Sheila’s year 1981
by Mike Burn
I have decided to write 1981 out of my life completely, though its experience I will keep as a lesson always before me. Sheila kept me from giving up completely though her posession added another pressure to events. She was put in the water in May and has been in use every weekend since as a refuge and solace to my battered spirit. She has been at sea more than last year adding further to my confidence in her capacity and to my love of her style. She was 5th. in class in the O.G.A. race, featuring in ‘photo in Yachts and Yachting. She was much smarter this year and has been again a cause for delight in the river; in this alone I think Albert would be pleased. She was invited to go to the Y.M. 75th. birthday party though, alas, it was cancelled. We added to the canvas with a lovely mizzen-staysail and got the topsail set(just), but never seemed to get the engine installed;we sailed into the inner recesses of Tollesbury Marina to prove how little she needs one. A number of modifications were undertaken which have improved her handling and originality. She has had a good year despite being nearly swept away in my bad one.
Due to the frightfull state of my business work only started in February. The bowsprit and headsail, as restored, were overambitious and not quite correct, the sprit too long and the sail too long in the foot and leach. The furling bobstay was in need of improvement. The sprit was cut by 9″ and fined down and a new lighter cranse iron made, on the same style as before but without the outhual sheave as I had discov – ered that she originally carried a full reefing headsail, set fixed. Much thought was given tothe bobstay, the results of which I will bore you with as I think that they are usefull to those in the Association who own Alberts designs where the bobstay holds the whole rig up. The essences of the solution were already there, a substantial cranse-iron and hull fitting, but the solid chain stay is a pain in the neck when on an anchor. All the dicta preached before still apply, it is essential that the solution to any furling design be as solid as a solid chain stay. One only has to stand on a stay fitted with a rope purchase to a cleat to see how ineffective they are in this respect. I have a chain stay which runs to a very short 3 part wire purchase on iron sheaves, which runs back along the sprit to a substantial toggle lever built into the spar itself. The wire purchase is virtually solid while the lever tensions the whole bar taught at the tweak af a wrist. For neatness in the furled position there is a little hook on the gammon iron for the chain and the wire has a rope leader which pulls all tight with the lever closed. It is so quick and so solid that for once I think it the ultimate answer. I hope that Albert would approve and I know that Worth would.
The fortnight before Easter really started the traditional efforts. I had Sheila put up on Woodbridge dockside and within easy reach of the pub. I managed to find a very enthusiastic lad who did all the rubbing down while I did improvements to the interior and foredeck. Easter weekend was lovely and much was done. We had become the entertainment of the dockside for some time as I had one of my radical bursts of getting things “right”. There had been a persistent leak under the mast step which proved to be tatty workmanship some 60 years ago. When she had been wrecked and rebuilt a 5″ timber filler piece had been added under the keel to give her more draught. This had spoilt the bow-line and some little filler pieces had been added, and butted under the step. Sixty years of mast pounding had done for this, stopwaters notwithstanding. The dockside advocated a quick bodge. I decided to cut it away–and away–and away. I found the original iron dumps that held the stem, step and keel together and pressed on driving what was left of them out. I ended up with a lot of boat missing but a really engineering solution at a point which is of considerable importance. A huge piece of some weired piling timber was bandsawn to shape and I set to. I rapidly realised that better men than I would be needed for the rest as the wood was of awesome toughness and required a really perfect fit, quite beyond my capacity. I provided special aluminium – bronze bolts which were driven through the old dump holes and surrounded with W.E.S.T.. The whole affair drew up really tight tieing the area into one entity, which was faired on the outside so that it is almost impossible to see the alteration to the bow-line due to the extra draught. The inside is so dry that one can blow the dust out of the mast-step. They think 1 am mad but agree that I am thorough and they approve the cause so there were willing helpers to the end. One of my charming boatbuilding friends is shown performing the last fitting rites over what became a long job.
By this time it was May with varnish blooming everywhere as I finished off in evenings with my lad doing the topsides and bottom. She was put in the water amid speculation as to whether I could, or would be allowed to, retain her. At this point a bad thing happened. In the business hiatus I forgot to put the tiller into the rudder post before she was actually lowered into the water, and learnt a sharp lesson. If your boat has a counter and sharply angled sternpost the rudder has limited movement. In the Hebrides this does not matter but round here boats lie over in the mud till they dig a hole. If you are careless and let the rudder flop over the boat lies on it as she settles rather like a sow on her piglets with similarly unconcerned results. The rudder post got bent. It was not much, about five degrees, but too much to live with, and morale descended. In a clearer moment I reckoned that it could be bent cold and this was done with a large lever, some clamps and two blokes. I always peg the tiller central to prevent this happening whenever she ‘takes the ground”.
