Into the autumn

And actually the weather has, if anything, taken a bit of a turn for the better.

But not enough to get excited about!

This past week has seen me back aboard in work mode for most of the week. Three successive days in Limehouse was a bit wearing due to the long days what with the commute back and forwards each day. However, I deliberately wanted to see how good, bad or indifferent the commute is depending on departure times and I've now worked out a cunning plan which avoids the worst of the traffic.

That said, avoiding the 40 mile each way commute if I'm working in Limehouse on successive days is highly desirable and whilst I've got friends and customers who'll put me up it needs arranging and means my time is a bit less flexible if I've made those arrangements. With a lot of work coming up in Limehouse over the next few weeks and months, I decided to join the Cruising Association which, as well as the benefits of membership as a yachtsman, gives me access to their facilities at Limehouse which include a bar, overnight accommodation and car parking.

So having gone from being the members of no clubs at all, Jane and I are now the members of two clubs! (North Fambridge Yacht Club and The Cruising Association). Keep this up and we'll need a taller mast to fly all the burgees (which we haven't got, you have to buy those seperately!)

With the current Limehouse job on hold until the plumber has been in to do his stuff, I spent a couple of days dealing with some odds and ends jobs around Fambridge and catching up on some maintenance on Erbas

Saturday morning was greatly enlivened by a visit from the former owners of Erbas, Roger and Jude. They owned Erbas for some 16 years until they sold her to the couple we bought her from. It was a very pleasant couple of hours on board over coffee, learning a lot about the boats history in their ownership. The initial purpose of the visit, planned while Roger and Jude were away on their boat in Belgium, had been to bring down the original teak saloon table which Roger had thought was in their garage but it turned out to be nowhere to be found. It must have gone walkabout at some point but it was a minor disappointment

Both Roger and I remain curious about the correct date of build and commissioning of Erbas and Roger, prompted by reading my article on the subject hereabouts, has emailed the Register of Shipping to try and discover when she was first registered on the Part 1 register (Roger, sensibly, moved her onto the Part III Small Ships Register shortly after buying her thus avoiding the onerous paperwork involved in transferring a Part I registration). It will be interesting, if rather academic, to see what comes back on that.

Another little task completed was to remove the old mooring lines, which are about shot, and replace them with the new ones. I immediately regretted being miserly and wished I'd bought 14mm lines, or even possibly 16mm, instead of 12mm. There was quite a price difference but the 12mm lines look rather thin. However, they're rated and recommended for a boat the size of Erbas so I'm sure they'll be fine.

In the process, I fitted rubber snubbers to both bow lines and the stern line. Although this now allows her to slip a few inches away from the pontoon when she dries out, it means she's much more snug and there's much less strain on the deck fittings when the tide is in.

However, we are totally reliant on a single spring line preventing her moving forwards and into the main hammerhead. The hammerhead handrail is a particular concern as the pulpit rail could hit it or even get caught up under it. I'm considering securing a vertical plank to the handrail in the right place to prevent a hang up but the only way to double up the spring, short of fitting a whole lot of extra fairleads and cleats (which would not be simple) is to sort out the means of running a stern line out to a buoy or anchor

The buoys laid to sinkers that are out there in the mud are not in positions that are usable for our purposes and whilst I could get one moved I'm far from convinced of the effectiveness of the sinkers which, when you get right down to it, don't sink when the pull is continuously from one direction (when used for a swinging mooring, the change in direction of pull with each turn of the tide will work the sinker down into the mud)

However, I have a cunning plan. We've got a big plough type anchor that we were given by a friend some time ago which is too big for the bow roller on Erbas. However, it's perfect for the purposes of laying an anchor and chain off the end of the finger pontoon to which we can secure a stern line. All we need is a few metres of chain but I baulked at the price at the local chandlers given that I can buy what I need on-line for half the money! So that's a job to be completed on my or our next spare day on board.

It'll only be a few days and I'll be aboard yet again. The engine needs it's annual service, there's a lot of routine woodwork maintenance to catch up on and at some point in the not too distant future the decks need a fresh coat of paint. That job though, will likely wait until the spring.