One of the distractions of parking your boat at a posh marina is that you get to see some very fancy cars and even fancier boats. The wealthy are seldom renowned for their sense of humour but occasionally they come up with a winner, one such tickled my funny bone a season or so ago. A seriously powerful motor boat edged cautiously out past my berth, I was impressed by the helms-person’s caution and consideration and he went up seriously in my estimation when I realised he had a power boat instructor on the flybridge and they spent some time practising docking manoeuvres before heading out. With several hundreds of horses under the bonnet it was the mark of a sensible power boater, a rare species in my experience. What really got me was the name chosen for this blatant symbol of opulence.

Crunluath has a serious case of rot, a leaking deck has rotted the ribs and planking below the chain-plates, a sad week of probing and prodding led me to the conclusion that it was time to bring in the professionals. We are heading to the big Nato shed at Fairlie for a bit of TLC and a serious bit of damage to the savings portfolio. John S Hill is to carry out the work, John and his team have carried out some impressive work on Scottish Islands Class boats amongst other and John has the impeccable credentials of having been trained by Silvers and worked for McGruers. I was immediately impressed by his down to earth attitude and obvious love of boats and sailing. “He’s very expensive”, said a fellow Honeybee owner. Quite likely but we haven’t discussed the dirty business of money yet and as Jaguar Cars always said, “No one ever regrets buying quality”. I need to leave an asset to my kids not a liability, besides which Crunluath isn’t just a boat any more, she’s part of my life and deserves the best I can do. This is a dangerous attitude to adopt, I’ll try to keep it under control. Sorry Kids!

It’s not a good tale, another one has been found in a poor state, Sanday, owned by the same family for thirty years has been seen at Inverness in a poor state of repair. It must be heartbreaking to see her adrift after years of love and glorious memories of years of wonderful sailing.

Crunluath could easily have headed that way, a bad case of rot has been found, fortunately not too late to be repaired and work is underway to get afloat again this year. I should have replaced a section of deck a couple of years or more ago before the fungus spores infected other timbers, it’s a difficult job but repairable.

Neither me nor the boat is getting any younger and all Honey Bees are approaching or have already passed their half century. They were not built to last this long! (maybe their owners were not either!) It is a tribute to the attractiveness of the design that they have survived and in some cases thrived. No doubt Seillean will be trundling up to Largs on her low loader in another couple of months, fresh from a winter cosseted in a shed. I had hoped to get Crunluath under cover this year but the rot beat me to it and it was a rushed job to get her out of the water and the mast removed before it fell down. In hindsight I should have just removed the mast and left her rig-less afloat but good decisions are seldom taken in panic. When you can see daylight through the hull at a chainplate a certain urgency does enter into the decision making process.

I am feeling a bit more optimistic about the new season now that planning for the repairs is progressing. Memories of a sail last season in the tail end of hurricane Katia are still fresh in the mind, several boats in the west of Scotland did not survive that gale and a few more succommed to gales of exceptional feriocity earlier in 2011.

“Worse thing happen at sea”, my granny used to intone in times of stress… too damn right grandma!

We all have ambitions, desires, wishes and cloud cuckoo plans but sometimes the simplest of pleasures are the best.

I once accidentally entered a trans-Atlantic sailing race, well actually I expressed an interest but then found my boat on a list of probable entrants. To be honest I did give it some thought before the reality of getting a forty plus year old wooden boat and a sixty something crew ready for such a voyage eventually hit home and I made my excuses and backed out!
Last weekend Crunluath made a shorter trip across the Hunterston channel to Millport, capital city of Great Cumbrae, it’s a jolly little place I visit frequently. On Sunday the purpose was to get a good view of seals. That’s nothing special to regular sailors but it’s a big deal if you a kid.

It was a great day for sailing, three to four south-westerly, sunny and warm, a regular summer’s day, less than an hour from our berth but for me proof that I still have a working boat, something I was beginning to doubt.
We saw our seals, bananaring on the rocks and singing their mournful songs. We hung around for a while, keeping our distance but getting close enough for a good view and a few photos.
On the way home we passed a very large log floating south on the tide, a helpful fellow boater reported it to the Coastguard but there was no follow up. A fast motor boat missed it by a few yards.

Off the Scottish National Sailing Centre the sea cadet’s brig was moored, we played the Pirates of the Caribbean theme tune to suit the view.

