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Affiliated to the

TheburgeePort solent yacht club magazine

February 2017

www.psyc.uk.com

Send contributions to the editor:

tony.firth@talk21.com

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From the Commodore’s CockpitIan Reed (Reflections)

Welcome to the first 2017 Burgee. We hope that you all had a very good festiveseason and you are now looking to achieve those New Year resolutions like -keep the Club 2017 Handbook handy! We again have a comprehensive range ofon-the-water events for all to enjoy and are working on various social events thatrequire early planning including a Summer Barn Dance and a Black Tie Ball atChristmas.

We started this year with our first Winter Meet with some 30 participants (Page3) at which we announced the winners of the 2016 Photo Competition (pictureson Page 10). Please remember that we have two more Winter Meets, on Sunday19th February and Sunday 12th March (Page 11)

At PSYC’s AGM on 20th November, Amanda Aldridge (Soulmates) was voted ontothe Committee as Rear Commodore House. Amanda is already well ensconcedinto the Club’s activities and is now very actively pursuing initiatives for socialevents in 2017. The AGM minutes will be visible on our website in the comingweeks.

The PSYC web site (due to be revamped by Jacqui our Web Master) gives updatesand information; the Honorary Secretary also emails much information directlyto members. (Note: if you change your email or postal address please let theHonorary Secretary know).

The first on-the-water event is the ‘Shakedown Rally’ to Shepards Wharf on the1st - 2nd April. Really not so far ahead when you need to do all antifouling, lifejacket servicing, engine servicing and many other things before that date.

We will be looking at organising some training in 2017 as we have had severalnew members in the last four months with another four joining in the comingweek. We have previously undertaken to arrange groups of club members fortraining on VHF, Radar/AIS, First Aid, and Sea Survival. So if you are interestedyou can contact me directly and we will see what might be done. We have to actearly so don’t delay if you are interested.

In the meantime, enjoy Burgee and, as always, please consider any contributionyou can make to either The Burgee or the web with a tale of your experiences,good or bad, during your lay-up period or any boating tips or skills that you thinkmay be useful to others.

I look forward to seeing you at our next Winter Meet in February.

Cover picture; November Arrival on the Beaulieu River

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Winter Meeting – JanuaryHugh Nightingale (Shiraz)

Our commodore Ian welcomed 28members and friends to the first wintermeet of 2017. He went over part of theevents programme for the year pointingout that the start date given in theHandbook (you should all have receivedone by now) for the Dorset AnchorageMeet in August has been changed to11th August. He also announced that wehope to organise a Barn Dance on 1st

July and a Black Tie Ball for which wewill need to find the preferences. Westill have three rallies with no organiser.He then introduced Jim and Steph fromMEI.

Steph started by giving a short historyof the firm that began in 1994 as a localretailer and installer of most types ofelectrical and electronic equipment. Ifwe call them, she will probably be thefirst point of contact on the phone. Overto Jim to cover the technical aspects: Hebegan by explaining the newerbroadband radars (a misnomer). Heshowed how the X-band, 9 GHztransmission varies in frequencythroughout each time slot; in fact thetransmission is more or lesscontinuous. At any one known time thetransmitted frequency is different andtherefore the received echo will be atthat same frequency and delaytime/distance known. The transmittedpower is small, 30-40 W compared to apulsed radar at 2-4 kW. The system isbetter at short range, giving greateraccuracy, but is range-limited to about12 miles on a 4G Simrad due to thelower power. The beam angle is 5-6degrees but can be electronicallynarrowed on some radars. Being 9 GHz,it does not activate Sea-Me type activereflectors, Racon buoys or personallocators. Raymarine are still offering

magnetron pulsed radars but Furunohave ceased production of these. A“normal” radar has a consumption ofabout 4A where broadband is 2-3A.Some users advocate AIS instead ofradar but this is rubbish; together yes,but use with caution as the update ratescan give false readings. AIS (AutomaticIdentification System) is a vhf systemon channels 87b and 88b (around 161MHz) and transmits every 30s for classB sets used on smaller vessels. Note;ships’ class A goes all the time andcontains more information. The rangefor vhf on 2W has been reported as highas 20 miles and there is talk of includingweather updates from ocean buoys.

