Monday 22 September 2014

Closing days

I got set to leave Union Hall on Friday with a plan to head for Kilcoe to spend a final night on board before returning to the mooring in Baltimore. No sooner had I the sails set when I got a booking for Saturday morning so I resigned to getting the boat as far as Baltimore.
I had a somewhat frustrating sail with the wind being lighter than forecast and being dead astern with the ever present swell at this time of year to make a dead run quite uncomfortable. To add to that I had somehow figured the tide was with me for the day but as I realised later it was actually against me albeit a small tide anyway but every little helps (or in this case doesn't help)
As it turns out it was somewhat of a blessing as my postponed trip lead me to go in much nicer weather and a friend of mine came along to try his hand at sailing.
We headed to Poulgorm bay for the night near Jeremy Irons castle in Kilcoe, We had a nice easy sail most of the way but the wind died out amongst the mussel beds so as it was getting pretty dark at that stage we motored the last mile into Poulgorm. We rowed to a small Island in the centre of the bay and with the help of a very powerful head torch found a little gravel beach to land on and another to light a BBQ and a camp fire. We were a little merrier rowing back.
This morning was beautifully sunny again so we sailed back to East Skeam were we anchored off and went ashore to explore, before finally sailing and motor sailing back to Baltimore.
Not bad for the end of September. It may be the last trip of the Season but there is still no sign of any terrible weather so as long as it holds out Teal will stay in the water.
There is a fantastic photo taken by Kevin O Farrell as we sailed past Cunnamore Pier into the sunset HERE

Sun setting on East Skeem

Anchored off East Skeam

Ruins on the Island

New Helmsman


Kilcoe Castle


This one is out of focus but I like it, The extra ballast has her on an even keel now so just to lower the waterline. Might go with black anti-foul next year

Sunday 14 September 2014

Peel Castle Gascannan sound





Stumbled across this on youtube the other day, Its hard to say how the conditions compared to the day we went in there in Teal but considering the Peel Castle is up around the 50ft mark you can imagine the effect it would have on 21ft Teal. Note: the confused breaking see ahead of her, I assume she is making her way out, We were running in.

Late Season Sailing





So its been a fantastic Summer, I didn't get to sail quite as far away as I had hoped but I certainly won't complain. August has been a busy month with work and the lead up to last week. So I'm now a married man, BUT I have some brownie points which will be used for sailing. So I'm waiting for a break in the the weather to make my move. I won't get too far but the plan is to head West again and maybe visit some of the Islands and after that I may head back up the river for the Winter depending on the forecast, My insurance allows me to stay afloat until the end of October but it is always struggle to make the move from Union Hall to Baltimore at that time of year and usually by then we have weathered at least one gale on the mooring.

Here's a little video of sailing Castle Island channel earlier in the Summer, The sails look pretty bad in it it but we have since tackled the head sails with a weak oxalic acid mix which brought them up really well, So good in fact that some might avoid replacing. It removed the rust stains very easily

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Quite times

Well its anything but at the moment so I haven't had any chance to go sailing recently, I am glad Teal is in Union Hall because I have been able to row over and do little bits and pieces the odd evening. Mainly just pumping out any rain water and giving the engine a run. I made a point of scrubbing off what weed I could off the bottom the other day, She was getting quite green around the water line and seems to have lost a lot off her anti-foul on the bow, presumably from rubbing the mooring ropes when the wind is against the tide.
I'm trying to find about 200kg of compact ballast to put amidships and in the stern, That should bring the total to around 2 ton and I reckon she would be about right at that.


The pictures on my camera of the moment Teal touched water this year didn't come out good so I had Ken send me this one which did, Very nervous right then.

This is how high she floated, Not great for the launch pics but I wasn't going to leave her like that for long so a half ton of iron scavenged from around the yard got her down to where she is now. 200kg more should level her out a bit then I can adjust the water line over the winter. Really I need lead because I'm lacking room for Iron.  She had several old waterlines but this was the most recent one and one which looked right.