It is good to see new wood going in after nearly a month of preparation. Six planks are being replaced together with nine ribs, five more than appeared to be needed at first examination. John Hill had warned me from the start that he would not give an estimate on cost for rot repairs, you can see why. The extent of the spread is obvious from the picture, far more than was obvious at the start.

Internal fittings and paint have hidden the true picture. Lockers cover part of the area and the hull is painted in the main cabin. Rot must have started to spread some years ago but only became obvious in the last year. In hindsight more frequent examination of hidden areas would have been desirable. (Note to self!). I am fearful of poking the port side planking, but it will have to be done.

The owners of another boat in the shed contacted me to empathise with my problem. Their boat is a composite with ply deck and wooden superstructure. It looks nice but the joint between the glass fibre hull and deck is often a source of trouble. On this boat the gunwhale is glassed in, water has leaked through the deck and has, as the co-owner wrote to me, turned the gunwhale to “mush”.

Wooden boats may have their maintenance issues but can nearly always be repaired, “there’s plenty of wood in the forest” a fellow Honeybee owner told me! I felt cheered by this comment, by the progress which has been made and sadly by greater problems seen on the other boat.

We have started talking money! I have closed my eyes and am thinking of The Kyles of Bute on a balmy autumn day!

This notice is placed over the door to John Hill’s workshop, I’ll try to bear it in mind when the bills start to roll in.

Last week Crunluath made a tricky short voyage from Largs Yacht Haven to Fairlie Quay Little over a mile but far enough when the starboard side is peppered with holes and there is no side deck from cockpit to cabin front. I left it to the professionals and sat at home biting my nails until I had a one word text in reply to an earlier message,Yes, it said.

Now the planking has dried the extent of the rot is plain to see, it looks like six planks need replacing, plus two part bulkheads and the starboard side deck. It is all a bit sobering, there might have been a catastrophic failure at sea and the extent of the rot was surprising, far wider than was obvious until internal joinery had been removed.  It’s all repairable but it is going to take a few weeks and a lot of skilled boatbuilding.

After a few years of ownership it’s time to simplify, especially in electrics and instrumentation. A rethink in the plumbing department is also overdue, the original underfloor water tank has succumbed to rust at the welds and much of the pipework is past its best. I have a hugh pile of boat bits at home to sort through and more than a few to be recycled or thrown out.

I am hoping for a mild autumn and winter with a bit of sailing and a good deal of marine painting and decorating.

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 been a long winter and there’s more to go yet but I have at last got my web site up to date with details of all the Honey Bees I know about.

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

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!