I’ve finally managed to upload the next part of the around britain series. It only took three hours!
This one takes on a more relaxed feel than the last, but that is hopefully just a reflection of the trip, and not my beginners luck fading with the editing :p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_i_ZZ3oRFA
Enjoy.
Aptly, being just a quarter of a mile from Bradwells’ decommission nuclear power station, Kudu’s power problems have been resolved.
Firstly a chap called Alan, a stranger the moment before I stepped over his dinghy on the pontoon and said hello, offered me a lift into a not so nearby town where I bought a new battery, upping Kudu’s capacity to a more acceptable 170ah. He then went on to lend me a spare tiller pilot incase mine gave up on me, as did his when he sailed single handed to the Azores, and a drogue chute, which is like a small parachute and is trailed behind the boat to slow it down and keep it under controller in very strong winds. I hope I don’t need to take it out the bag, but it’s nice having it onboard.
Secondly, on the same day, I had a surprise visit from a chap I’d been speaking to on the internet. I had never met him before, but he had taken an interest in my journey, and been offering me help over Skype. He knew of my power problems, and the broken charge controller, and had taken the time to ring the manufacturer of the controller, obtain a schematic, diagnose the likely problem, order a new MOSFET from RS Components, and then drive here, from Surrey, which is no small distance. He then set to work with a soldering iron and a rather clever MOSTFET testing device, correctly identified the broken component, and replaced it with the 35 pence chip he’s brought with him. I now not only have a working charge controller, but a loan of charts to see me all the way up to scotland, an AIS receiver which will allow me to see nearby ships and their course on my chart plotter, and a spare VHF radio.
Yesterday evening, Alan popped along with a Rutland 503 wind generator, so I now have 40 watts of solar panels and a wind turbine. I’ll be selling power to the national grid at this rate!
I spent yesterday covered in fibre glass resin as I glassed in a piece of plywood I found in my stern locker, in order to create a base to fit the new battery. I then decided Kudu’s wiring was pretty poor, so ripped the lot out and rewired the switch panels and battery connections with proper terminal ends and fuses in the correct places. What surprised me was… everything still works :p
When I set off I had an intention, to sail around the world of Great Britain, but I didn’t have a plan as such. I mean, I sort of had a rough idea that I’m going to head north to the river Crouch, do some minor refit work, then turn south towards the Solent, and onward, around Britain clockwise. This plan was dropped in favour of continuing my merry way up the east coast, and I am so far very glad I chose that route.
Some of you may think my lack of planning as irresponsible, but I disagree. My lack of plan, only a simple idea, means I can weather out storms whereever I please, or perhaps take a detour up one of the east coasts’ remarkably beautiful rivers. Each leg is planned in detail, but the overall plan to circumnavigate is as open ended as my own thoughts.
However, I do need to make progress north, and along with an offer I had last night to meet up for a trip to Oostende, I know have a plan to consume the following few days. I have to get Kudu up to Wells-Next-The-Sea, which I intended to do in 2 or 3 days. Tomorrow morning at 5:30 will see me leaving Bradwell and heading North, hopefully on the forecasted 17knots of southerly propulsion, towards the river Deben. That should be a good day sail and will also improve my recently pedestrian latitude increments. Making use of the weather window, I’ll continue up the coast the following day, hopefully arriving at Wells-Next-The-Sea by Tuesday.
After the trip to Oostende, I’ve got my first big sail in front of me, two days at sea with no sleep as I leave Wells and head North, through the maze of gas rigs and gridlocked shipping lanes. My exact destination is as yet undecided, and will be weather dependent, but I will be North of the Humber by then, and well on my way around Britain. I’m excited.
With this power problem, and the fact that the forecast isn’t promising the demise of the wind any time soon, I decided I needed to get to a marina where I can easily get ashore and have more shelter from the wind. Sitting attached to a buoy might be cheap, but it’s not ever so comfortable or indeed practical to stay there, unable to move for 3,4 or 5 days.
Anyway, I woke this morning with a plan. I was going to get over to Bradwell, which is just across the river Blackwater. I had breakfast (Nice biscuits) and a cup of tea, then tidied the boat and prepared her for the battering she was probably about to get. I also rang ahead to Bradwell to confirm they had a spot, and ask which berth I’d be in, and so which side of the boat I needed to put the fenders and warps on. Trying to arrange that whilst drifting about in this wind would be unpleasant to say the least.
