all looked pretty good for Swipes for our race on Sunday. That is, until we realised late on Saturday that a hard landing the previous day had bent one of our engine mount legs. mmmn, not a good sign at all and this could well be putting our drive coupling out of alignment, also, once bent, bending it some more might well be even easier.
Right, what we'll do is....
The weather was supposed to be a W, N-W force 5 to 6, so there should be some shelter to be had from the close in course method, or 'doing a Sopwith' as it's known...thats our plan, go for a finish, can't let that Gordon fella whoop our arses again through a breakdown!
After a trundle down the Solent, we start our anti-clock muster and continue to discuss the strategy. All sounded really good on paper, from Fairway, straight across to the coast at Peveril and take the smooth, fast and engine mount friendly route to the Skerries mark....easy!
Start run & green flag away and within 30 seconds we're running into a pretty healthy swell. By the Fairway mark, we're getting air off 3 to 4 foot waves and they aint getting any smaller!..... bang, crash, wallop, OMG, that poor feckin engine mount! Quick, get over to Peveril, lets get out of this **** before summat breaks! Well, I don't reckon there was any feckin 'N' in that wind at all! little or no shelter from the shore, so we pushed on, wincing with every impact, just waiting for what seemed like the inevitable faltering stbd motor that would follow the mount failing.
As we agot got closer to Portland, there was increasing shelter and calmer sea being in the lea of the bill, but never particularly friendly to the kit.
We watched Mike Bontoft in Dry Martini taking fantastic air over to our port sort side, quite spectacular!
We approached Portland bill expecting the worst, and we weren't disappointed! The usual confused race at the bill was sending up some steep, tall water, we started taking the tops off a few and ducking to avoid the good old 'cricket bat' smash in the face, then bang, and I hear 'oh f*ck', my visors gone. Nick had failed to duck in time. Unbelievably, the wave had removed Nicks visor, but dumped it in his lap!! Off the plane and we manage to re-attach the visor. Back under way just in time to find ourselves alongside Tony Toll in the Apache. What a fab sight running along side him.
Upon rounding the awkward as Fkk bill, we run slightly north to see if the land is offering any protection, but not a chance! We quickly decide to ditch the 'Sopwith' plan and fix our course directly for the Skerries bouy, straight across the bay. 40 odd miles of breaking head sea..perfect! Just what we need for our survival with a suspect engine mount. At this stage I was convinced there was no way we'd make the 205 miles and invisaged another crawl back to Cowes in shite conditions from our usual farthest point breakdown!
We set the boat up to put the least stress on the mount, full bow tank, tabs half way down, drives tucked right in, with the bow pushing it's way though everything, running virtually downhill.
We run in company with TT for probably half of Lyme Bay, but he gradually pulled farther inshore and ahead of us until out of sight. (taking a longer route, we see him pass later on)
I found I could pick up a good 10mph by picking the tabs up a bit and trimming the drives out a tad, but the punishment on the boat increased 5 fold. As this was definitely a damage limitation exercise to try & get a finish, we opted for the slower, kinder setting.
Approaching the Skerries mark, the sea became kinder as we ran into the lea of start point and the run up to Torquay and round Torbay was absolute bliss!
Still unsure about the 'Sopwith' manoeuver and it's merits, we again headed slightly north as we left Torbay, but as we were still in the lea, it was actually pretty calm and before long we again set for a direct course across the bay to Portland.
Ten minutes later Nicks saying to me "That was a mistake Johnnyboy!", Mnnn, you might be right!
By half way across Lyme bay we were in a large, breaking following sea, with every 5th or 6th wave simply too high to keep the bow above it. The classic surfing down the backs of the waves at around 50mph, straight into the back of the next wave, with the instinctive 'duck' followed by temporary darkness & whoosh as the dark green monster passes overhead....then I hear aaahhh, bollox! my visor's gone again! This time, the monster had taken it permanently, along with our two on board cameras.
I start thinking to myself, jeez, we've got 80 miles to go yet and there's more salt spray than you can imagine coming at you like a jet wash, how on earth can Nick keep this up without a visor, he can't see ****!...then BANG, another cricket bat moment and I've been caught by one....Oh ****, my visors gone too!...hang on (still running 50mph) this all seems different, and noisy! ****, my helmets gone! I look round at Nick, he's looking back in astonishment..F*ckin ell! he says.
We drop off the plane and make a 180 to back track, but in this huge breaking water there's already no sign of where we've just come from, no white water trail, nothing, just large green bastards rolling about all over the place.
We head back on a reciprocal course and after about 1/2 mile Nick spots my helmet bobbing about. after 5 or 6 attempts we manage to retrieve it, minus the visor of course!
What a testament it is to the Greytronics Boat Intercoms system that once retrieved and back on my bonce, I plugged back in and to my relief Nick was still there, load & clear through the comms!.. now thats robust & durable electronics kit!
Back under way the sea is becoming more and more unpleasant, made worse with our lack of visors and subsequent poor visibility.
Time to try things closer to the shore! we head north again and run for 15 miles to see if things improve closer to the beach....nope! We see a boat pass making very good headway, we think this must be TT in the 41 Apache, those extra 9 feet of length, foot of beam and volume in the bow making it eat up the big following sea. 'We're in the wrong boat' I find myself thinking.
We struggle to Portland where FF takes his marvelous submarine pic and quickly tuck in behind the bill where we get a very, very welcome break from the punishing following sea, but it's short lived.
The sea continues to dish out some bloody rotten following mountains and green overhead monsters all the way back to North Head, indeed, even the Solent by now was snotty as hell (and to think I'd been dreaming of getting in the comfort of my familiar waters).
The boat refused to run any faster than 52 in the Solent, with one motor 500rpm down and a general stogy feel to things.
It turns out we had a bilge full of water as the bilge pump impellers had apparently gone awol! (handy that)
I have to say, I was pretty pleased to cross that line and drop off the plane. 4 hours 55 mins, one piss in my race suit, loss of new HD on board camera, helmet, fave sunglasses, what a day! Would I do it again?...F*ck yeah.
I'm sure that deserves some sort of trophy! I have got an old wooden toilet seat that I'm sure we could get engraved...It would only be perpetual though, you'd have to hand it back for 2011, and who's house would it live in! Seriously, great effort. I heard that Jon, you looked as though you were suffering from a mild sate of hypothermia when you got back in??!! I was going to lend you a dry suit, but after your little confession you can feck off!
