Ever closer comes the Creep!

The weather in Rock over the last ten days or so has been fabulous for the sun worshippers and fair for sailors. We are now coming to the end of Shrimper Week with just two more days of racing. Winds for racing have been predominantly light although a squall on Saturday had us on our toes as well as our scuppers. Saturday was our two race day - one after the other at the entrance to the estuary - and it really blew in the second. A number of boats reefed down and more retired. We did neither and Joanna and I had two pretty good races - for us! BB performed very well in the stronger winds which perhaps gave some assurance as to what comes next.

Apart from a problem with the jib furling line our gear has been fine. The furling problem did not allow us to furl after the last windy race on Saturday making for an interesting return to our mooring. We had to lower the whole jib foil and then attack the problem once moored to our buoy. Has anyone ever tried untangling a furling line at the end of a bowsprit while standing in a dinghy with an ebb tide running at about 2kts and a big wind? I don't recommend it. Very uncomfortable but it did wonders for my shoulder and neck muscles. Anyway problem sorted I thought and we re-set the jib foil, furled the jib and returned to shore - but more trouble was to come.

Yesterday we were preparing for racing with new crew member Peter Innes-Ker. We hoisted the main, left our mooring and prepared to set the jib and nothing happened. It was jammed and would not unfurl. After a brief examination and race time looming there was only one thing to do and that was sacrifice the furling line and race without and sort the problem after the race.

After a fun race where we found ourselves having a race within the race with a couple of boats we returned to the mooring and found that the main would not drop. We spotted the problem quickly - the jib foil was tangled with the main halliard. This has not prevented the earlier raising of the main but had prevented the unfurling of the jib. This issue was quickly sorted. The last thing to do was to get a new furling lined rigged before our next race.

We acquired the necessary line from the Shrimper factory here in Rock and at low water last night we motored out to BB who by this time was sitting on one of the large sand bars. Fitting the new line whilst standing on firm sand was a lot easier than the previous operation in a bucking dinghy! We tested everything last night and are hopeful of clean running rigging today.

Richard Goodman arrives in Rock tomorrow in readiness for the Off which is currently planned for the early hours of friday the 3rd of July. The weather charts at the moment are showing very light SW winds and I anticipate a fair bit of motoring to St Ives our first stop.

Thursday will be spent victualling boat and loading her up with all our bits and bobs. We will spend Thursday evening on the boat and slip away at about 0300 hours on the 3rd on the high tide.

I will try and post another blog before we set off and in the meantime hope for some fun racing over the next two days and of course an excellent closing dinner on wednesday. That might be the last decent meal for a few days! BB

A step closer

Well this morning at 0900 hours BB was launched in Rock. She is looking terrific, willpost pic in due course. She is now sitting on her mooring in the beautiful Camel Estuary amongst about 50 other Shrimpers. We were lucky with the weather. It was a grey old morning with rain forecast later. Well the rigging and launch all took place whilst the weather remained fair. That is not how I would describe stuff now. It's p...ing down and blowing a howler. The weather looks set to improve dramatically over the next few days which is encouraging.
The yard have done good work on BB and she is in good shape. I am hoping to get out to her tomorrow for the first shakedown sail of the season. Let's hope the weather improves. More anon

Bybyn-Bubyn and Skipper

The original idea

Bybyn-Bubyn (BB) is the name of my 1989 built Cornish Shrimper. BB presently lives in Rock, North Cornwall. My sailing of her to date has been restricted to the Camel Estuary. Having now retired from fulltime work I now have more time on my hands and thus last winter I began to think of a trip that BB could make venturing away from the North Cornish coast.
Since my home is a few miles north of Chichester Harbour in West Sussex the idea that sprang to mind was to bring BB to Bosham, a very pretty village in the Harbour. There are really two options to get to Chichester from Rock. The first is to go, by road a journey of perhaps 5 hours; the second is to go by sea, a slightly longer journey time! No prizes for guessing which option I have decided to embark upon!

The journey is being planned to commence shortly after the ending of Shrimper Week in Rock in early July. This is a week of Shrimper racing in the estuary where up to 40 boats will race against each other every day. Great fun and very friendly racing. Once the racing is over I will begin to provision the boat with all that is necessary for her outbound trip.
She will be equpped with minimal electronics - a couple of handheld GPSs, a wireless netbook and a VHF/DSC radio as well as the paper charts. She is being fitted with a log and distance recorder and has two decent compasses in addition to the GPS.

Assisting me on this journey will be a few chums including Richard Goodman, Richard Sargent, Peter Innes-Ker, Philip Currie and Joanna Turnage. They will all be aboard the Shrimper with me at different points of the trip. Peter's very comfortable Sabre 42 "Resolution" will be undertaking the leg from Falmouth back to the Solent acting as "mother ship" supplying crew and no doubt advanced navigational assistance!

For those of you don't know about Cornish Shrimpers - they are a 19 foot long gaff rigged sailing boat with an auxiliary inboard diesel engine ( in my case) with very limited accommodation for two below. Many others have an outboard engine. They are instantly recogniseable by their tan sails. They are renowned for their seaworthiness and some impressive voyages have been made by Shrimpers - including around Britain, from the South Coast UK to Northern Norway and many have done the same trip that I plan to do in early July.

I will add to this, my first ever attempt at blogging, in due course.