Shake Down Cruise - Conclusions

Well the first and most important conclusion is ... Erbas is a brilliant boat!

She truly is everything we hoped she would be.

She's a joy to steer, light and responsive on the helm, and the engine has power by the bucket load and a prop that has serious bite on the water. This is a boat with brakes! She is very maneuverable under power although we haven't quite yet got the hang of it.

Under sail she is a much better sailing boat than I secretly expected. OK, in light airs she isn't what you'd call quick but with two keels, a fair sized rudder and a 13" prop to drag through the water she was never going to be. She ghosts along passably well though.

Given a decent working breeze, she picks up her skirts and gets a move on nicely and with 16 knots on the wind instrument (more of which anon) and a reef in the main she was having no trouble at all maintaining in excess of 5 knots close reaching and if I'm honest I don't think we were quite getting the best out of the sail trim so there's probably a bit more to be got.

Hard on the wind she's surprisingly good. Even pinching up in a stiff breeze, admittedly near ideal conditions for the purpose, she was making around 4 knots through the water.

The cockpit is ample in size for three or four crew to be on deck at the same time when sailing although you do have to make sure everybody is in the right place! It took us a tack or two to realise that whereas on Brigantia the helm was aft and the crew forward, on Erbas you helm from in front of your crew, Furthermore, any "off watch" crew lounging around in the cockpit need to sit right at the aft end out of the way. Happily, it's all very comfortable wherever you may be (and with some backrests and cushions will be even more so).

With the cockpit tent up, the cockpit seat cushions excavated from the quarter berth and the table quarried out of a locker, the cockpit becomes a super place to sit in port, It also offers a sheltered workspace when maintaining the boat, sorting lockers and so on. Whether we leave the tent up over the winter is debatable - it would have it's advantages to do so but it does mean it'll get more wear and tear. One option might be a tarp to go over the tent and sprayhood when we're not on board to protect them

There are just a couple of "niggles" on deck ...

The borrowed Delta pattern anchor is, unfortunately, a bit too big. We'll have to consider something smaller as the shank length is all but identical to the distance between the roller and the capstan gypsy so it doesn't stow very well.

The anchor stowed on the bow roller also presents a problem when mooring to the buoy on the swinging moorings. Going to have to think about that one and come up with a solution because as things stand the anchor could rapidly chaff through one of the two mooring lines and prevents mooring on a single strop at all.

When broad reaching or running, the mainsheet fouls the back edge of the sprayhood. Not by much but over time it is bound to wear the material and shorten the life of the nearly new hood. I guess this wasn't a problem for the previous owner as I gather he always sailed with the hood down. However, I prefer to sail with the hood up most of the time. A simple solution seems to be a second set of tie down clips forward of the existing ones. That will allow the lower back corner of the hood to be folded back on itself and secured when necessary. Not, perhaps, ideal but a workable solution never the less.

The reefing setup is simply begging to be converted to single line reefing. It's got to be worth a try. If it doesn't work, it's easily put back the way it is and it won't cost a fortune to do either.

No doubt we'll find other things in time! ..

Now to below decks ...

During the day and evening in harbour it's simply fantastic. The space works brilliantly even with four on board.

The galley is just big enough and being tucked out of the way the cook can cook in comfort without being constantly disrupted by the crew moving about. Storage space is adequate and the fridge works very well indeed (and doesn't eat the batteries either).

The nav area is OK but the mounting arrangement for the chart plotter has definitely got to be improved! It's functional but it's ugly and it doesn't half get in the way!

The saloon will be luxurious for two, is comfortable for four but it'd be cosy with more on board! Four people is the realistic limit for cruising anyway. The main cabin sleeping arrangements are not quite as ideal as they could be. Both Rik and Glen found the saloon settees a bit narrow and the cupboards above the settees a bit too deep. Rik transferred his affections to the quarter berth and found it more to his liking although it meant a bit more faffing about morning and evening . Not that it was a problem and on the upside it left space on the Port settee for me to sit whilst supping my first coffee of the day!

The heads, once we realised we hadn't opened the flushing water cock (we'd opened the inlet but hadn't realised there was a further stop cock on the pipe to the heads), work as one would expect them to do. The air vent on the inlet pipe seems a little enthusiastic - putting a finger over it initially seems to help get a better flush.

The v-berth is very comfortable indeed, especially with the inset in place. I had my doubts about using the inset as without it getting into and out of the berths is somewhat easier but it cures a similar problem to the main settees in that without it the berths are a bit narrow

Storage is, overall, very good. However it is compromised in a number of places by tanks and plumbing. I'm not at all sure why it was felt necessary to add a third water tank aft under the starboard settee when there's two big stainless ones forward occupying most of the useful space under the v-berth. The previous owner seemed to be suggesting the stainless tanks were not fit for drinking but we flushed them and filled them and without even treating the water it's perfectly potable.

Elsewhere, it does become a little frustrating after a while to find every locker space compromised by plumbing, The space under the Port settee aft of the battery box is the worst example. The additional seawater intake for use on a mud berth really didn't need to be located slap bang in the middle of the space! It effectively, for the moment, renders an entire useful storage space all but useless. I have a cunning plan :)

In contrast, it is remarkably hard to find any trace of the electrics other than behind the switch panel access over the nav table! Glen spotted some trunking up under the Starboard gunnel and the occasional glimpse of a wire has been seen elsewhere but that's about it. Apart from some long term thoughts about rationalising the switching I've no plans to do much to the wiring for the foreseeable future.

The same can't be said for the pumps. The minor problem is that water pump which is exceptionally noisy but otherwise works OK. It is, however, located in the Port settee aft locker space making its contribution to buggering up the stowage plan. Just the other side of the bulkhead its mounted on is a fairly useless space into which the pump would fit a treat. It shall be moved in due course! The noise we'll have to live with.

The major problem is the (with all due respect to whoever installed it who, I'm sure, thought it was a good idea at the time) crazy waste water arrangements. The galley and heads sinks drain to a pipe which runs more than half the length of the boat to a pump installed right beneath the head of whoever is sleeping in the starboard v-berth (Jane in other words!). To make matters worse, the only way to operate this pump is to reach into the v-berth compartment and hold in a push button on the berth front!

Imagine how much fun that is when you've just done the washing up ... at the other end of the boat. Even more enjoyable is the crew firtling about under your berth when you've gone to bed and they've used the heads later in the evening.

Oh and because someone deemed it a good idea, since they were pumping out the grey water rather than relying on gravity, to install the outlet at a high level virtually under the gunnel the pump merrily spits dirty water over the pontoon when you're starboard side to in a marina!

It simply has to go and it has to go sooner rather than later. Annoyingly, the pump isn't very old but hey ho. The debate is what to replace it with but I'll come to that in a later post.

The table is a nuisance and needs to be replaced with something more practical but we knew that already

The saloon is a lovely place to sit and chat over drinks with the oil lamps gently flickering on the oiled teak woodwork and cream headlining. We only put the heater on once as well!

Overall, a most satisfactory and pleasing beginning to our hopefully long association with Erbas