Steph offered some advice onmaintenance. If you have radar, switchit on; if you do this only one or twotimes a year it may not work. Cleanscreens only with water/damp cloth anddry with soft cloth. Use it to keepabreast of usage. Before sailing, lookup the mast and check that everythingis in place, scanner, wind vane etc.They, MEI, are insured to go up a mast.Before turning equipment ON, checkconnections. Silicon grease does noharm (do not get it anywhere near depthsounder - Hugh) and do not use WD40.If the speed log display shows onlydashes it is receiving no signals whichis generally a connection issue; if itreads zero, it is getting information butthe transducer is probably clogged. MEIhave a spare depth sender that can beused for tests. On your own boat, try tolocate all the black boxes, AIS etc. asthis helps the repair engineer; fromexperience they can spend more timefinding equipment than fixing it. If theheading appears wrong, check anddouble check there is nothing magneticwithin 1.8m of the system’s compass;it has been known for tin cans tosometimes not be all aluminium.

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Ian thanked them both and suggesteda short break before continuing. Hethen introduced Keith Lovett to talk

about insurance.

He offered a short personal historysaying he is a sailor and was on the RYAyouth squad; he always felt he wasgoing to go into something to do withboating. He is now a senior Lloydsunderwriter for Amlin who includeHaven Knox-Johnston and Saga! He hasowned a number of boats ending upwith a Bavaria Match 35. Moving on toinsurance he feels it gets a bad pressmainly due to misconceptions, thesingle biggest is that it is seen as a“cure”. It is really financial backup forwhen something goes wrong. Peoplecan become very emotional over claims.Insurance generally does not cover time- time when the boat is not in use; thereis no courtesy boat. There is adifference between what car insurancedoes and what boat insurance does. The[boat] underwriter is looking to providefor unforeseen incidents. There aremany that could be foreseen – seacockfailure due to poor maintenance orinspection. Most are covered becausethe policies are all risk. The premiumswere generally calculated as 1% of theboat value though this is reducing to

about 0.5%. A question: how do youassess boat value? Answer: generally inthe UK we use agreed value policies,agreed, that is, at the beginning of theyear and is incredibly subjective. Theyexpect the value of the boat shouldreduce say every 2/3 years. If you havea particular boat, 200 year old classic,then it may end with a fixed agreedvalue. Also incredibly, stupidity iscovered; driving into the marina gate,crashing into harbour etc is covered.You don’t have to have insurance in UKwaters but you may have liabilities.There are lots of local bye laws; marinasrequire insurance, inland waterways arecompletely different. Note: a boat is anentity and can be arrested. Can you letanybody use your boat? It is yourresponsibility to check the competenceof the user. However, taking an exampleof someone having own-boat tuitionwhen the instructor jumps off to moorthe boat leaving the novice effectivelyin charge who then makes a wrongdecision. There has to be some liability.Was this all helpful? A unanimous yes.A question: is it worth shoppingaround? Answer: you may save 10% buteverything is pretty equal; there are onlyabout 2/3 main underwriters and makesure you have a look at what you arebuying. A question: the cruising rangeseems fixed, is this problem? Answer:the range is loosely fixed based on theNavy limit of extra pay for overseasoperations and extension is usually noproblem.

There was another thanks from Ian anda request for a show of appreciation. Heannounced the next two meetings: atalk by RS Divers on 19th February andDr Hunt, a dermatologist, to talk on skincancers etc on 12 March. Then came theresults of the photo competition for lastyear (see Page 10). The winner for thebest rally picture was presented toChristina Munslow; the best scenic

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picture was awarded to Cliff Laxton whowas not present to receive his bottle.We will deliver the empty bottle later.Please spread the news about the nextmeetings. The meeting closed at 1311and 23 stayed for an excellent lunch;

I didn’t check all the meals but for£12.95 we had a good helping of hotchicken roast followed by crumble withice cream. Everyone was satisfied.

Grandpa - Why Are We GoingSo Slowly?Roger Leaman (High Time)

On a sunny and warm Sunday morningin mid-September we anchored in theshallows west of Fishbourne for thegrandsons to go swimming and then,after an hour or so, motored across toWarsash for a late lunch in the RisingSun. There was only a light breeze fromthe south so sailing would have beentoo slow for the boys – they don’t likesitting quietly for too long. After lunchwe headed back to Port Solent with thelast of the flood. Progress was slow andthe boys were getting restless.“Grandpa, why are we going so slowly”?I blamed the tide turning early andincreased revs to compensate. However,our speed dropped further; in the upperreaches of the harbour we were onlymaking 3 knots through the water flat

out; it should have been more like 8knots.

During the following week I did sometests on the engine while securely tiedin our berth as my first thought was anengine problem – possibly fuelstarvation. However, all seemed well sowe decided to take the boat out thefollowing weekend for further tests andhopefully join the PSYC rally to Beaulieu.We locked out OK but going down thechannel past Portchester Castle the boatwas barely making 2 knots. At this pointI decided that the problem must beunderwater rather than engine, maybea fouled folding prop, so we decided tolimp back to the marina and see if wecould arrange for a diver to have a look.

