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PEYTON’S PICK FROM THE PAST

Taken from Practical Boat Owner August 1988

HOW DRILLING A HOLE FIXED A LEAK IN A CONTESSA 32

Plymouth

heralded
■ I read your piece
on Plymouth (PBO
March) with interest,
but noted that there
was little information
given about the
western entrance to
the River Tamar past
Drake’s Island. This
passage is used
only by shallow-
draught boats,
both pleasure and
commercial, and is
locally known as ‘The
Bridge’. It is marked by three
pylons and one yellow conical
buoy in the place of the No
pylon, which was damaged by
the marines!
No attempt should be made
to enter this passage other than
through the bridge, as there are
underwater obstructions left over
from the Second World War on
either side of the bridge. This
passage gives easy access to the
marinas to the west of Plymouth
and the dockyard, but be aware
that the whole area is an
operational port for commercial
and military movements.
Len Baddeley
Cargreen Yacht Club

■ Re ‘Tracing those tricky leaks’

(PBO February), Ben Meakins

invited comment on techniques

for fi xing leaks – which

prompted me to mention the

time I fi xed a leak by drilling

another hole in my Contessa 32.

I was lumping my way round

the Lizard, single-handed,

having left the Helford with a

south-westerly Force 4, and

had been hard on the wind on

starboard for a couple of hours.

Once through the rougher stuff

immediately off the headland

(and well clear) I’d tacked,

eased sheets and set her on

course for Newlyn. I had just

gone down below to mark a

position on the chart, just for

form’s sake: I knew very well

where I was.

At this point, I found myself

paddling: the saloon was

ankle-deep with water. Now, I

quite like the sea, but I regard it

as fundamental to our continued

relationship that each of us should

stay in our proper places – the sea

outside the boat and me in it. So,

with a seamanlike expression of

fright, I scampered back into the

cockpit, grabbed the bilge pump

and started pumping away like a

thing demented, composing a

Mayday signal while doing so.

From force of habit I counted

the strokes and, once I’d got to

100, put my head back down the

companionway in hopes of seeing

some progress. Fortunately,

progress was indeed apparent: I

was clearly winning over the leak.

I returned to the pump and, as

panic subsided, started giving the

matter some thought. I hadn’t hit

anything, at least not very much or

very recently, so a complete new

hole in the hull seemed unlikely.

After another 100 or so strokes,

matters improved to ‘soggy’ rather

than ‘awash’, so I sampled the

remaining puddle: salt. It was

defi nitely water ingress rather

than a tank problem.

I then checked the seacocks.

Most of them were off, my normal

seagoing order. The two on the

cockpit drains were open, again

as they should be, and there was

no sign of any leakage. However,

I then noticed that the lid on the

anchor well was somewhat askew.

It never had been watertight, but

it now showed a large gap. I’d

certainly been taking seas over

the bow, so water must have been

fi lling the anchor well. I had two

navel pipes from the well down

Plane sailing?

■ I have just enjoyed my monthly

dose of PBO, and would like to add

an alternative twist to the piece by

Andrew Simpson (‘In search of

fresh horizons’) in the March issue.

Curing troublesome leaks – you know the drill

‘Relax, relax, there’ll be nothing coming up the river so late on the tide’

Practical Boat Owner 597 March 2016 • http://www.pbo.co.uk ➜

85

W

coastline of rolling hills, ith such a pretty

of quaint fi shing villages, therocky shores and a littering

West Country is a proven,idyllic sailing area. It’s acommon slingshot for sailors

heading south across Biscayand fiit should be enjoyed rather nishers of Fastnet, but

than passed by. Plymouth, a hub of naval industry, shouldn’t be missed due to

its commercialisation; it’s a real gem of an area. Plymouth fi rst made its name as

a port during the Roman Empire,being used as a central trading point. Ships of the English navy

left through the River Plym in 1588 for the Spanish Armada, cementing Plymouth’s position

on the military map. Today HMS DrakeSir Frances Drake, is the navy’s , named after the legacy of

only nuclear repair and refuelling base. It might not be littered with

Britain’s

ocean city

activity from the Royal Navy naval sailing ships, but Plymouth Sound boasts a wide range of

and various other commercialshipping. Visitors will likely witnesswarships passing between HMNB (^)
Devonport and the Channel –and during our visit there were numerous warnings over the VHF
to keep well away from a warship that was fi ring live ammunition. With such an easy and
protected entrance into the Sound, well-sheltered mooring
and its ideal location forheading to foreign shores, it’s no wonder Plymouth
became such a prominent harbour for merchant and naval
shipping, as it is today for pleasure sailors. To the west is
Cornwall’s Rame Peninsula, giving substantial protection from
the potentially fi erce Atlanticswells, while to the east a Devon
headland acts as a shield from winds
channel. A few funnelling down the
Sound is a hundred metres inside the
giving total protection from whatever nature can throw. kilometre-wide breakwater,
What to do in PlymouthVisiting sailors should call in to the
Royal Plymouth Corinthian YachtClub, which is situated at thetop of the hill looking out to the
channel. A recently reopened lidopool situated within the Sound offers spectacular views, and
there are a number of museums, including the National Marine Aquarium. We spent a couple
shops, featuring a number of antique collections of the weird of days in the rain exploring the
and wonderful, while summer
PLYMOUTH
Plymouth is no secret, but does its commercial past put visiting sailors off? Greg Goulding
summer and explored the areakept his boat there for a month over the^
Looking towards Drake’s Island with the reopened lido in the foreground
The Barbican harbour area
into the forepeak, one for each
of the two anchors: all of this
was to stow the cables below
while I could use whichever
anchor I wanted.
This indeed turned out to
be the source of the trouble.
I’d failed to stuff the pipes with
rags, and I certainly should
have done, but a more
fundamental problem also
became apparent: there was
only one drain from the anchor
well, on starboard. As I’d been
hard on starboard tack this had
been up in the air, and the
anchor well must have been
full most of the time – draining
merrily down the navel pipes.
There is now a nice new hole
in the boat; a port-side drain
to the anchor well.
Chris Mason, by email
Greg
Goulding
replies:
There is
indeed a
western route
past Drake’s
Island. While
local sailors
and fi shermen
are familiar
with the depths
and routes, as
you say it’s
littered with
obstructions, is
too shallow for
many boats at
most states of tide and the
markers are unclear at best.
While we mentioned this route
to the west, we really don’t want
to encourage visiting skippers to
try it, and with a draught of 7ft 6
on our boat, we decided that
taking the long route would be
preferable. But with such a lot to
look at, it’s no hardship.
The question of the distance to
your boat is an important one for
the personal reasons mentioned,
but I cannot think of jumping on an
aeroplane without worrying about
the consequences.
We have seen the terrible effects
of climate change, from typhoon
Haiyan killing over 6,000 in the
Philippines in 2013 to cyclone
Pam in the Vannatu islands in
March 2015. Here in the UK,
this winter’s storms have been
devastating. That this is man-made
climate change has long been
beyond reasonable doubt.
If the fate of others does not
stir us, then we may think of the
consequences for our hobby of
sailing: from established issues like
a shortening season in Scotland
to the more recent problems of
sargassum in the Caribbean,
climate change is affecting us all.
As relatively wealthy people, most
of us are signifi cant contributors
to climate change; and the worst
thing of all that we can do is to fl y.
Richard Proud
By email