I had done a really concours job varnishing the spars, eight working ones, and these were all fitted in no time, all the “improvements” going together beautifully, except one. I had made the sprit furling lever in the confines of the garage months before, and organised new anchor chocks on the foredeck just before launching. The anchor and lever were inextricably intertwined and the only solution was to remake the lever lefthanded and refit the assembly on the other side of the spar;an excellent lesson against doing design “in vacuo”.
As I finished off I was trying to find understanding souls who would contribute to a ‘trust”to keep her out of the hands of the bank in the event of the liquidation of the business, over which I have a personal guarantee of which Sheila is my only asset. This was a dreadfull period as our advisors all held differing views regarding our solvency, some crying forward and some back with myself as prime guarantor, M.D. and principal shareholder looking the “nick” fairly in the eye should I get it wrong. This is where Sheila was a hindrance as her posession clouded my judgement. I thought it unlikely that any buyer from a forced sale would preserve the integrity I had created(the lovely low cabib top would be the first original feature to be spoilt by a modernist “improvement”) and my efforts and trust broken as a result. It all seemed a bitter price to pay for failure and Stevenson’s words driven well home; he travels fastest who travels alone. I prefer to travel light, believeing in the voyage and not the goal, but the one burden I had looked like being too heavy at just the wrong moment.
I managed to get her out to her mooring, looking most beautifull. All those little – temporarinesses had gone ( most anyway ), the varnish shone and the proportions were perfect. She seemed to be above the battle, and still unsullied by the engine. • I had decided during the rush that the engine was not important, taken it and the tail shaft out and driven a bung into the hole. She responded by sailing even better than last year rendering the engine a mere easement; since I believe that if you want easement you should stay at home it was better out.
The improvement in the sailing was interesting. She is faster on the wind and closer winded as well. This came from closer attention to mast rake (I had refitted the mast in the step with new wood ) and much closer attention to the set of the mainsail. This had been washed and reproofed and the new season was started with the peak set really high with quite a pocket in the throat. It is very effective. The recut jib was a great success as was closer attention to the set of the mizzen. The visual proportions of the whole now look almost exactly like Groves’s original drawings, most satisfying. I spent my weekends on board, escaping, from Friday night to Sunday night. I have not been able to go far but two ‘there and back” trips have been made, and one longer one when she spent two weeks from home. I find the fun of merely sailing her is reward in itself, so fine is the quality of the going. Most people think me timid staying at home, but I reply ” If you had a boat that was so rewarding just to sail you might too”. Why, when the week has been one long struggle and uncertainty go and spend the weekend frightening oneself further by the uncertainties of making a passage purely for the function of going and rushing to get back. One is usually tired on Friday night and this seems a certain course for accidents in the demanding business of getting a passage right. It seems to me that it is a considerable criticism of modern cruising yacht design that the results are so unhandy and boring to sail that people either can’t or don’t chose to sail them, but motor instead. I sail to sail, I can see no merit in sailing to motor, an activity that requires litle skill. Perhaps I am a fool to consider it worthwhile excercising and refining a skill, so be it —but then so was Strange.
The excercising of that skill and the beauty and assurance of Sheila as we did it quieted my battered spirit as I went through the affair of giving away the business and cutting it to the bone so that something should survive. By removing everything except myself and one man, retaining only those things directly involved in production, we could convince ourselves that it was responsible to stay alive a little longer. By concentration we have managed to trade at least back to legality and no-one has lost a penny. We go forward stiffer for the fright, but any philanthropy we may have had has been expunged —you don’t give bread to the fat when you are starving yourself.
We went to the O.G.A. race determined to do better than last year’s 4th place. In order to improve our chances I even ” cheated” by scrubbing off before the event, and got our just reward by only a 5th place. Next year I shall do it in secret though despite this I am having a large single-luff spinaker cut to improve the downwind performance. The two pictures show a real race-winning hull which I could not help admiring yet again as the water fell. The splendid couple of “pros” I took were mightlly impressed, he overestimated the passage time and she had a much more comfortable sleep than expected in so small a boat. We had a dreadfull force 7 beat up the Blackwater in a stiff sea and made a lot of water in the process, mainly due to inattention to seagoing detail on the foredeck. She showed her style by catching almost everybody on the reach and beat and a splendid day was had, even meeting ‘Il Presidente” with wife and dogs in Firefly on holiday. We made a delightfull night passage home .
