Road and Ocean

Windlass installation

June 11, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Over the last few months I’ve found loads of information from various forums and blog posts online … apart from windlass installations on the Pearson 36-2, so here’s some information on how I did it, in the hope that someone else out there will find it useful.

Seeing as we’re going to be headed much further afield soon, and anchoring out a lot, a windlass was on the “need” list. I also wanted a spare bower (main) anchor, so decided to get a new 20kg Rocna and keep the old 35 lb CQR as the spare. I decided to err on the side of caution and buy 5/6″ chain; 150 foot of it. To haul all this lot up, I chose a Maxwell RC8 windlass; because it had the ability to take a winch handle in emergencies as standard, whereas others needed an expensive add-on. The windlass only comes with a toggle switch and I wanted something to use up at the bow, so bought a couple of Maxwell foot switches.

I already added a dedicated engine battery under the aft cabin bunk, and as the windlass is always going to be running when the engine is on, I decided to take power directly from that.

There were a couple of options for mounting the windlass;

1) behind the anchor locker, with the gypsy poking out on deck
2) in the anchor locker itself, angled back for the right chain pull

Unfortunately there’s not enough space to mount this windlass through the deck behind the anchor locker opening; the front of the windlass would extend a couple of inches forward of the rear edge of the hole. I could have modified the locker lid and build a frame / bracket for the front end of the windlass, but thought that was a bit “hacky” and would have looked a real mess. Ended up with the second choice, which also keeps the windlass nicely out of the weather.

Chain locker

I turned the space in the bow, under the anchor locker, into a chain locker. Having the windlass drive and wet chain in the same airspace isn’t ideal, but needs must… Ideally there would have been a way to lead chain aft so it’s not all in the bow, but the water tank under the v-berth prevents that. The combined weight of anchor, windlass and chain puts the boat bow-down a good 3 inches or so (!) which is far from ideal – but we’re still a long way off our cruising weight so as long as I load as much as possible towards the stern we should be level again; outboard, life raft, 20 gallons of diesel … not ideal to have weight in the ends but again, not many other options.

I reinforced the sides of the locker with 3mm ply glued to the inside of the hull, and gave it a good coat of epoxy. The water-fill pipe also comes through this space, and since I didn’t want chain sliding around to chafe through the pipe I wrapped another layer of fatter pipe around it. This new chain locker should drain into the bilge; it’s now all sealed around the edges apart from a hole at the lower forward end. Any green water over the bow will go into the deck locker and then overboard through the bow drain; I’m hoping that very little should get below.

Mounting the windlass

Having the windlass mounted in the locker, which is quite a bit lower than the deck, meant I needed a mount that knocked the angle back a good 20 degrees or so to make sure that the chain ran on and off the gypsy at the right angle. The floor of the locker itself ramps downwards towards the bow too. I got a local carpenter buddy to make this up for me from laminated teak for a hundred or so bucks (teak is expensive!). The teak is bolted to the bottom of the anchor locker with 4 large coach bolts, and plenty of epoxy. Sticking this down was pretty committing! There were loads of interesting angles to calculate here; coach bolts, windlass mount bolts, a hole for the windlass drive, and a hole for the chain.

Because the whole assembly is tilted back a fair amount, part of the chain hole (hawse pipe) sits above the back of the drive motor below, so I extended the hawse pipe section with some PVC pipe, the bottom of which you can just see in the photo of the chain locker. So far I’ve not had any trouble with this feeding in or out. However with 150 feet of chain we do get pile-ups every 50 feet or so. Having someone down below to knock the chain pile aside was not an option so I cut an access hatch in the bottom of the anchor locker, just to the right of the teak windlass mount, which makes it easy to deal with chain pile-ups from on deck.

Anchor and roller

From the photos you’ll also see that I’ve mounted the anchor on the port side of the bow. This is because I wanted an anchor roller designed for a Rocna rather than use the under-engineered alloy roller that comes standard on the Pearson 36-2. I bought a Windline (URM-2?) off eBay, and added a Lewmar roller on the aft end to carry the chain clear of the forward end of the locker. The windlass is fairly deep in the locker, so the chain would have taken a nice chunk out of the deck, as well as rubbing directly on the back end of the main anchor roller. Not good.

