A winter weekend, or was it?

Well it really doesn't seem much like winter! I think winter was last week!!!

But first, the latest and hopefully anti-penultimate update on the house sale saga

The outcome of the survey of the drainage system was that there was no fault to be found so the finger of blame for the cracks in the walls is now being firmly pointed at the neighbours Leylandii hedge (which was my firm conviction all along). The recommendation being that the hedge should be removed or a root barrier installed and the cracks monitored.

To cut a fairly long story short, we ended up having to agree a reduction in the sale price of the house to keep the buyers on board. Our estate agents weren't happy as they wanted us to go back to the market and find a new buyer but we simply do not have time now. We're losing money every day we delay the move and it would probably take at least another couple of months to go through the whole conveyancing process again with the added prospect of the same stumbling block getting in the way

So now we are just awaiting the buyers receiving a revised mortgage offer from their lenders and everything is in place to exchange contracts. We're hoping that will happen this week so now the hunt is on for a place to rent as a stop gap.

So back to boats at last ...

So what of the hunt for a bigger boat? Well as I posted on the SV Pagan blog (and apologies for duplications but it's tricky deciding which blog to post stuff at the moment) the combination of the reduced net proceeds from the sale of the house, the costs of the abortive house purchase and the attendant extra outlay renting for six months means our Bigger Boat budget is now rather less than we'd hoped. That pretty conclusively rules out "Safe Return", the Vulcan 34, unless there is a minor miracle.

So we now need to look in the £20k to £30k price range and we won't have a huge amount of spare cash for improvements and upgrades so we need to be careful to buy the right boat at the right price to keep the total spend within budget

With nothing to keep us at home this weekend, Jane and I pootled off down to Essex at lunchtime on Friday and headed straight to Burnham Yacht Harbour to have a look at a twin keel centre cockpit Westerly Discus ketch that appeared on my radar the other day

I've had my eye on the Discus for some considerable time, even posting about the marque back in the Brigantia days in a post about future boat possibilities ...

... in a post called That's settled then ... way back in 2011!

However, we'd never had a chance to actually get on board a Discus and have a good look.

Overall it shows promise. We really like the main cabin, heads and v-berth setup. It's near ideal. The settees could bear being an inch or two wider, especially the port settee but that settee pulls out to make up a double which would be a great "chill out" feature as well as extra guest accomodation

However, as we half expected from the photos and the blurb, the "walk" through into the aft cabin is cramped and the aft cabin itself is rather poky and restricted. It would serve as a guest cabin but it wouldn't be very usable as a second living space for us. You do get a plethora of hanging lockers with one in the v-berth, one opposite the heads and two in the walk through though.

However, the price paid is a distinct lack of deck storage. There's just the one cockpit cave locker and it's not huge. Our conclusion about the model in general is that it would meet our needs very well but we might actually be better off with the previous W33 model without the walkthough.

The W33 is the same hull and a nearly identical deck moulding but with the access to the aft cabin through a hatch at the aft end of the cockpit. The aft cabin has two good single berths which will be better for guest accommodation and may serve better as a second living space too. Plus you get a second cockpit locker instead of the walk through which would be a definite help

So what of the specific Discus? Well on our initial visit on Friday we were sufficiently interested to plan to go back on Saturday for a more detailed look on a warmer dryer day.

Meanwhile, we entertained Tony for dinner and a couple of beers once back aboard Erbas but none of us felt like a session so we made it an early night

We met up again for breakfast at the Yacht Club on Saturday morning and then, after stopping off for a brief chat with Carol (owner of 'Safe Return') to update her on the latest developments, Jane and I headed off to Burnham once again

This time aboard the Discus it was about details and I'd benefited greatly from following Toby around whilst he surveyed "Safe Return" for us a couple of weeks ago. I'd got a much better idea of what to look at and what to look for and it wasn't all good

There's a list of good points - the sails are all less than five years old, indeed the genoa is totally unused, she's got a cockpit tent, she's well set up (in theory at least) and there's no indication inside or out of any significant keel problems. The headlinings are recent, the deck soles have been protected by carpet and are undamaged and the woodwork, excepting the trim around a couple of deck hatches, is in very good order

You'll have figured out by now that there is a but. Actually, there's quite a few buts ...