Back at the berth a DSC all ships warning startled us, we didn’t follow it up but wondered if another fast motor boat had hit the tree trunk.

Returning home I watched a wild Round the Island race on Countryfile; exciting certainly, enjoyable definitely, memorable absolutely, but not half as good as showing your grandchildren wild seals basking on a rock from a boat you spent a lifetime working for.

ps. Here’s a wonderful tale which made me laugh out loud to myself after writing my blog. It’s from Ewan Kennedy’s Scottish Boating blog http://scottishboating.blogspot.com/2011/07/tale-of-seagull-frying-machine.html?utm_source=BP_recent

After four days sailing in less water than it takes to drown  a pint I was beginning to get used to life in the shallow lane. I had already got my east coast stripes back by running aground in the Walton Backwaters and had got lost in the faceless shores of the Wallet  channel where every buoy looks identical. An ancient Garmin which neither of us quite remembered how to use had so engrossed the skipper and distracted me that we suddenly realised that visibility had reduced to half what it was ten minutes ago and we were well off course. We got back to basics, sailed to the nearest can and read the label… now we knew where we were. A quick look at the chart and a peek through the hand held compass and we were back on track. How so unlike our own dear Clyde where the course marks are 1000 feet high!
The Walton Backwaters are sadly no longer quite so secret with a busy marina where the Swallows had once splached ashore from Horsey Island but a splendid reception awaited us with a good meal, a great barbecue area and a helpful marina manager all making it an enjoyable stay.
A grounding and a nav malfunction later  saw us at Heybridge Basin where the Dutch were in command of locking, Lelystad’s best sailors were on hand to pack us into the lock, the Ship Inn provided a fine pint or three and a decent meal. A unique experience for me was going to Tesco by dinghy and walking in with  a lifejacket on carrying a petrol can which I managed to hide in my rucksack before I got jumped on by security!
The cream of the trip was seeing Nixi, a Honey Bee I feared may have been lost, at Heybridge.  In the same ownership for the past twenty two years, she looked in fine fettle with the blue ensign of the Royal Harwich on her stern. I enjoyed a welcome mug of tea and a nostalgic break on her in the basin.
Our return north was invigorating with a freshening force five SSE and a falling tide blasting us back to Shotley in a little over five hours, our lightweight Pegasus felt like a dinghy and behaving like one when a momentary loss of concentration resulted in a gybe pinning the skipper to starboard before I made it out of the cabin.
We ended our week with a superb meal at Woolverston Marina, precursored by two fine pints at Adnams at the Butt and Oyster and epiloged by some fine wine aboard a 36ft Southery whose owner took pity on a couple of old salts who looked in need of some decent booze.

It’s time for radical surgery! Better out than in.
I have already sawn out part of the deck beam and have temporarily cured the deck leak but remedial action is needed so I am planning some new deck work this autumn.
And this was supposed to be about sailing, but its mostly about repairing, that’s the way it goes with wooden boats, like it or loathe it! I am planning a temporary solution and strengthening to the deck beam so that I can get some sailing in this year but it is only temporary, a permanent solution will have to be found.
Tomorrow I head south and east for an entirely different kind of sailing off the east coast of Suffolk and Essex. Looking at the charts I was a bit startled by the depths. On the Clyde I get worried when  the echo shows ten metres, it must be time to tack.  Off Suffolk ten metres is all you get. It’s forty years since I was last there, I need to adjust! As a fellow berth holder at Largs said last week, “I tack when I can step ashore”.  It’s a bit of a culture shock but as my skipper is just back from France with a car load of wine I am sure I will adjust.