Years ago, getting a local leisure diverto do some minor underwater work onyour boat in exchange for some beermoney was never a problem. Not anymore – the dreaded health and safetyculture now requires two certifiedprofessional divers, plus permissionfrom the marina. The quote I receivedfrom RS Divers was £180 for aphotographic inspection.

Coincidentally, Port Solent boatyard wasadvertising their Autumn Special - liftout, scrub and relaunch – for £210 withberth-holder discount. Given that aphotographic inspection would notactually solve the problem, just identifyit, and a lift would probably still berequired to fix the problem, I bookedthe boatyard deal and High Time waslifted 2 weeks later.

The lift caused the boatyard staff someproblems - they couldn’t get the stropslocated properly. It took them a good15 minutes before they were happy tolift the boat clear of the water. It wasthen that the cause of all the problemswas slowly revealed.

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Probably in the shallow water nearFishbourne, we had picked up fivehome-made lobster pots tied togetherwith lines ranging in length from 3metres to 10 metres.

The lines werethat awfulg r e e npolypropylenestuff thatfloats; in ourcase it musthave beenjust under thesurface. Wealways keep ac a r e f u llookout forpots but wesaw no traceof these and

there was no float attached. The wholelot was now wrapped around the keel

and was heldcaptive by HighTime’s keelbulb which wasacting like agiant under-water cleat.

With a moretraditional keelthe rope wouldhave just slidoff under way.Each lobsterpot was loadedwith 15 Kg orso of concrete.They were tooheavy to carry.

Once the yard lads had cut them freethey had to drag them across to theskip; they had never seen anything likeit before. Disappointingly, after all thattrouble, there were no lobsters in any

of the pots, just a small, miserable-looking crab and a couple of mussels!

After a good wash-off and inspection ofthe prop, anodes and rudder, High Timewas pronounced fully fit and returnedto the water. I was very relieved - itcould have been much worse – and washappy to give the yard staff a good tipfor the extra work they had to do.

Once the cause was revealed, theproblems all made sense. We hadobviously been going so slowly inshallow water because we weredragging several of the pots along thebottom. We had actually been lucky thatthe pots hadn’t cause worse problems– they could have got caught on the sillin the lock or on some underwatertackle or other debris on the seabed.The ropes could also have fouled therudder or wrapped themselves aroundthe prop . . . . . .

Bulb keels are a great idea, giving themaximum righting moment for a givenkeel weight and draft. However, theyalso have the potential to collect andsecure (like a cleat) any floating ropestogether with whatever is attached tothem.

Would I recommend a bulb keel afterthis experience - probably not!

Open Sea MapJohn Crooks (Entropy)

An article in the Beneteau Owners’magazine, Eau, told me about aninteresting web site that members ofthe Club might like to visit:http://map.openseamap.orgThis is a chart of the whole world,published in Germany. Unlike othercharts, a map of dry land is alsoincluded. By selecting Tools/Trip

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Planner one can plan a route on thechart as seen. To start the route, clickonce. To start off in a new direction ata waypoint, click once again. To finishthe route, click twice. A panel at the sidelists the waypoints you have chosen, thedistance between them and the courseto follow to the next one. This facilityhas serious limitations; It only works forthe chart picture on which you start.You cannot change the scale or moveonto an adjacent area. The menu optionView offers a list of several options, butnot all of them work. Seamarks showsall the buoys, but Depth isuninformative. It shows areas whichdry, but that is all. However, to do OpenSea Map credit, it gives a more realisticview of the Lepe Spit than does theAdmiralty chart. Text information, suchas harbour guides, is in German.

I cannot recommend Open Sea Map asa complete alternative to a chart plotter,but it is free, and it can be used foramusement on a winter’s evening. Ihave threaded my way through theStraits of Magellan!

Sails for all weathersTony Firth (Amoret)

Coastguards groan inwardly when thelatest yacht in difficulties describesitself as white hull, two white sails. Trypicking that out from all the others ona summer Sunday afternoon in theSolent. However, the average cruisingyottie seems to get along perfectlyhappily with a mainsail and a rollergenoa. When the wind pipes up, he rollsin a bit of headsail … and a bit more…and a bit more. Battling the weatherhelm produced by his big mainsailpersuades him to put in a reef … andanother. A roller headsail is vastlypreferable to the days of hanked sailswhen the fore-peak contained half-a-

dozen assorted genoas, working jibsand Yankees and we spent most of ourtime on the fore-deck getting wet, coldand exhausted. OK, most of us alsohave a light-wind headsail, be it agennaker, cruising chute or a spinnakerand may even use it on occasion.However, we maybe need to think a bitabout whether our two white sails arereally up to handling strong-ish wind(Beaufort F6 and above).