The main and mizzen many only be five years old but the stack packs are starting to disintegrate. There's holes and splits in quite a few places. Worse still, a cursory examination of the sails by unzipping the stack packs showed, after I'd avoided half a dozen or so hibernating wasps (!) that the sails are grubby. They'd probably come up OK with a valet but the stack pack fabric would need replacing and that would be a good few hundred quid

The cooker is the original Flavel Vanessa and whilst it looks clean it has no flame failure devices and would have to go.

Unsurprisingly, the instrumentation, such as it is, would need totally updating - the VHF is non-DSC, there is only a basic elderly GPS, and there's no system integration at all.

The upholstery in the saloon is nearing the end of its life although it's in better nick elsewhere.

On deck, the deck itself needs repainting and the 16 year old standing rigging would have to be replaced in its entirety. There's significant visible surface rust on all the rigging and guardwires and I could feel distortion in the rigging wires in a number of places just running my fingers up it from deck level (which means strands have kinked or parted within the wires).The running rigging is all virtually life expired too.

There were other problems besides - unsecured batteries, a leak under the helmsman's seat, ratty wiring all over the place and so on and whilst the engine is claimed to be reliable and in good order, it is a raw water cooled Volvo Penta which is getting on towards 30 years old and we'd have to buy the boat on the basis of having to re-engine at some point if not immediately

After due consideration, we walked away from that particular boat at least for the time being. The asking price somewhat below top dollar for a Discus but nowhere near low enough!

We've decided to keep looking and only go back to that particular Discus if we're not finding anything better in a few months time.

Boat viewing over, we headed down to have dinner, drinks and chat with our good friends aboard the good ship Laurin. As always, a great evening and good Scotch having been consumed we stopped over and after breakfast this morning headed straight for home

The focus now for the next two or three weeks is (hopefully) on getting moved. Meanwhile, we'll keep our eyes on the boat sales websites and await developments

Oh and the outside temperature readout in the car reckoned it was 14 degrees today! In January! Winter? What winter?

Hold it!

Things have gone somewhat pear shaped over the last few days and it now looks increasingly unlikely that we'll be buying the Vulcan 34 "Safe Return". More detailed reasons for this unwelcome turn of events are over on the Pagan blog which I'll keep alive until we do find "Bigger Boat"

There is still an outside chance we will get back in the game on "Safe Return" but I'm not counting on it

Two boats...

Means two of everything including two blogs!

If you haven't already, come on over to svpagan.blogspot.com for the latest on our purchase of our new boat

Meanwhile there'll still be updates here as we through the slightly sad process of putting Erbas up for sale and finding a new owner for her

Hectic isn't the word!

Down to the boat last Friday, followed by a major clear out of all the kit that doesn't need to be aboard over the winter and then some

Then some because, of course, we don't expect to be using Erbas again other than as a floating cottage for a few more weeks

With boxes and bags loaded into the car, we headed down to Burnham for a very pleasant evening aboard the good ship Laurin

Curry, beer, music and scotch did flow and after staying over a very welcome breakfast set us up for the journey home

Wednesday morning saw us back on the road at the ungodly hour of two am after Jane got an early finish

We slept most of the morning and then set about Erbas with the pressure washer and hoover as appropriate! A couple of hours graft in the sunshine had her looking her best again

Then this morning I set about diagnosing the tiller pilot fault. As I half expected it turned out to be a bad connection on the back of the deck socket...



With that fixed the good tiller pilot worked perfectly so I had a look at the old dodgy one. I'd wondered if the original problem had been damp, to which (ridiculously) tiller pilots are notoriously prone, and it seems that may have been the case as it now seems to be working OK.

I wouldn't trust my life to it but as a back up to the known good one it's a bonus.

All was about ready for a visit from a potential buyer for Erbas who duly arrived for a tour of the boat and a chat. Chickens are not being counted yet but fingers crossed!

Meanwhile Carol has been busy fixing things on "Safe Return" which is good! We'd have popped round for a visit but we've both got colds which are probably best kept to ourselves

It's back home again in the morning for another round of solicitor nagging as we've had a call from the agents and our buyers are getting understandably impatient. So are we!

The Great Escape - the saga continues

It's all a bit frustrating at the moment really. We're champing at the bit to get on with things but solicitors and banks seem incapable of moving along quickly

To recap, we're now simply waiting for the last piece of paperwork on the purchase of the house in Kettering and then we can exchange contracts and agree completion dates on both properties.

I'm going to be pushing all parties hard on that next week, I want the earliest possible completion date set in concrete by next Friday.