I set off from the creek at West Mersea and motored out into the estuary. As soon as I left the shelter of the estuary, it got interesting. Even with the engine on full throttle, the wind was just too much for the rudder to control, and so Kudu kept turning, side on to the waves. As soon as she built up a bit of speed, I could turn her back into the oncoming waves. It took a bit of timing and gritting of teeth, but I managed to keep her bow on to take on the biggest of them.
Once out of the mud channel, I killed the engine and unfurled the genoa. With gusts hitting 35knots, we charged down wind towards Bradwell. A few big waves caught up with us and kudu surfed down them. I wish the log was working so I could tell how fast we got. It took some concentrating on the tiller though.
I had my mobile phone in my pocket too, and although it was in the pocket of my “waterproof” jacket, it got soaked. So much so that it had packed up. Great, I thought, now I’ve lost my phone. Since I was at the marina and now had shore power, I broke out the fan heater to dry it out. I eventually had the thing switching on, but nearly all the buttons didn’t work, so it was still useless. I figured it was the salt, so somewhat counter intuitively, I heated some water on the kettle, poured it into a bowl, removed the battery from my phone, and dropped it in. I gave it a good shake about, then started drying it out again…. an hour later, I had a fully working phone!
Right, I’ve downloaded 2 hours of footage to my laptop this afternoon, so I shall spend this evening editing part two of Kudu’s youtube adventure.
Tomorrow, I can start fixing these electrics because I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for a few days, until this wind calms down, and hopefully, veers right around to the west :p
Been using the tiller pilot today a bit and it seems the battery can’t cope. Just checked with the multi meter and it’s down to 12.75v, which is a bit low. Too low to run the inverter anyway, and this laptop is already on -10 reserve power, hence this being very brief.
Found a mooring at West Mersea yacht club, inflated condom and paddled to shore (about 1/2 mile!!). Had a pint in the yacht club, then walked into the village to get supplies from Tesco. Just paddled back. Got some good footage I think.
Need to resolve the battery situation since I can’t go anywhere substantial with it like this. Need a new, more substantial battery, or two, I think. More money. Can’t afford it, so I’m not sure what to do. Will figure something out though, fear not.
Kayaking is damn hard work too :p
I’ll do a better post when I get some power back, but for now, good night.
It turns out iPhoto can batch resize, so…
EDIT: 7th March 2010. My apologies, but when I moved this website off of wordpress.com, I lost all my gallery pictures. I will create a pictures section of the website as soon as I can.
Just a quick update, very quick in fact since the net connection is very ropey around here.
Yesterday I set off from North Fambridge and sailed down to the Roach, where I met a fleet of racing boats. Kudu was holding her own for a short while but they soon left me. However, they did leave a man down. After they had all vanished I noticed a boat seemingly heeled right over, but moving very slowly. It took me a few glances to realise it was aground, so, having spent about an hour trying to beat against the wind and tide to get where I was, I swung the boat around to see if there was anything I could do for them. They turned out to be fine, but as a reward for my good self, I fired up the engine to take me back to where I left off. It seemed only reasonable :p
I then continued to Yokesfleet creek, where I’ve shared the anchorage with two other boats, although were far enough away as to not bother each other.
I was treated to the most magnificent sunset, in the company of a group of seals. I’ve got plenty of pictures and video footage of it all. I think it was the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever experienced. I’ll post some pics at some point, but not now since I took them on my SLR and the files are way to big too upload over the connection – I have no software to make them smaller on this laptop.
Right, well, I’m waiting for the tide just after lunch when I’ll be setting off out the river and north towards the Blackwater. It’s a cracking day for it!
It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed the sort of behaviour that makes you proud to be a human being, but here on the Crouch this week I’ve been awash in the glow good spirit and generousity.
Firstly a couple I first met in St Kat’s eight months ago invited me onto their lovely Hallberg Rassy for dinner, helped organise my boat and gave me access to their tool collection, when my modest kit was lacking.