Controls

I added the foot switches on deck, which is just where I’ve always seen them when I’ve been anchoring on other boats, but in hindsight I should have put them in the locker itself, seeing as you have to have the lid open to operate the windlass anyway – it would have kept them out of the weather and out of the way. Some folk would have a control on a cable instead. I might fit one as well; as backup in case the switches fail. Maybe. I haven’t yet mounted the toggle up/down switch that came with the windlass; if this goes in the cockpit somewhere then that will be the backup option. The windlass has a clutch so you don’t need power to drop the hook, but there’s the possibility that we need to get the anchor up in a hurry to leave a lee-shore anchorage, and I don’t want to be messing with wires; I like to have backups for safety-critical kit.

Which brings me onto the manual lift option on the windlass itself. The centre winch handle hole is for the clutch, and the one on the outside of the gypsy is to haul the chain in manually. As I write this and look at the pictures in detail, I see that the handle isn’t going to go all the way round in the space- doh! At least it can come up bit by bit.

Power

Power to the windlass is via 1 AWG welding cable running directly from the engine battery under the aft cabin bunk, via the circuit breaker, through lockers and cavities along the starboard side of the boat at eye level, to the bow. The cable run was pretty straightforward; accessing each bulkhead with a 25mm hole saw was simpler than I thought it was going to be.

Does it work?

For passage making, the anchor is stored on the roller and lashed with line. There’s also a chain lock bolted to the top of the locker lid. When we get to an anchorage, we undo the chain lock, loosen the line, slide the anchor forwards a few inches and re-lash it. This gives enough room to open the locker lid. Dropping the anchor then means undoing the line and slipping the clutch on the windlass.

So far so good. We’ve not had lots of use out of it but everything works exactly as expected. When we’re just using 50 feet of chain, there’s no need to knock over the pile in the locker as it comes in.

I’ll post another report once we’re 50 anchorages into our trip 🙂

Waiting for the van

June 10, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

I dropped the van off at the garage first thing Monday (yesterday) morning to get them to do a check-over before we head off on our 6,000+ mile loop of Canada and the US, hoping that it was going to just be one or two new bushings and an oil change. Got a call from the guy in the ‘shop with the news that we need a whole bunch of new front suspension parts since it’s so worn out. New tie rods, lower control arms and bushings, if I remember correctly … and two new tyres. Plus the rear brakes are almost out. We’re going to be doing a load of mountain miles where I definitely don’t want sketchy brakes, so we’re going to get new drums and liners. It’s all going to add up to nearly the cost of the van (ouch!) – but we did get a good deal on the van to start with, and hopefully should be able to recoup this cost when we sell it.

It’s also delaying our departure date; we were planning to head off today but it’s now looking like the van will be done late tomorrow, and as we want a full day of driving to get quite a long way north before our first stop, we’ll probably set off on Thursday morning. No big deal though, we’re catching up with a few things, I’m enjoying reading and not really doing much else at all. Starting to settle nicely into a very relaxed way of being.

I’d get cracking with a load of boat jobs to save us some time in September, but I left my toolbox in the van. Ah well. We had a pedal around Alameda island today; across to the West coast to see the beach. Looks like a great kite surfing spot. Of course my kites are also in the van…

Catching up with buddies

June 8, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

We parked the van by the side of the road in Tennessee valley last night, after dinner at Salman and Betul’s. Our first full night in it! Very comfy. I fixed my bike wheels (finally) – tightened up the hubs. Mikey and Ross would be proud of me. I used all the right tools, too – no bodge job this time. We met Maude at Bayside café for a solid American breakfast, where we also bumped into Joe. Met Amanda and her buddy David for lunch, and headed up to the hills behind Sausalito to check out the view.

Then on the way back to Alameda we stopped in to see Ali, Kate and their kids.

Good times seeing some of our US friends. It feels a little strange, moving on from San Francisco after just 6 months. We’ve just started to settle. But that’s why we’re moving on. Another month here and we might not get out!

Mainsail in for repair

June 6, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Dropped off the main sail at a local sail loft today. I’ve been toying with the idea of a new main; the one we have is sooo baggy and is getting a little tired. I also want something with a third reef for when it gets really windy. But I thought I’d also see what a sailmaker had to say about it, in case it was worth repairing. They gave it a good looking over on the loft floor and we decided that it was worth putting some money into this sail rather than buying a new one. It’s not a top end sail, but it’s got plenty of life left in it.