The lift out and survey on the new boat is booked for the second weekend in January. Unless the keels fall off or something equally dramatic I don't expect to learn anything that will put us off or affect the deal. (In fact, as there's a survey less than 10 years old available, we could have avoided the expense of having a survey done now. However, we'd then have needed a survey all the sooner and given that we're blowing our entire budget on the purchase it's probably wise to get the boat checked over and make certain there are no hidden nasty surprises)

We're now in the middle of two trips down to Erbas in less than a week! We've come down this weekend to have a major clear out of all our personal gear, which really needs to come off over the winter anyway, and to move as much of the boat kit as possible that won't be sold with Erbas into the Boson 's Store

It's a properly windy day today and we had a bit of a disturbed night last night. Not so much the wind, that really doesn't bother us much, but neither of us slept that well.

We'll crack on in a while, it shouldn't take long to do what needs doing, and then it's back home in the morning.

We'll be back down on Wednesday to spruce up Erbas to look her best as a chap is coming to look at her on Thursday. It would be very useful indeed if we could sell Erbas at around the same time as buying Pagan, or even sooner, thus avoiding owning two boats which can get very costly!

On with the kettle I think and then it's time for some action!

Some further thoughts on Bigger Boat

Nearly all respondents have been various shades of green with envy but one or two have been politely negative about our decision to buy a Westerly Vulcan and I can understand that

So I thought I'd expand on yesterdays post with some of the logic and reasoning behind the decision

Firstly let's deal with the aesthetics. She is without doubt a bit of a Marmite boat looks wise. You know, you either like it or loathe it! With the best will in the world the Vulcan could never be described as a pretty boat, I have to confess but then we'll be on the inside looking out :)

In fact, I had been expecting to be put off by the looks when we went to look at her and I found that I rather like her style. She's chunky, purposeful and honest and the colour scheme has been carefully chosen to ease her lines and avoid her looking like a total brick. A bit of a brick, maybe but not a total brick!

Looks are however only superficial. They are also a matter of opinion.

The other negative comment that has been raised is the potential sailing performance. And here I think it is a matter of expectations. If you buy seven and a half tons of floating brick with shallow bilge keels and a rig that is modest by performance boat standards and then expect her to slice up to windward like a racing yacht you are most definitely going to be disappointed.

However, our sailing involves and will always involve relatively short hops from port or anchorage to port or anchorage with the absolute bare minimum of passage making. And when we set out on extended cruising as we plan to do as soon as we've spent all the money we need to spend on the things we need to spend it on, we'll have the luxury of not having to sail to a timetable.

So what if she sails to windward like a, well yes OK, brick? If the wind is blowing the wrong way we either go the other way, don't go at all or we bite the bullet and fire up the iron topsail. The plain truth of the matter is that in five years of bashing around the East Coast with trips as far afield as Norfolk, Chichester and Belgium, I can count the number of times we've spent more than an hour or two beating to windward on the fingers of one hand. It's fun for a while but after a while you start to think "I can spend the next six hours doing this or I can hit the starter and be there in three" and it's on with the engine again.

My only absolute requirement is that a boat be weatherly enough to claw her way off a lee shore in the event of engine failure. I'm satisfied the Vulcan will do that, if we can make her do better (and we do seem, somehow, to be able to get bilge keelers to go although I really don't know what it is we do right!) that will be a happy bonus.

The chunky, to some indeed ugly, looks and the unspectacular sailing performance are the price we are paying for a simply vast amount of space and comfort. As I said yesterday, she really is a tardis boat. Her relatively short length for the amount of accommodation will keep visitor mooring fees down (it's not relevant to our mud berth as we pay a 15m minimum charge so we can have a 4.5m dinghy on there as well if we like ... and that may one day happen as I quite fancy something to mess about in)

And the accommodation is simply awesome. And there's the rub you see

When you get right down to it, we'll be spending maybe forty or fifty days at sea at the most in any given year (except the Round Britain year when it will rise to around 120) which means we'll be spending well over three hundred days on board in our home berth, in a visitor berth or at anchor.

So in return for Marmite looks and staid sailing, we're getting a fabulously comfortable saloon, a really decent galley and three separate sleeping cabins (although I have designs on the aft cabin which may be converted into a workshop albeit with the ability to convert it back again quickly when we're going to sea or need the guest accommodation).

