6. An Update....and not before time!

When I wrote the last blog in August 2014 I had no idea that it would be getting on for two years before posting the next one.  Perhaps it is just as well that I was ignorant of what was to come or I probably would have resigned my post as Ship’s Dogsbody.

The past.....

Severn Swan was hauled out of the water and propped up in Tom’s Shipyard in Polruan in October 2014…. and spent a very long time there. To cut a long story short, we discovered that the prop shaft (all 4 metres of it) was bent at the very end where the prop is attached, which kind of explains why we hadn’t noticed and also why we chewed up so many sets of bearings. The water maker died soon after commissioning and then was lost for a year after having been sent to the manufacturer for repair. The solar panel controller died and was repaired under guarantee.  Martin decided that he wanted  the engineering challenge of building a wind vane for steering (which took months to complete but kept him happy and out of the way). The rudder came off again when it was discovered that the pintels were out of line (which explains the stiff steering). Not unexpectedly a lot of the varnish work has degraded over this period despite covering the whole deck area with tarpaulins so here we go again with the varnishing….Most of the bedding, galley equipment, clothing and food (and a lot more besides) was carried up to the house for overwintering (x2 winters!). Hippo-Thomas too called it a day and took root on the sofa up at the house in more comfortable surroundings (for those who don’t know Hippo, see our website – www.schoonercharter.com).  He doesn’t want to be skipper when it is too boring, too cold or too dangerous – which accounts for a lot of the time actually.

The present....

What happened next…

We were lifted back into the water on Friday 13^th May 2016– unlucky for some, but our lift was very smooth and without incident or undue stress (thanks to Alan and Paul Toms and team) although we’d been stressed out for weeks just thinking about it.   

A last dollop of antifoul before she goes in

And so we're off for more adventures!

Sea trials

Sea trials out in St Austell Bay went amazingly well.  It was a beautiful day and we had all five sails up - and found the boat steering herself in a straight line when going to windward (we haven’t tried the previously recalcitrant autohelm yet  - we have never managed a straight line with that!). Thanks to Sarah and Dave for their help, and for the champagne that we all drank in the cockpit afterwards.  It was such a lovely day and reminded us why we have invested so much of our time and energy (and money) in this boat.

Martin has posted aYouTube video of our little outing (thanks to Dave and Sarah for this):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22M4RWcNZUw&feature=youtu.be