boat owner

Letters

SEADOG OF

THE MONTH

Seadogs

galore!

Visit our seadog gallery at

http://www.pbo.co.uk/seadogs or scan

this QR code with your smartphone.

Send us your seadog photos for our

web gallery and your pet may be

lucky enough to become Seadog

of the Month and win you £

PUZZLE 200

■ This is Wilson, our

miniature schnauzer, enjoying

a day out on our boat on the

River Calder.

Jeff Tune

http://www.twitter.com/p_b_o http://www.facebook.com/practicalboatownermag

Taken to task

■ Martin Bence-Wilkins’ letter in

PBO December about careless

workmanship struck a chord with

us. We too have employed so-called

‘professionals’ to work on our boat

and have been let down several

times. Last April we had radar fi tted,

and the engineer failed to place

grommets where the cable enters

and exits the mast. We have asked

him many times to return and fi t

them, but to no avail. Sadly, we paid

in full before spotting the problem.

In addition, we purchased an

engine repower at Southampton

Boat Show last September: work

began in early November and was

scheduled to take two to three days

(replacing one Volvo engine and

saildrive with an upgrade). However,

the job still hasn’t been completed.

Other issues include leaving the

electrics in an unsafe condition (all

circuits were live with the two battery

keys removed); the engine oil was

overfi lled by 50mm above the full

mark and incorrect oil was placed

in the saildrive, causing the clutch

to slip – despite a red label next to

the fi ller hole stating 15/40 oil only.

Currently, the exhaust hose also

moves violently, causing resonance,

and the company claim this is not

part of the contract. Needless to

say, we have escalated the matter.

We really enjoy PBO and fi nd the

articles informative and useful:

keep up the good work.

Sue and David Long, Kent

Fastnet rescues?

■ Being a long-time supporter of

the RNLI, I read with interest the

article detailing the magnifi cent

work and rescues performed by

Matt Lethbridge and his trusty

Watson lifeboat Guy and Clare

Hunter (‘A blaze of glory’, PBO

February). To my dismay there

was no mention of the role played

by Matt and his crew in the

dramatic 1979 Fastnet Race

rescues. An entire article could

have been fi lled with the rescues

executed in that storm alone.

Perhaps we can look forward to

such a tribute in a future issue.

David Hill, Isle of Man, Former SHS Peel Lifeboat

Q

Match the cardinal symbols, colours and light characteristics to

the compass points. Colours are listed top down; B denotes

black and Y denotes yellow. For example, YB has a yellow top.

■ Find the solution at the bottom of page 110

8LI/M[MTVST *IEXLIVMRK 4VSTIPPIV

GBTUFSTBJMJOHrQPXFSGVMNPUPSJOHrPVUTUBOEJOHSFWFSTF

TUBJOMFTTTUFFMCPTTrBEKVTUBCMFQJUDIr[FSPCMBEFDPSSPTJPO

,mCMBEF,JXJQSPQrUPIQFOHJOFTr"MMTJ[FTb7"

5IFOFX,mCMBEF,JXJQSPQr6QUPIQFOHJOFTr"MMTJ[FTb7"

7&$5"."3*/&r5FM 

rXXXWFDUBNBSJOFDPNrTBMFT!WFDUBNBSJOFDPN

Yesterday’s fl ares

■ Readers may envy the simplicity

of disposing of out-of-date fl ares

at a well-known marina in the

south of France. You just put them

in the cardboard box provided,

and they disappear when the

box is full. Simple!

Les Sherry

Winchester

86

T

he seas around the South Cornish coast

are treacherous in the extreme,

the waters off Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly some 28 with reefs littering

miles to the south-west. Two reefs are especially hazardous; the notorious Wolf Rock, eight

miles south-west off Land’s End, marked by a lighthouse, and Seven Stones, east-north-

east off the Isles of Scilly, indicated by the Seven

Stones light vessel. the Isles of Scilly and Seven Critically, the channel between

Stones is just seven miles wide, an almost impossibly narrowgap for navigating a massive

974ft-long supertanker with a 68.7ft draught; disaster can

only be a compass degree of inaccuracy away, a fact which proved fatal for the doomed

A blaze of glory

Mike Taylor catches up with the famous lifeboat Clare Hunter, now in private hands, which continues Guy And^

to be lovingly maintained in her original condition

tanker CanyonBuilt in the USA in 1959, Torrey Canyon had an initial load .Torrey

capacity of 60,000 tons. Later, she was enlarged to a monster

120,000 tons in a Japanese shipyard. Powered by a single engine and propeller drive train,

her helm reactions were mind-numbingly ponderous: she took a tardy five miles to stop and

roughly a minute to turn through 20° of compass bearing at hercruising speed of 17 knots.

a subsidiary of Union Oil and By 1967, she was owned by^

registered in Liberia. For herfateful voyage, she was chartered to BP with an Italian crew. Her^

navigation aids included a standard system of the day, which

incorporated an autopilot with a bridge-located three-position lever that gave full autopilot

The former RNLI lifeboat, as she looks today – still in fine conditionGuy And Clare Hunter,

Keeping the birds

outside the cage
■ Re Ivor Durrant’s Heavenly Twins
restoration (PBO December 2015),
I too am refurbishing a catamaran –
a Summer Twins 25. I purchased
what was virtually an empty shell,
and it required a complete rebuild.

Amongst many jobs that needed
doing was providing a new outfi t
for the mast. Standing and
running rigging were simple,
but the masthead was a challenge.
I wanted to put an Echomax at
the top plus navigation lights, a
radio aerial and a wind speed/
direction transducer.
The main problem was fi nding
the most suitable arrangement for
the Echomax and the tricolour, as
they seemed to obstruct each other
regardless of whatever layout I
came up with. I was at the point of

A stainless steel cage around the
tricolour deters feathered friends

accepting that the Echomax would

have to go elsewhere (ideally on

the A-frame at the stern) when I

saw a news item advising that

Echomax were now mounting the

tricolour on top of the Echomax

aerial. I contacted Echomax

immediately, and they were very

helpful. As a result, I sent off my

tricolour to them: they fi tted it to an

aerial and returned it within a few

days. I am very pleased with the

result, and also with Echomax’s

fi rst-class service. I have since built

a small stainless steel cage and

fi tted it around the tricolour so

that our feathered friends are not

provided with a nice smooth perch.

R Smith, Fleet, Hants