You might ask why we need those cabins when there's only two of us but we've got family and friends we like to have around and especially moving away from the Midlands it will be great to have the room for guests without compromising our living space.

And storage? Jeez, our biggest problem is likely to be losing stuff and never ever finding it again! There are even lockers in lockers! I may need storage ashore for the business before long but I think we can safely see that we will not need to store anything ashore for ourselves. In fact, the problem is likely to be ensuring that we don't revert to our bad habits of keeping stuff we don't really need.

Every choice of boat is a compromise. I would have dearly loved to buy an old gaffer, it has been my dream for as long as I can remember to one day own a classic gaff rigged pilot cutter or something of that ilk. But the reality is that within our budget, even stretched to within an inch of its life as it is now being, we were simply not going to get an adequate level of comfort and accommodation to make living aboard the year round a viable option (I know others manage quite happily sometimes in extraordinarily small boats but it wouldn't work for us).

On this decision I firmly put the heart in its box and made a strictly head choice. The Vulcan not only hits all the essential nails on the head, it bangs them firmly into the woodwork and clenches them over on the other side for good measure!

We've found Bigger Boat!

And paid a deposit on her so unless something goes wrong it's a done deal :)

And here she is ...

Say hello to "Safe Return", although she won't be keeping the name (for reasons that will become clear shortly). She's a 1980 Westerly Vulcan 34 Deck Saloon yacht, technically a motor sailer but with a respectable if unspectacular sail area to displacement ratio (comparable to Erbas and better than several other boats we've been considering) a decent if steady sailing yacht none the less

She's currently the Estuary Sailing school yacht and therefore MCA coded for 6 people up to sixty miles offshore. As such she is, of course, in tip top condition inside and out. She's been re-engined, the sails are in good condition and all the essentials are in good order.

The technical stuff ...

She's 34' long, 11'9" beam and displaces a tads over 7 tonnes. She's the twin keel version with a draught of 4'3" which is well within the constraints of our mud berth. She carries around 700 square feet of sail (depending on the exact cut of the genoa) and she comes with a cruising chute and a spinnaker, the latter having a snuffer.

On deck, she's got lovely wide side decks, all the deck hatches have been renewed recently and there's a powered anchor windlass although the Bruce anchor may get replaced in due course (mind you, I've been threatening to replace the Bruce on Erbas since we bought her and it hasn't happened yet. However, we'll be doing a lot more anchoring in future so better ground tackle is definitely on the shopping list).

There's also an emergency forestay even though th storm jib hanks on to the baby stay - not that we'll ever use the storm jib - and the main has three reefs in it just like Erbas

The lines aren't led aft to the cockpit from the mast which we'll see how we get on with. There are pros and cons but if we find the current setup works for us we won't be changing it for the sake of it.

The cockpit is not huge. It is as big as it needs to be though. And of course she's a deck saloon so the cockpit is less critical as a social space.

There is a simply vast cave locker under the starboard cockpit seat which you can climb into and stand up in! I'm not so sure about the added wooden storage box at the stern which looks a little odd. If it stays I think it might get a coat of white paint as it looks a bit out of place

The stern gantry carries two solar panels and a Rutlad 913 wind generator. Unfortunately, at some point in her life, the davits that used to extend off the gantry have been cut off. So dinghy davits are another item on our shopping list.

And she doesn't come with a cockpit tent which we'd like to have especially for the liveaboard side of things.
That may have to wait awhile for budgetary reasons

The only other "issue" is that the instrumentation is somewhat dated and basic and there's very little info available at the main helm. As a sailing school boat that would not, of course, matter but for our needs I'd like to have the plotter, instruments and ideally the radar (on a combined display with the plotter) at the sailing helm. However, the budget probably won't stretch to all new instrumentation in the short term so we may simply do a bit of re-arranging of the location of the existing serviceable equipment

So that's the outside. She's chunky rather than pretty, steady rather than exciting and capable, even versatile, too. She may not win races around the cans but she'll sail around Britain, at a respectable pace and go virtually anywhere. She'll handle any amount of rough weather and look after her crew. Just the ticket.

So now for down below...

We seriously considered calling her "Tardis". The amount of accommodation and stowage is astonishing for a 34' boat. She feels more like something well over fourty feet down below. Here's the plan ...

Starting aft and working towards the bow ...

Stepping down from the saloon on the port side aft and through a door by the chart table is the aft single cabin ...


The headroom is a little limited it's true but it's a really nice private space for one at the opposite end of the boat from the rest of the accomodation.

