Classic_Boat_2016-05

Ullapool. The mooring is checked by a diver before the

September equinox. The cover Liz at Hamble Sailing

Services made all those years ago keeps most of the rain

out of her non-self-draining cockpit, and the varnish in

good nick. Every fortnight or so in settled weather, I will

drive the 20 miles around the loch, walk down the fields,

scull out and pump the bilges, usually about a gallon,

check the lines for chafe and fire up the engine.

COVER OFF

In April the cover comes off, and the old tins and soggy

packets of McVitie’s dark chocolate digestives that have

remained uneaten over the winter are chucked out (one

time I was marooned on Sally in a storm, and

demolished all the last season’s cuppa soups, and too

much whisky, after which the wind lost some of its sting

and the incentive to row back, despite the weather,

became impossible to resist any longer).

In the course of the next few weeks, the cover comes

off. If the hatches and opening ports have been doing

their stuff, then all will be sweet and fresh, unless the

wagtails have discovered the gap in the washboards.

Commissioning was delayed a few weeks one season

when we found a nest of fledglings in the port locker. It

seemed a pity to disturb them. Time also to review the

stowage arrangements; always an enjoyable business for

a Virgo, juggling space and essentials. Anything aside

from safety equipment unused for two years goes ashore.

Finally, on a warm spring day, usually in late April or

early May, Sally is driven gently into the sloping beach at

half tide down, her legs are bolted on and she is left to

dry out. And as she does so, in dry suit and with brush

and scrubbers in hand, the accumulation of slime and

weed, and mussel spat, is scraped off her hull, and by the

time the water has departed her keel, Sally is almost dry

and ready for a coat of antifouling.

Time enough to repaint the topsides, touch up any

areas where dinghies have taken the shine off the enamel.

Don’t get me wrong; Sally is no Solent queen. From 10

yards off she looks immaculate. From ten yards off...

Four years ago the mast was again unstepped, this

time by the Ullapool harbour crane and lorried to my

workshop to be stripped and re varnished. Sally missed

that season, but who’s counting; a septugenarian

deserves a break from time to time. On her mooring last

year, using the main halyard I winched the old engine

out, on to a dinghy strapped alongside. The new one

arrived in the same dinghy and was winched on to its

beds the same way. Pre-season, the propeller comes in for

close attention. Cleaned and polished it sings at around

2,000rpm, which I have on good authority is a sign that

gearbox ratio and propeller pitch are efficiently matched.

Just under 6 knots in flat water is a good result from 9hp

driving nearly five tons.

Slowly the water returns, creeping up the stones.

Sally’s dinghy lifts; water laps her keel and up her

newly-painted hull. The engine intake disappears, and

soon I can feel her wobbling on her legs. The water is

now supporting her and the legs can be unbolted. Time

to fire the engine and, as Sally detaches herself so gently

from the shore, we reverse out, spin round and head

back to her mooring. Sally’s season has begun.

TOP TIPS

Pick a spot where

the beach

shelves gently,

but not too

steeply

Survey the beach

at LW for

boulders, soft

patches etc. Then

identify the exact

spot using

transits

Make sure your

legs have large

pads

One leg can be

made slightly

longer than the

other, so the boat

takes a gentle list

HW springs, the

best time to dry

out, are different

UK coastwise. In

Ullapool LW

spring is

conveniently

around midday,

leaving plenty of

daylight to work

Do your sums!

Don’t go on at

dead HW if the

tides are going

off. Aim for an

hour after HW

Don’t wait for the

tide. Wear a dry

suit, and start

scrubbing as

soon as she is

aground. By the

time she is dried

out, you will have

cleaned her

S

easons come and go; the merry cycle of fitting

out and laying up, and for most boats, a winter

spell ashore. Then it struck me: Sally has not

been out of the water now since, well, it must

be the late ’90s when she spent a winter under cover at

Wicor Marine. No, I tell a lie; she was craned out at

Bowling Basin after we took her across country from

Port Edgar on the Firth of Forth to the Clyde, via the

Forth/Clyde Canal in 2001, a story in its own right. On

both occasions the mast was unstepped and refurbished.

Apart from that, her 78-year-old hull has been afloat

summer and winter, and appears to be none the worse

for it. And come to think of it, why wouldn’t a soft,

watery cradle treat her rather better than the indignity of

a travel lift and the hammering of wooden props under

bilges by persons possibly unaware of the special needs

of old wooden boats. Even strops, no matter how

carefully placed or spread, cannot properly support the

delicate fabric of a five-ton wooden boat, essentially, in

Sally’s case, a collection of pitch pine and oak held

together by copper and bronze. Luckily Sally is fairly

compact – no elegant counter or outrageous forefoot

poking out front and back – so no danger of the

drooping sheerline you see on an abandoned Metre boat.

CARE ON DRY LAND
Old wooden boats need to be treated with care on dry
land, by those who know about propping and shoring; a
knowledge that must be getting thinner on the ground.
At Bursledon’s Elephant Boatyard on the Hamble, where
Sally was first taken ashore by me in the late 1980s,
Davey Elliott, the yard foreman, knew his stuff. He
hailed from an era when even the largest, deepest keeled
yachts were moved around the yard on hollows and
rounds, baulks of timber, greased with sheep tallow;
unthinkable today. Juggling boats to be launched, those
awaiting work and those laid up for sale, was like that
game where numbered plastic squares have to be
rearranged, and only one square is left empty.
It was Davey who suggested that Sally would be best
left afloat, if that were at all possible, water being the
best cradle money cannot buy. And that, aside from the
yearly drying out on legs on the beach, is what, more by
necessity than intention, has been the case ever since we
sailed her up from the Clyde 15 years ago.
It does depend on a safe haven and a strong mooring.
Insurance companies are wary of boats overwintering
afloat. But are boats in every case safer ashore, open to
the wild winds, dependent on the skill of crane drivers,
the props of neighbouring boats, vulnerable to fire and
flood, vandals and the drying east wind?
Afloat for 364 days (one day on legs every spring)
Sally has remained as tight as a drum that weeps but a
pint of water every week, although from where is
impossible to discover. There appears to be no sign that
the gribble worm has taken a liking to her pitch pine.
And the damp suits her. Ashore, open to the east winds
that blow in spring up here, she would dry out and open
up. Her topside seams are tight, the paintwork intact.
Sally’s regime in all those years has been the same.
From late October to April she lies at her mooring in
Loggie Bay, a sheltered cove opposite the village of