It’s still going to be baggy – that’s due to the lower quality fabric rather than stretched seams, so it can’t be fixed without major surgery. This just means that we won’t be able to sail as close to the wind as we could with a new, tight sail, which in turn means that it’ll take longer to get to places to windward. But we’re not planning to sail much to windward, and we did actually manage fine coming back from Santa Cruz, so that’s fine. The repairs work out about a quarter of the price of a new sail too – bonus.

He’s going to;

Add a third reef
Stitch a new leach line in to replace frayed canvas
Stretch the luff rope that’s shrunk
Add anti-chafe patches where the sail touches the spreaders on a run

Looking forward to picking it up in September!

Iceland

June 4, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

“Land of Fire and Ice” they say… I was really looking forward to seeing some red hot molten lava. We ended up with a few days of rain showers and no sign of “fire” … so a bit disappointing in that respect but man, what awesome scenery! I’ve seen plenty of mountains before, but Iceland was definitely different.

Huge, flat plains ring the mountainous highlands in the centre island; we saw two distinct types. One; solidified lava flows which look like a monstrous, cracking tarmac road, and the other; miles of desolate volcanic gravel washed down epic rivers fed by ice and snow melt. Out of these plains rise vertical cliffs and steep, black crags. More often than not the tops were in cloud which gave a distinct feeling of us existing in a thin slice of planet between the underground and the sky. You can almost believe the Icelanders’ stories of trolls and elves in the distant, inaccessible mountains.

There’s one main road which runs all the way around the island. It’s called road number 1, and narrows from two lanes down to single lane to cross many of the bridges. Iceland’s population is only 350,000 and two thirds of that is in Reykjavik, so I can’t see road number 2 coming along any time soon. The rest of the island is rugged, inhospitable mountains, plus a bit of farmland. We spent our first day in Reykjavik, and then rented a 4×4 for a couple of days so we could explore.

Day 1

Headed east along road number 1 with the goal of getting to Skaftafell. It was pouring with rain for most of the morning, so although we passed a bunch of interesting sights (which in Iceland is usually waterfall, geothermal vent or hot spring) we didn’t stop. We had the car for two days and figured that as it was light all the way through the night, we could check them out on the way back if the weather improved.

The road wound over the plains, the sea to our right and the mountains to the left. Generally we were quite a way inland so we didn’t get to see the ocean. The lava was covered in a deep, soft layer of moss – we had to stop and get out to feel it – such a surreal landscape.

In between the rain squalls we had views for miles and miles. The air is so clear. Reminds me of the skies in northern Scotland and the Isle of Skye.

After a good few hours of driving the weather improved and the views opened up even more.

We parked up near the snout of the Skaftafellsjökull glacier and tucked into lunch. I’d read in our guidebook that a typical Icelander’s lunch is made up of rye bread, some Harðfiskur (hard, dried fish) and some Skil yoghurt, so that’s what we’d brought along. Rye bread, fine, we can deal with that – I quite like it. But boy the Harðfiskur was horrible. I tried a few pieces to see if it was a taste that grew on me but nope, it wasn’t happening. The rest of it went in the bin. Other Icelandic staples include rotten shark. No wonder the american style hot dog stand in Reykjavik is so popular.

We wandered over to the glacier to have a poke around. It feels a bit tired. A load of dirty ice. Glaciers get more impressive higher up the mountain; down here in the melt zone it’s still impressive, but lacks grandeur. Reminds me of a climbing trip in the Alps with buddies from Sheffield – we tramped across a glacier high in the mountains on our way to climb a route, bivvying out at night on the side of the ice in a small cave.

Late afternoon we hopped back in the car for the mission drive back to Reykjavik, stopping off at Gullfoss, a large waterfall, on the way. We also picked up a Canadian hitch hiker who was also heading the same way. There were quite a few hitch hikers – I guess partly because there’s only one road, and partly the laid back casual attitude of the Icelanders. Rose said he was a bit smelly.