Then I met Simon Dunn, an engineer, who has gone out of his way to help me sort out a short pickup pipe on my fuel tank. You know those people who have absolute pride in their job, a real passion for what they do and therefore a derived talent and doing it well. Well, he’s one of those sorts of people, and a thoroughly nice chap as well.
To top it all off, along comes Jim, an inhabitant of one of the boaty forums I spend my time on. He came down to the boat yard, then offered me a lift in Burnham-On-Crouch so I could pick up my c-map charts from the chandlers at Rice & Cole’s boat yard (Andy, the proprietor, is yet another nice chap). He didn’t stop their though, I was still missing some bits for my fuel tank so he set to making a few phone calls and visits to various shops until we had found the part I needed, then took me to the super market to pick up some final supplies.
And so how did I come to lose my afternoon, you may ask?
Well, we didn’t go directly to the super market, we went via a pub, a hidden drinking hole in Burnham, who’s name I have sworn to secrecy :p. The trouble is, when I woke up this morning I neglected to have breakfast, and just as I was thinking about making and extra large lunch to compensate, Simon and Jim turned up and put an end to that plan, so I hadn’t eaten a bite since the evening before. Two pints of Adnams ale latter and I was feeling a bit boozy, we then stopped via Jim’s boat, in a marina on the way back, and I was plied with yet another beer. :)
I got back to Kudu and decided I needed a little sit down, which seems to have gone on for longer than expected because I have not long since woken up again with my afternoon lost to dreams and (probably) some snoring.
My most sincere thanks to all the people mentioned above. You have made my stay here truly memorable.
I had intended to set off tomorrow, but I’m now going to go on Saturday as I have to wait for my c-map cartridge to arrive. The charts I had were just for the Thames and Medway, so I’ve had to spend some (too much) cash to buy the UK & Ireland cart – £160!
Still, that’s the chart worry out of my mind, unless the plotter gives up, I’m all good, and I know I should have paper backups, or indeed as primary charts (I prefer them to the tiny screen) but I simply cannot afford all the Imray portfolios that I’d need.
While I’ve been here in North Fambridge I’ve done more work on the boat, finishing jobs that didn’t get done upon leaving St Kat’s, which means I’ve not got two solar panels giving me a total of 40w, some of those white anti chafe tubes for the shrouds, an installed tiller pilot, and I’ve bought some seizing wire to stop the bottle screws from coming undone. Once is enough.
North Fambridge is in the middle of nowhere. I had a walk around the village today while waiting for the hourly train to Burnham-On-Crouch, and could not find single shop! Not even the token village corner shop with a few old onions and decade old tins of beans. Nothing.
It is a beautiful place though, I mean signs like this are just brilliant.
The ‘major’ road was this..
?
It fantastic, although without a car, it’s a bit of a pain. It’s roughly a two mile walk from the boat yard to the (deserted) train station, which is fine normally, but not when you’re carrying 10 liters of water, 2 liters of milk, and some tins of food back. My fingers are still tender from trying to grip that weight as I marched down the “major roads” 
It’s just a lovely part of the world. I think people tend to forget just how pretty parts of England are, insisting that you need to jump on a plane to find anything that takes you breath away, but it’s just not the case. Buy a little boat and bring it here, and you’ll see what I mean. I’ll try and capture some of it in video for the next youtube installment.
I’ll end this post with a picture of Kudu’s newfound symmetry.
Solar panels on Kudu
I spent a substantial part of yesterday editing one and a half hours of video of the trip thus far, into just under eight minutes and forty five seconds.
I have now opened a youtube account, and posted my first video, which I had to leave dripping away over night because it’s not very fast to upload over the GPRS connection that I’m getting here in North Fambridge.
I’m a bit nervous about posting this to be perfectly honest. It’s one thing to be Nathan, hidden behind words, but it’s another to be Nathan on mini DV 
I’ve also learnt some lessons while making this, and that is I “wasted” lots of film, and subsequently, due to the battery running out, didn’t film a lot of the interesting bits. Thankfully there was just enough juice left for a quick revival of the camera and a 360 pan, once I’d dropped the anchor for the night. I have also decided that I don’t really like iMovie; there were things I wanted to do that it couldn’t, and so the editing is a bit rough.
That said, please go easy on me since this is the first time I’ve ever attempted to film and then edit video.
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