Much was learnt about anchors during the year. Can one ever learn enough about anchoring? A dread-full night in the Walton Backwaters with a stiff wind dead over the tide caused severe heartburn. She start-to career around as the wind turned her stern into the tide. She does not merely gill around under these conditions but sails a large square to the extent of the chain scope, snubbing the anchor and setting off in a new direction. This activity, apart from using a lot of space and being rather frightening ties amazing knots in the anchor chain. I awoke next morning proceeding rapidly through the boats with the most frightfull cats-cradle of chain round the anchor;the resultant pyjama dance on the foredeck unknotting this lot as we whizzed through the moored boats must have been highly amusing for all those watching. Since this was by no means the first time I invested in a 25lb CQR. and learnt the noble art of laying a mooring with this and the 25lb. fisherman I had been using. It is surprisingly easy, even when properly done, and ensures a quiet night with no worries or noise. The peace of mind is eminemtly worth the extra quarter of an hour once one has got the practice of the thing. I should be delighted if anyone more practised than I could tell me of a better knot than the one I use at present for joining the two parts together quickly and reliably, prior to lowering on the bower chain. When the winter gales started in September I was out in an anchorage, with eight other boats, which turned sour in the night. The number of broken out anchors and the motoring about in pyjamas was a fearsome sight, but having no motor I had to stay put. There was no-one in sight in the morning but I was still where I ought to be, though I had to use a handy-billy to get the weather anchor. I had stayed put when others had not and this seems to be the function of anchors.
A really superb weekend with Firefly and H’apenny Breeze (and hundreds of Clays and Kings ) was had over the August bank holiday. It was finished off with a three boat three man voyage to Tollesbury via Walton Back-waters, to be capped in splendid style in the President’s house, one of those perfect english houses where the sea, odd hours and activity are hallowed with true hosp-itality. Dan delighted all by remarking that Firefly and Sheila coming up to their moorings and ” furling their little mizzens” looked just like a Strange watercolour. Peter had done splendid things, it being his first time with Firefly alone at sea, finished off by getting his mooring first time under sail perfextly. I let the side down with two shots. We both sailed Sheila into the marina hugely enjoying ourselves getting right inside into our berth, using a bucket as a brake. Peter was interested in the use of the mizzen alone instead of the more conventional use of the jib. This is worth remarking on as it gives a well set-up yawl considerably greater manouverability than any other rig. The mizzen is on a boom so will remain set and drawing on any point of sailing, it is set beyond the rudder so has a turning. moment into the wind and, by leaning behind the tiller, it can be gybed by hand, spinning the boat round on her own axis. It can be brailed-up instantly from the steering position and so is nearly as good as an engine. So good in fact that I find it difficult to imagine how people manade without one. Good old Albert. I borrowed a friend of gaff ilk ( the one seen finishing the stem ) for the trip home and we set the mizzen staysail, topsail (frightfull caper ) and huge reaching jlb, a really fine sight. Despite all this the wind was so fickle that we found ourselves obliged to creep int o the Walton Backwaters in the dark with no moon at low water.
This was an exciting experience as the entrance is a large flat plateau nowhere more than about 5ft deep and the echo sounder just serves to give one the heebies;this was a fine instance of the value of a good pair of night glasses. We were rewarded by an excellent supper and a quiet night and that cruising happiness of having got it right (or right enough) without having frightened ourselves silly in the process. Our efforts were even further rewarded next day by a really express trip home in 22 hours with Sheila really sizzling along well above her theoretical hull speed and crossing the Deben bar like a surfboard.
The gales began to blow a few days later. She somehow managed to break her mooring at the top of a spring tide landing on the saltings in the process, mercifully untouched but calling for quite on operation to get her off before being neaped. Next weekend Storm 10 for the area resulted in a parted anchor warp in the night so I decided that I had had enough for 1981, in mid October. The business began to be more demanding again and there seemed little merit in having Sheila thrashing about alone and un loved so she was taken into Frank Knights’s dock for the winter and 1981 formally closed. Immediatly I had got the spars out Yachting World rang up to come up for some photographs for a feature article, and the weather turned lovely.
Interior details will be further completed and there will be serious efforts to or – ganise the topsail to be handy enough to be used regularly, alone. The engine will probably be finally installed as I hope to get to The Meeting at Y armoutn. Efforts will be directed to getting the foredeck and its acoutrements tight for sea use. The proper reefing jib will be installed on its pole and my passion for the “just'” solution carried one winter further.
Yachting Monthly