Day 2

Most tourists to Iceland spend a day doing the “Golden Circle” which is a bunch of sights in a loop not far from Reykjavik. Since we were there, it made sense to take a look. First we stopped by þingvellir – an impressive fissure in the bottom of a rift valley which sits between the European and American tectonic plates. Further south, this same join between the plates forms the mid Atlantic ridge. The plates are moving apart at about 18mm per year, and while there’s no active volcanic excitement at the surface (like the hot molten lava I came all this way to see…), the valley is full of geothermic centres and hot spots.

We also stopped in at Gullfoss (another waterfall) which is an impressive two-level beast.

And then Geysir, which itself doesn’t erupt unless there’s just been an earthquake. Just a few yards away is Strokkur, a slightly smaller but much more reliable geyser which pops its top every few minutes. We dropped into see a geyser in California with Ant and Anna – so this is our second set of geysers this year. Hopefully we’ll get to swing by Yellowstone and Old Faithful later in the summer. The Grand Geyser Tour of 2104.

Heading back towards þingvellir we picked up more hitch hikers – this time a couple from Czech republic and Macedonia. He was in Iceland for a conference and she came out to join him for a few days’ holiday at the end of his work week.

We’d rented a 4×4 because we wanted to get off road and explore deeper into Iceland. We didn’t really know what to expect, and explored up a couple of gravel tracks. On the first we were thwarted by a river that we weren’t confident to cross. It would probably have been fine but we were a little short on time, needing to get the car back by 4pm – and we had no idea whether the rest of the route over the mountains was clear. Making our way back to the main road we were passed by one of the huge Icelandic “super-jeeps” with monster tyres, blasting his way along the small track like it was the main highway. Next time that’s how we’re going to see Iceland!

A bit further down the road we did find a track over the mountains that looked a bit of fun, and just about doable in the time we had left.

Flying over Greenland on the way back to the USA was pretty cool. Plenty of icebergs, mountains and snow. Definitely need to get there at some point. I spotted an advert in a sailing magazine a couple of days ago; “Crew wanted for expedition to Greenland and Arctic in old wooden Bristol pilot cutter” … now that would be an adventure. One day I want to buy a steel hulled boat and spend some time north of the Arctic circle. Greenland, Canada, Norway …

The flight went via Seattle, where we got an awesome view of Mount Rainer as we came into land. I never knew it even existed. We’re going to be coming back up this way in just a couple of weeks, so that’s now on the list of places to see.

Reykjavik

June 1, 2014 Chris Tanner1 Comment

We landed in Reykjavik yesterday afternoon after a comfortable 3 hour flight from Heathrow. Changed some money and booked a bus for the 45 minute trip into the city – across miles of lava flow, which looked just like old, cracked tarmac road on a huge scale. Checked into our hostel – a private double room in a place not far from the centre of town – and then headed out for a walk to find some supper. We ended up at “the most northerly Pakistani restaurant in the world”, and had a really tasty curry. I figured that we were probably going to struggle to find a decent curry in America over the next few months and we didn’t really get a decent one back in the UK.

I don’t really feel like our travels have started, yet we’ve flown half way around the world and are in a place I’ve never been to before – we’re still due to have a few days at home on the boat in San Francisco before we get going in the van next week at some point.

Plans for the next few days are to hang out around town today then book a 4WD for Monday and Tuesday to explore the island. It feels like the season hasn’t really kicked off here – guidebooks talk about crowds but it feels empty, even last night on a Saturday evening. Maybe we were out too early? Walking back to the hostel at 10pm it was still light as day, and (Rose tells me) it didn’t get dark at all during the night. Her eyelids are really thin (that’s my theory anyway) so she finds it hard to sleep if it’s not fully dark. Here in Iceland we’re just outside the arctic circle and only a few days away from the summer solstice, so we’re going to have to find some eye shades!

England

May 31, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Wow, what a trip! We’ve been bouncing around seeing friends and family for three weeks, staying somewhere different pretty much every night apart from just a couple of places. It’s been a real treat, getting to see everyone again. But it’s also made us both aware that we’ve already changed a bit, in just the 6 months we’ve been away. It’s also confirmed that we made the right choice by taking the leap and moving overseas to see new places. Not much has changed back home. Things will be much the same back here in the future if or when we return.

Warm spring weather welcomed us home, which was really nice.

