Monthly Archives: April 2017

If all goes to plan (never seems to in the Storrar household) we load the Mystery onto a low loader and truck her down to Port St Louis near Marseille and then sail her round to Corfu in mid May. If it had all been plain sailing from the time we purchased the hull and deck, Hindsight would have been in the water completed by  the spring of 2015. We would have then taken our time and sailed her down the East Coast through the Channel, across the Bay of Biscay and into the Med, however it was not to be. Why? Difficulty selling our last boat, family ill health etc etc! However feeling slightly optimistic this weekend, not sure why cos Jenny’s wrist which she broke some two weeks ago is not looking good and on top of that her car still has not passed it's MOT test, not that she could drive it in her present state, I sat onboard and ‘played’ with my Raymarine plotter after inserting the Navionics Platinum+ electronic chart 33P+. Maybe my ‘sunny’ mood was due to the fact that there is a special offer on them at present and Andy (now my boss and me a part time worker) suggested delaying my purchase till last week! Platinum+ gives you all the bells and whistles:

 *   3 Dimensional Views  *   Satellite overlays  *   Dock to Dock Autorouting  *   Plus of course HD Sonar, freshest data and community edits.

Until the end of May we have a special offer on Navionics Platinum+ XL3 charts now at only £219.95 (RRP £299.95)

If you are not starting from afresh why not take advantage of the fact that Garmin have just released their Bluechart update for the 2017 season, likewise C-Map, so if you want to be bang up to date send it back post haste (make sure you send it signed for) and we will upgrade it by return! If you're currently using Navionics, update your electronic chart at a discounted price against a new one and benefit from free updates for the next 12 months. Simply order an update card and you can do the update yourself online.

As the day draws nearer (or so I thought) when we load Hindsight onto a transporter and ship her down to Port St Louis near Marseille then sail her round to the Corfu area, we have been filling the spare bedroom with some of the essentials we need to keep onboard. Our original plan was that when she had been finally completed ‘three years ago in 2014 ’ we were going to sail her down the East Coast through the Channel across the Bay of Biscay etc, however, with the past recession/work load, that helped put paid to that plan. Now it all may change AGAIN as Jenny, when out walking Millie and our daughter's dog early last Tuesday got tangled up with them tripped over her charges and two other four legged friends who were off the lead, result, one broken wrist. Fortunately, if that’s the right word, a clean break and just second bone chipped; it’s the left hand and of course she is left handed!

Anyway to get back to Tuesday's Top Tip, Jen does suffer from seasickness and whilst we were going through on Monday night the kit we had retained from the old Hunter Channel, we discovered her Boarding Ring Glasses had somehow got smashed, probably cos they were under a pile of other boat bits and not in the hard case they come with! For those who haven’t heard of them, for Jenny and loads of other boaters they are the answer from heaven to the old problem of an effective cure for seasickness, great also for sufferers of travel sickness on the train, road and in the sky. Incidentally, we have in the past (before the original supply dried up) supplied them to an American Airline, not United Airlines I hasten to add!

Boarding Ring Glasses which won a World Marine Award for innovation are a medical device, CE label, class 1 (no prescription required) they instantly and permanently eradicates motion sickness, there is no need to wear them constantly it takes 12 minutes maximum for them to be effective, just put the glasses on when the symptons appear, you can read, write talk and eat and most importantly when the symptons disappear you can take them off! If you are a wearer of glasses? No problem, they can be worn directly over the top. Kids up to 9 years old are catered for with a childrens model available in blue or pink and come with built in shades.

Testimonials:

They do exactly what it says Review by Margaret

These glasses do indeed work. We are in our early 60s and my husband has suffered from chronic travel sickness all his life. Amongst other restrictions, as divers, this made our boat diving experiences interesting to say the least and he was sick on every occasion. Over the years we have tried everything, local recommendations, prescription, homeopathic the lot, to no avail, so we were understandably sceptical when we saw the glasses for sale at the dive show. Thankfully we were wrong, they do exactly what it says. Even only wearing them only three or four times a year on our holidays whilst diving and as a passenger on airport transfers he has found that they certainly do work and although he still starts to feel nauseous, wearing the glasses intermittently as per the directions works and takes away the feelings of nausea, he has not actually been sick since we purchased them.