The roller headsail is fine for modestreefs, but as reefs become deeper thedifficulty of rolling a sail with inbuiltcurvature becomes clear: the reefed sailbecomes increasingly wrinkled andout-of shape. A sensible way of dealingwith this is to have padding built intothe luff in such a way that the baggymiddle of the sail is being wound ontosomething spindle-shaped rather thanstraight. However, with or without apadded luff, the more a headsail isrolled, the higher up and furtherforward its working part becomes. Thisis exactly the opposite of what we need,which is a headsail lower down andfurther aft to reduce the heeling forcesit applies to the mast. Also, the cloth ofmost genoas is too light to handle galeswithout permanent stretching or eventearing.

A much smaller, stronger and flatterheadsail – a storm jib – is the bestsolution, but how do we get one up ina rising gale when there is already afully rolled-up genoa on the forestay?There are two solutions to this. Thebetter one is to have an inner forestayto which a storm jib can be hanked. Ona cutter, this is an integral part of therig. For a sloop the normal answer is toget a rigger to set up a stay leadingfrom just below the primary forestay toa strong-point on the foredeck. Thisneedn’t be in place permanently; aHighfield lever or similar tensioning

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device can hold it tight when in use butcan be clipped to a U-bolt near theshrouds when not needed. The lessgood solution is a storm-jib with a luffsleeve that can be fastened around afully rolled genoa. This can be tricky tohoist and is rather too far forward, butis much safer than using a heavily rolledgenoa.

A good mainsail is less problematic instrong wind. It is likely to be made inslightly heavier cloth and its workingarea moves in the right direction –downward and forward – when it isreefed. Slab-reefed mains retain theirshape well when reefed and roller furledmains are inherently flattened so don’tsuffer from loss of shape. A good slabmain shortened down to 3rd reef shouldcope with F6 to the top of F8 withoutproblems.

If the wind strength really goes mad,the solution is a trysail. This is a heavy,

flat sail with a very low aspect ratio. It

isn’t fitted to the boom but is made offto a centrally placed sheet block aft.

Attempting to get the main our of themast track and the trysail into it in arising gale is unlikely to succeed and ishighly dangerous, so most people usea separate track riveted to the outsideof the mast and tie the sail bag downwith the sliders already clipped into thetrack.

Of course, the real life-saver in galeconditions is to heave-to. At itssimplest, the manoeuvre is to tackwithout releasing the jib-sheet. Oncethe (reefed) main has crossed over, turnthe steering the other way and ease offthe mainsheet., adjusting steering andmain as required to get the boat sittingat somewhere around sixty degrees tothe wind but making little or no way.Things go quiet and the motionbecomes gentle. Tie the steering off;it’s time to brew tea, get a meal andeven catch a sleep below taking turnsto keep watch. To get out of the hove-toposition, release the steering, hardenthe mainsheet as you steer her off thewind until she gybes. Ease the main andcome onto your desired course.Heaving-to is a helluva lot safer thanrunning off the wind trailing warps, ismuch more comfortable and also meansthat we stay put as the gale passes overus so the bad weather moves awayfaster. It is easier in a masthead sloopthan in a sporty fractional rig, but thegeneral effect can be achieved in mostboats. Long-keelers can heave-to underreefed mainsail alone.

I know that we don’t go looking forgales, but anybody can get caught outSo far I’ve used my storm jib twice inanger and the trysail only for practice.As you could get both made for theprice of a modest genoa, it strikes meas a good safety investment.

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2016 photo competition - the winners!

This year the back-office staff at Marine Super Store kindlyagreed to judge our photo competition.

In the Scenic section, the winner was Christina Munslow:

In the Rally Boats section, the winner was Cliff Laxton:

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Forthcoming Winter Meets

Sunday 19th February at the Port House

Based in Portsmouth RS Divers are giving a presen-

tation and discussion on their experiences (some

of us have used them on occasion) for emergen-

cies and less urgent needs as they can travel wher-

ever they are needed. RS Divers run commercial

dive teams around the south coast, diving in lakes,

rivers and harbours. From Civil engineering to boat

scrubbing, salvage to bomb clearance!!

Sunday 12th March at the Port House

Dr Samantha Hunt - DermatologyConsultant

Samantha has a wide range of dermatological inter-ests both medical and surgical.This talk will be focused on Sun damage, skinchecks, skin cancer diagnosis and management.

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