Any adventures for 2009?

leaving Woolvertsone Fuel Berth Augsut 2008

Well this is my first proper New Year’s Post. Roach has been in the water for two seasons now and I still have not made any adventures in her – and look at the title of this blog. Adventure – I want adventure!

Well to be honest the 2007 season was a massive shake-down. When launching a classic boat there are always things that will go wrong and need improvements- specially with the rig systems.

I had high expectations for adventure in 2008, but those plans were scuppered, mainly due to the ghastly weather.

The plan this season is to take Roach to Amsterdam. A good friend has made a New Year’s resolution to have more dinners at home 9as he is so busy in his work) so I decided my New Year’s resolution will be to take Roach to Amsterdam and accept his offer of dinner! It seems a long way to sail for dinner, but hey - its an incentive. It also fulfils an ambition of sailing a runnaway yacht to Flushing retracing the steps of the voyage of Goblin in Ransome’s "We did not mean to go to sea!" So there we go – those are the plans!

Before I do this there is quite a large list of improvements, or even repairs that need to be made. The first one is that the alternator seized last year. Luckily I don’t use the engine much, as I was never aware last season that the engine was not charging at all! So I have to replace it with a new alternator.

The second most important thing that needs to be done is that the engine needs to come out altogether so I can access two deadwood bolts that need replacing as they weep. It is silly that I did not replace these during the restoration, but I was being slack. So I will let you know how I get on with that as it is a big job.

There are several other things that are not as important but nevertheless I would like to get done. Let’s see how we get along as the list is long.

1. Get the Taylor’s stove working (re-siting the paraffin tank lower in the bilge to make more galley space)
1. Add a Hand rail all around the raised deck area (those deck can be slippy)
2. Re-organise sheet leads for a new genoa, chute and furler.
3. New heavy duty cockpit grate (old one broke under my weight)
4. Make some dedicated chart stowage
5. Make a new folding saloon table.
6. Beaching legs
7. Make a boarding ladder

Apart from this there is the yearly varnishing and painting and quite a few little repair jobs that all really add up.





Watch this space to see if I get them all done.