In common with the rest of the boat, there's not only a berth and a small seat, there's acres of stowage and storage too


 Emerging from the aft cabin, in the well by the door, is the chart table

The original swing seat, more of a perch really, is long gone and we'll need to contrive a seating arrangement if this space is to be used as more than just an occasional chart table at sea. I'd like to make it an office space too and I have a notion of how to arrange a fold up seat but that's a "future project"

 The smaller of the two chart plotters on board is here and may well migrate to one of the helm positions as I use the laptop for my passage planning and only need a plotter under way.

From the nav table we step up into the saloon, or step down into the saloon from the cockpit of course ...

The saloon is fabulous. Spacious, light and airy without feeling like you're in a goldfish bowl (something we've previously noted with dislike in other deck saloon yachts)

And as the eagle eyed will have noticed already, there's an inside helm position for those horrible days when you have to make progress but really wish you didn't. No more hours of misery getting cold and wet at the helm for us!

The starboard settee extends back under the side deck and can be made up as a big double bed. There's another huge storage space below it, more storage below the sole aft and forward and yet more capacious locker space under the port berth. And shelves above too!

Stepping down from the saloon and turning to port brings us to the galley ...

An almost brand new gas cooker, twin sinks, plenty of worktop space and once again unbelievable stowage. The original under counter cool box is still in situ in the far corner but it's currently redundant as there is an Isotherm fridge at the aft end of the galley in a cubby hole under the saloon sole

The original cool box might be suitable to be repurposed as a small freezer but that's another item for the long term to don't list!

Turning to starboard is the second guest cabin ...

Entering the cabin there's a small seat, a hanging locker forwards, cupboards and shelves above and a narrow double berth extending aft under the inside helm and forward end of the saloon ..



 A couple would have to be of modest girth and very much in love :) but it's usable and or a single guest it's superb.

There is, of course, yet more stowage under the bed

On the port side forward of the galley is the heads ...

A good old basic hand pumped and ultra-reliable Lavac toilet, sink, shower and once again storage to die for!

Hot running water is, by the way, provided by a 35l calorifier in the cavernous locker below the aft end of the saloon.

There is a holding tank although it's currently being used as a fresh water toilet flush tank. It can easily be changed back and I reckon we can probably squeeze a flush water tank in somewhere!!!

And finally we come to the v-berth...

It's a decent sized berth with the usual infill, a hanging locker to starboard and, you won't be surprised to learn, loads of storage both visible and invisible.

This will be our master cabin, it's more spacious than the v-berth on Erbas and we're more than happy with that space so this will be luxury

We may convert the upper set of shelves into lockers at some point but it's the to don't list again!

Mechanically, the engine is under the centre section of the saloon sole ...

It's a 55hp Yanmar installed new in 2008 with about 1400 hours on it. The engine is so clean you could eat your dinner off it!

Carole, the sailing school proprietor and owner, reckons she'll use around 2.2l an hour at 5 and a half knots which is around double our current consumption albeit with an extra knot of speed.

That said, I've found that if we wind Erbas up to over 5 knots rather than 4.5, the consumption rises from around 1.2l an hour to nearer 2l an hour

There's quite an inventory of kit to come with her - another inflatable dinghy, a Mariner 2.5hp outboard and the 8 man liferaft is going to be swapped for the 4 man raft that's on the boat Estuary Sailing are buying to replace "Safe Return" as an 8 man is too large for our needs (not only too heavy but also quite dangerous with only a couple of people in it. There's a spinnaker with a snuffer, a cruising chute, spare main and genoa and so on.

So there she is, our new home

We're not talking about what we're paying for her! More than we can afford but we've decided to stretch the budget as she's so ideally suited to our future plans. And to sweeten the deal Carole has offered to throw in a couple of days own boat tuition and showing us where everything is when we take her over

On that front, we've shaken hands, paid a deposit and agreed the deal but we won't be taking ownership until around February or perhaps early March as we've got to complete on the house move and Carole needs to complete the purchase of the replacement yacht for the sailing school.

We've got a shopping list of improvements and modifications we'd like to make when we can afford it (if ever!) but none of it is vital.

Oh and the name ... we've offered to relinquish the name "Safe Return" as the sailing school website is www.safereturnsailing.co.uk and the name doesn't do anything much for us anyway. As to what she will be called in our ownership, that's a secret for now. You'll have to wait and see