Margaret Sewell, St Albans Herts

Certainly did the trick Review by Gill McD So far so good, they certainly did the trick on the one occasion I used them, and will definitely use them this season. Gill McDougall

Any look is better than green! Review by Cat McW Me too, luckily no mirrors around, but any look is better than green! Catriona McWilliam

The Stephen Jones designed Mystery 35 has a 110% jib (probably best way to describe it as being tall and slim, bit like me?) The headsail is long in the luff/leech and relatively short in the foot and it is easy to handle by a lighter weight crew member like Jenny. The jib on our boat is sheeted through adjustable cars with the control line taken back to the cockpit. Chris Owen, when he designed the jib, incorporated vertical battens in the headsail to help control the leech. However, with a narrow sheeting angle which equates to good pointing ability there are times, when reaching, that even with the cars in their forward position the upper leech is too open. To control this a barber hauler block can be successfully deployed; it keeps the slot open once the main is eased and with the genoa sheet then ‘popped’ into the block a perfect leech can be achieved. Attach to a stanchion base or through a folding padeye - see no 17 on the deck plan!

The new Antal Dynablock caught Andy’s eye when shown them the other month and with him knowing my need for speed he conveniently left one on my desk (good salesman that boss of mine, I taught him well) so the upshot is I am going to carry a couple on board for this very purpose. Also available from Antal is a Barber Block, twice the working load but twice the price. If you are a ‘proper’ racer unlike me, a fast cruiser or just enjoy the pleasure of a yacht with bigger genoa sheets than 12mm this is the one to go for. It's feature include an easy 2:1 control (a line thru the ring allows easier control of the block height and with the larger 54mm dia sheave will take up to 16mm.

On the Hunter Channel 31 we didn't have the luxury of a windlass (perhaps that's why my lower back is so problematic these days) however we did compensate for the lack of grunt by having, as our main anchor, one of those superb alloy Fortress ones. Our rode was multiplait with a lesser amount of chain, it did the job and we never had any sleepless nights but maybe that was the alcohol that we consumed! For the Mystery it had to be a Rocna, we sell loads and a number of guys have emailed us saying what a brilliant bit of kit, we even had a two page letter from a very grateful skipper in which he credits this make of Anchor for keeping him and his first mate happy, they can now sleep soundly when at anchor in the West of Scotland! Well my Jenny isn't the best of sleepers at any time and no it's not my snoring that causes this, however I decided that the Rocna was the one for me and as for my stern anchor it would be Fortress (light weight so easy to deploy from our dinghy and of course excellent holding capabilities). However when we came to fit the Selden retractable bowsprit onto the bow roller assembly the Rocna roll bar was in the way. Fortunately the Vulcan, which incidentally comes from the same stable, normally sold to powerboat owners, has no roll bar but the same excellent characteristics as the proven Rocna, problem solved!

Happy Hooking... the art of anchoring by Alex & Daria Blackwell and is an excellent read, over 300 pages on everything you would need to know about anchoring including the 'Top Ten Rude Behaviours' that show disrespect and breech of etiquette in an anchorage. Its a book that you can come back to time and again when a situation arises and you need a second opinion.  If you are in the market for a new anchor we are giving away a free copy of Happy Hooking with every Rocna or Vulcan!

As I said before the last boat we owned didn't have an windlass so maybe we should have invested in a Anchor Ring a nifty bit of kit that enables you to lift up to a 60lb anchor, apparently all you do is slip the anchor ring over the anchor line, attach the shackle buoy assembly and motor your boat forward at a 30-degree angle off of your anchor point and the anchor line will slide through the ring as the buoy floats the anchor to the surface, clever folks these Americans!