A combination of holidays, visitors, general household maintenance crud, weather and more weather; has kept me from Crunluath for over four weeks. I only had a day to assess water ingress after the launch and then had to trust my workmanship and the state of the boat batteries to keep the Clyde out of the boat. The trusty little Rutland 503 wind generator has done its job and bilge water level is normal, house batteries are up to charge but the starter battery has taken a hit, lets hope it has recovered from a booster charge today and input from the 503 which is now switched to both battery banks. When I left it was setting up a steady howl, normally it’s a pretty quiet little beast. My mast head wireless wind speed indicator has lost touch with its base station so I could only guess the gusts were around force seven.
More mileage in the yachting press is devoted to battery maintenance than perhaps any other topic and it is a source of  some anxiety for the wooden boat owner. Of course I could always plug into the marina mains supply but why pay for power when you can make your own? (My brother-in-law always claims us Yorkshire men are like the Scots, but not so generous)
The Clyde is not often short of wind but recent days have seen some very high wind speeds for the time of year so even a tiny power source like the smaller Rutland model is whacking out quite a few watts. The extreme winds haves taken a toll on some boating areas in Scotland as Ewan Kennedy shows in his Scottish Boating Blog .
Inside the boat most of the weather has been kept on the outside but rain has found its way in through the ventilators and the usual leak sources. The rot found last year has reoccurred to a limited extent and there will have to be more remedial work this season but it has not spread widely. Good ventilation helps of course even if the rain does sometimes get in through the mushroom vents. The main ingress area, a deck leak seems to have been sealed but a close eye will have to be kept on the problem.
With the weather coming from the west my berth is quite well sheltered and lack of sails on the boat have helped keep trouble to a minimum, marina staff were struggling to get a freed roller genoa under control as rain gave way to a hint of hail….it’s May for g..s’ sake! Only three weeks ago we were basking in cloudless sunny skies…on Skye!
Another lesson well learned was from Adrian Morgan who earlier urged me to get the boat afloat, wise words O’ Master!!

Launch day is always a bit fraught for the wooden boat owner. Will it float is the question, and for how long?
Tupperware boat owners of course know nothing of this; it’s drop in, drive off for them, assuming of course they closed the sea cocks.
This year was especially worrying with the newly replaced stuffing box being the prime cause of angst, not only had it been difficult to fix in place with access tricky with the engine in place but the stern tube had to be shortened to match the new stern bearing. An excess of Sikaflex seems to have done the trick but it will be a while before I feel confident that all is well.
My mind was distracted from this problem when the hoist driver and his mate chose an unusual way out of a blocked exit, if you can’t go round go over was their chosen method. It looked pretty alarming to see Crunluath take to the air to fly over a small powerboat but she flew with ease and not a scratch anywhere thanks to some fancy pilotage. Well flown Ian and John!
A few small weeps from the planks taking up and all was well, by the time I left the pump was only operating once an hour. If you have a wooden boat and don’t have a bilge monitor, get one, you’ll sleep easier!
A voice calling from a nearby boat as I made my way to my pontoon led to a delightful meeting with the son of a former owner of Crunluath. Gordon’s family owned her for 18 years competing in events around the Clyde and west coast of Scotland, coming on board again he was pleased to recognise many original parts and identify his old bunk! It was great to have this link with my boat’s past, it makes the cold winter days of work and the lost nights of sleep all seem worth while. I promised to keep her until we can celebrate her 50th year, hope I make it as well as the boat.
“On board the boat, it’s not sinking” I emailed to my offspring. “How’s it going”, hailed Gordon the following morning. “It’s not sinking”, I replied.
Flying, floating, not sinking. That’ll do me for the moment.

ps: A few days after writing this piece I noticed the name of the boat over which Crunluath is flying….Flying Boat!

Measure twice, cut once; never a better saying said as far as the old boat man is concerned. Trouble is we seldom remember it, and when we do we can still get it wrong.
My attempts to plug the hole in the stern post where the propellor shaft used to be have had more spanners thrown into their works than I can shake a spanner at.
Some of Adrian Morgan’s Ullapool weather seems to have worked its way south to hinder my attempts to fit a new stuffing box and replace the stern tube. A weather window appeared, ”I’m going Tuesday… no Wednesday… right definitely Thursday.” A phone call from a supplier of bronze screws rang the changes and Thursdays’ departure was rescheduled for after the post comes which means just before noon around rural Cumbria. Got there in the end, nut down over the engine grovelling in the bilges, cracked it!
Well no actually.
A right angled drill attachment enabled me to drill holes for the stuffing box into the stern post despite the space constraints, pity there was not enough wood to drill into! The leak which caused all this work in the first place probably caused this particular problem, two screws bit well but two were dodgy, never mind they can be fitted later I thought, either a wooden plug or if that is not possible then the dreaded epoxy resin will probably do a secure job.
So down the ladder and round to the blunt end to screw on the cutlass bearing, filling the gaps with sealant around the stern tube. Dropping the sealant gun from the top of the ladder didn’t help, it managed to break the top of the sealant tube with a consequent excess of sealant everywhere except in the relevant places. Still a minor problem and I could still use the excess usefully.
A premature halt came when the cutlass bearing stopped short of the stern post by some 8mm. The stern tube seemed to have grown since I removed it last year. I really had measured twice, indeed thrice, so why would it not fit?
Nothing had changed at the propeller end so it had to be the inside bearing. The new stuffing box looked pretty similar to its predecessor but the screw thread was shorter… about 8mm shorter!
I only thought of this whilst driving home. The stern tube will have to be shortened.
I’ll be measuring it more than once.
Worse things happen at sea. They certainly will if I do not get this right, this is a mission critical job.