The trip kicked off with Rich and Sam’s wedding in the Cotswolds, everyone looking rather dapper in tweed and flat caps. One of the older gents remarked on how he’d never before been at a wedding where there were more beards on the young chaps than on the olds.

Dad managed to fly over for a few weeks to be here at the same time as us which was awesome. We spent some good time catching up and sharing plans for the future.

Rose at the RWA exhibition of the sea in Bristol. It’s inspired me to start doing some more arty stuff!

Stayed a couple of night’s with Dan and Mel in their house project. It’s coming on bit by bit. Really interesting seeing what people are choosing to do with their lives as we go off on our own tangent. Dan and Mel bought a place just around the corner from ours in Totterdown, at a great price, that needed a fair bit of work. Right in the city, close to work, close to friends, but very urban. They are going to transform it into a really nice place, but it’ taking time. They want to get it done with and then go travelling.

Had a super fun ride around the usual trails with some of the regular Bristol bike crew; Mikey, Dan, Jason, Mark.

Jon and Helen have bought a big(ish) house in Exmoor with a small bit of land – quiet, remote and peaceful. On the way down to Exmoor to see them at their new place we stopped off to see Ben’s new field. He’s just bought 19-odd acres just south of Bristol – with a stream and waterfall at the bottom. A beautiful place, but there’s no planning permission and the ground had been abused by horse grazing for years, so he’s not quite sure what to do with it. At the moment he’s shacked up in a caravan parked in the trees at the top of the field. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next with it.

The drive down to Exmoor was stunning. It’s still early enough in the year for the leaves to still be a little yellow – they’ve not yet filled up with chlorophyll, which gives a beautiful light. All the spring flowers are still out – with amazing bluebells in the woods.

I borrowed a bike from Jon and we had a great (short) ride on the moors which ended up in Porlock where we met the girls for a cream tea in a classic Devon tea-room garden with a thatched roof, next to a church, old chaps walking by and striking up conversation. This part of the world really is brilliant (in the sunshine…) – I could see myself getting a place here at some point. It’s easy to forget the grey, damp, windy months though…

It was also striking how we were the only young ones out and about. All the other yoof would have been at work.

Back in Bath we had a leisurely weekend hanging out with loads of relatives; I didn’t get any pics unfortunately. Iain and Helen were over from Canada, Bee came across from Sussex, Nick and Pip came over, and Dad was around too. It was sunny and warm so we spent pretty much the whole weekend outside. It’s great to see Mum and David so relaxed and at home in their new house.

Had some time with Pat, Mags and their girls, Rose’s buddy Liza, and with Box and Naomi. Little Billy being much more grown up than before. Here are a couple of pics from a day out at Warley weir near bath. The idea was to go swimming, but Box’s back is in a right state so he’s been out of action, and the girls didn’t fancy it. I just about managed to dunk myself under fully and splash back and forth so yeah, I think that qualified as swimming.

We then headed over to Winchester to see Rose’s Dad and his wife Jenny. I went off for a bike ride with Jen while Rose and her dad caught up. Again, we were blessed with a tranquil English spring day, cycling through quiet, flower filled villages and stopping for a picnic by the side of the road.

From Winchester we headed down to Weymouth to see Rose’s Mum and grandparents. We had another walk, this time along the Dorset cliffs near Ringstead. But we got soaked! As a birthday treat, Rose wanted to eat fish and chips out on the docks, so that’s what we did. Except Rose ended up choosing a battered sausage.

From Weymouth we dropped back into Bath to leave the car with Mum (thanks for lending it to us!), and then caught the train over to spend our last night with Nick and Pip before they took us to the airport. Again it felt strange leaving, having said so many hellos and goodbyes in just a few weeks – especially as this time it’s a one way ticket and we don’t know when we’ll be coming back.

So long, buddies and family. Hope to see you again soon!

Yosemite and Kings Canyon

May 5, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

After a day or two of chilling out in San Francisco, the four of us headed off in the van to see some hills. First stop, Yosemite. I’d booked a camp site right up in the valley, next to the Merced river. We’d been looking forward to getting some swimming in, but it was freeezing cold so that didn’t happen.