I shall seek solace and inspiration from my guru, The Famous Grouse.

Adrian Morgan, he of,  http://thetroublewitholdboats.blogspot.com/   took me to task, quite rightly, for not keeping my boat afloat in the winter and for not blogging enough!
The fact is I have had a touch of bloggers block recently, brought about primarily by an even worse case of boat owners block. If you ignore a problem long enough it may go away, sometimes known as creative procrastination, a disease well known to me in my former life as a local government officer,
The trouble with old old boat owners is that we have got all the T shirts, we have been there and done it all before…but we have learned nothing. Each year we intend to do things right but we get sidetracked into a fruitless dead end, usually around the heads compartment.
I found myself there a few days ago, contemplating a bit of rot. Better out than in I say so out it came. Back to bucket and chuck it next season unless I get a move on. I had intended to do some serious work on the stern tube but somehow got distracted.  It happens all the time these days….
The picture above is of Maldon in 1962, full of boats much like the one I now own. It’s Dan Webb and Feesey’s yard. I often feel I am back there whilst I grovel in the bilges of Crunluath, pity I don’t have their skills.
Adrian has found a Flying Fifteen I see, don’t go there I am tempted to holler. They are beautiful beguiling boats but built like rowing shells, unless its one of the scots built boats, which I suspect it is from the outer veneers, in which case its built tank like….  and sails similarly! It could be an earlier one I guess but then there are even more problems. They were never meant to last this long, that’s why they were fast in the first place. Still when did that sort of talk ever put off a determined man? There’s no money in it though, so forget making a killing. Trust me I’ve got form in this area!
Back at Maldon I had just stepped off Carmen, one of Dan Webb’s hire fleet, a well known racer in her day. I think she was a Buchanan boat but memory fails me, wet as a seal but a gem to sail. I’d spent idle class hours drawing her like on the spare pages of my exercise books; half a century later I own her… or something very similar. Pity about the half century, it would have been much easier a few years back. Or was it? We have all the modern glues, coatings and tools to help but they don’t really, not if you are going to do a proper job.
That’s the trouble with old boats, if you are going to get it right you have got to go back to the old ways. I got it wrong with my Flying Fifteen, it lasted a glorious five years, gave us a lot of fun and even more pride, but then it all went wrong and it fell apart, the epoxy held but the rest didn’t!
That’s why Crunluath is sitting ashore, I am trying to get it right. I’m just an old old boat owner, that’s the trouble.

I don’t  believe I have ever left Crunluath alone this long! It has been 68 days for the worst winter for twenty plus years to take its toll… and sure enough it has.
I normally get problems with planking by leaving the boat out of the water too long, April makes way for May, the days pass by, weeks pass by and it’s almost Spring Bank Holiday and the boat is still ashore, summer sunshine does its bit and the seams open up. One year I could actually see daylight from the engine bay!
This year it’s different, bitter cold, ice and snow have got to work, not only at home on my central heating system, but in mild Largs.
Seams have been forced open and splines expelled… not a pretty sight. Presumably water has penetrated and frozen forcing them out.
Inside things are reasonably ok, batteries are well down despite the Rutland wind generator and the rot exposed at the end of last season has not improved over the last two months but the cover is still in place and the mast is still upright!
A bright day dawned on the first of February, I’ll take that as an omen, better things lie ahead. I cheered myself up by applying a coat of Danbolin to the bilge, little thing please little minds as my Mum used to say. A yottie in the midst of winter is easily amused.  It looked a lot better after I had finished so I was content with that one small step on the way to a season’s sailing. A few other jobs were undertaken but it was mainly a visit to satisfy myself that all was well.

This pensioner was looking forward to times future, another season of sailing, a few more memorable moments to keep one going through the next winter and a 46th launching for Crunluath.