Ant and I wanted to get some exercise and decided that Half Dome was a good target. We’d thought about getting passes to climb the cables right up to the summit, which involves an online lottery to restrict the number of visitors each day. We’d checked out the website but the entries had closed for the day. We decided that it would still be worth hiking up there anyway. Leaving late in the morning meant we had to put the pedal down, and were pretty much at a jogging pace. Three and a half hours in we’d reached the base of the granite dome, poking its head out above the tree line. This was also the half way point – we had another 3 1/2 hours to get back to meet the girls in the car park. After tucking a pot of macaroni salad away, we half-walked, half-ran the 7-odd miles back to the valley floor.

The girls picked us up in the van and we headed out of Yosemite as the sun was sinking below the valley horizon. Which is way, way higher than the real horizon, which mean that we still had loads of daylight. The plan was to head down to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park and see some big trees.

We ended up spending the night in a motel in Fresno, and then putting away a big breakfast at Blossom Trail Café just outside town. Every time we sit down for an American breakfast we see “biscuits and gravy” on the menu – which to our British ears sounds less than appetizing. We persuaded Ant to give it a go. What turned up appeared to be something like scones in a hollandaise / vanilla / custardy sauce. Hmmn.

As we headed into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada again, we passed a field full of shining cars and bikes. I spun the van round (that sounds easy, but with its crap turning circle it means a twenty-point turn in the road, which was fortunately deserted) and we spent an hour or so checking out muscle cars, trucks, bikes and lots of hairy christian Americans.

Driving higher into the mountains, we kept passing the usual altitude markers that seem to be so popular round here. I’d read that Americans are into their sports trivia and statistics – I wonder if altitude clocking is along the same lines? Not that it’s much of an achievement; you just drive up the road and you get higher. Not like the old days when these mountains were first being explored – that must have been epic.

We got into the park and turned left for Kings Canyon. Supposedly the second deepest canyon in the lower 48 states, after the Grand Canyon. Yep, some pretty impressive views.

Though I’d booked a campground further south, we figured that it wasn’t worth the time driving all the way down there, so we found a nice place near the King river near the road head. The road winds its way up the valley but doesn’t go anywhere, which made me wonder why it’s here. It’s not like it’s an old trade route. The effort that’s gone into building the road is amazing – can it be just for tourism? There were a load of cars parked up at the head of the trail, and a few hikers packing their kit for a weekend in the wilderness. That’s the way to explore this park – on foot. I don’t think we’ll be coming this way again though.

The drive back to San Francisco was fairly straightforward … a long way though in the heat, and the van is noisy. We had a great time with buddies; camping, mountains, sun…

Moving home

May 1, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris TannerLeave a comment

As we’re going to be away from the boat for most of the next 4 months we figured it didn’t make much sense to keep her in Sausalito – the slip is expensive and we don’t need liveaboard status. I thought it would be cool to be near the city, so checked out one of the marinas right next to the baseball stadium, but that also worked out pretty pricey. I found a place at Fortman marina in Alameda at less than half what we were paying in Sausalito. Rose and Anna brought the van around while Ant and I took Rafiki.

Not enough wind to sail, so we motored all the way. I still haven’t had a chance to use the new spinnaker so I was hoping we’d get the opportunity to use that while Ant was around, but no joy. We’ll run it through its paces when we’re back in September to make sure everything checks out OK before we head south (with a following wind) to Mexico.

Fortman’s is just next to Grand Marina which is where Rafiki was based when we surveyed and bought her almost exactly a year ago. It’s quite a way from the bay – perhaps a 30 to 45 minute motor before you can get any decent sailing in – but it’s a good place to leave her while we’re travelling, and a place to leave the van while we’re in the UK.

The approach is really industrial. They say that the cranes were the inspiration for the AT-AT walkers in Star Wars, but I’m not so sure. They look like creatures, anyway.

The girls got to the marina just before us, and were met by a friendly chap from Alameda Yacht club which is based just next door. Seems like a nice casual place where everyone says hi. Quite a few liveaboards too. Pretty basic compared to Clipper, where we were before – regular key entry rather than electronic fobs, but that’s fine with us.

Santa Cruz to SF

April 28, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

With the ladies safely left at the bus stop in Santa Cruz, Ant and I headed back to the boat. We weighed anchor (with the new windlass which hauled in all 30 metres of heavy chain with no stress at all), and headed out to sea!