Outboard in a Well

One of my early decisions on renovating this old Westerly Nomad was to use an outboard as auxiliary power. Not an outboard hung off the transom however; I find them ugly and inefficient. Ugly because they look like an afterthought and inefficient because, in my experience, the prop is often lifted out of the water in any kind of a chop. Writers often refer to this as ‘cavitation’, this is not the correct term but it’s frequently used to describe the problem.

I wanted an outboard in a well because it seemed to me I might get the best of all worlds – a power unit, as efficient as an inboard engine where the prop is deep enough in the water to avoid the chances of it turning in the air at the top of every wave, allied to the lower cost of outboard repair and maintenance. It’s always cheaper to take your unit to a mechanic than have him visit your boat, cheaper also because he can get to the problem without having to stick his head into the bilges or lift out the engine.

The process of creating a well wasn’t particularly easy because it required the rudder to be relocated and hung off the transom. Fortunately this had already been done by a previous owner. He’d also made an attempt at creating the well but the work hadn’t been thought through properly and the building of the well walls left a lot to be desired. So, the whole thing was replaced and the cockpit remodelled on the advice of a marine engineer. Was it worth the effort?

Yes I think so, in fact you could almost argue that it has already paid for itself. This summer we ventured under motor along the canal that crosses Brittany linking the English Channel with the Atlantic. It is a narrow, shallow waterway that no longer carries commercial traffic. From the towpath it is a beautiful ribbon of water edged with hardwood forests, ancient chateaus, idyllic picturesque villages and pastoral scenes unchanged for hundreds of years. From the deck of a twin keel sailing boat however, it is a muddy weed-filled creak that tempts and then betrays the innocent navigator.

Four days into our cruise the engine began to overheat. Well at least I could lift it out of the well and carry it shore-side where I could work on it in relative comfort. Then, having confirmed that I had neither the tools nor the expertise to fix the problem, I was able to phone a friend and get the engine to a specialist engineer who ordered parts and fixed the problem within two days. Three days later I was cruising again and the cost of the repair was about £35. Now how much would it have been to call out the engineer for him to diagnose the problem and then return with the appropriate parts to fix it? I don’t know the answer but I’m pretty sure it would have been significantly more - given that the current average hourly rate for a marine mechanic is in the region of £30 per hour. 

Something tells me I got something right – unusual for me to do that.

Seaward    

A Short Cruise in France

July and August were pretty intensive months for renovating this old Westerly Nomad. I wanted to get her into a state where I could embark on a voyage – however small, and enjoy a degree of comfort. As a sailing vessel she would function well but the accommodation was, at best, a slum. No functioning toilet, no water, no cooker. First job was to clean paint and varnish to get a blank canvass at least. By mid august she began to feel habitable but hardly fit for a sea-going cruise.

I have two choices when I leave my home port – North takes me down the estuary to St Malo and the sea. South takes me to the head of the estuary and through a lock into the river. From there I can go to Dinan, a medieval town on the River Rance. If I lower the mast there I can cross Brittany via canal towards the Atlantic.

I didn’t intend to go quite so far, but a couple of weeks chugging along the canal getting to know this old boat seemed like an attractive proposition. At least on a canal there would be access to fresh water, electricity, toilets, showers, pretty villages, reasonable restaurants, butchers, bakers and pretty much anything else I needed. So, off came the mast and Susan (the boat) became a motor cruiser.

It was the best of times – and the worst of times. Before I left I tried to invent a word for it –

glamorous sailing, yachting or boating – glamoating or glamachting. A good friend hit the nail on the head I think – he came up with Gloating! So much for definitions and aspirations – the reality proved to be quite different.

The Rance estuary is truly beautiful, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are some pics. 

We set off in warm sunshine on a rising tide, locked into the river and cruised southwards into the canal beyond Dinan. Locks on the canal are managed by professional lock keepers and are largely automated so there is little for a boat crew to do except hold the ropes while the boat is expertly raised or lowered to a new level. Lock-keeping must count as one of the best jobs in France, especially on this canal as there is no commercial traffic. As a lock keeper your cottage is going to be very pretty and set in a beautiful location. Best of all though, 90% of canal traffic comes through in August – take your annual vacation that month and you have little to do for the rest of the year. In August, students and artists take on jobs as temporary lock keepers and many locks become arts and crafts outlets for the summer.

Unfortunately the further south we went, the more weed we encountered. Flat bottomed canal and river boats manage to glide over or through this stuff, but Susan (with her triple keels) managed to pick up weed all along the route. Sometimes her speed was reduced to two knots even with the engine on full throttle.

We stayed a couple of days in the beautiful village of Evran and the temperature rose to 31 degrees C – only solution was to find a large oak tree and sit under it. The evenings were more bearable – cold beer and bank-side barbeques were a delight. But then, a local farmer decided to spray manure on his fields encouraging swarms of flies. We bought some window stickers that attract flies and kill them – but every time we opened a hatch a new plague would come in. I counted 20 flies in the cabin before bed time – and I probably missed some.

Two days later there was a violent electric storm, 37 knot winds and driving rain. The heat had gone and it was cold but at least it got rid of the flies. We continued up the canal, stopping at another beautiful village but the only shop was closed and that night we had to resort to warming up a tin of cassoulet and boiling a few potatoes – but with the charcoal burning stove heating the cabin we were warm and dry despite the howling wind and driving rain.

We managed five more miles the next day, arriving at St Domineuc – Which could be described as a one horse town – except, there is an excellent canal-side restaurant offering three course meals for 11E. It was while we were holed up in a canal-side bar that we came across Spike Heatley, an 82 year old professional bass player who had played with just about every jazz musician of the twentieth century. The drinks flowed and wild stories were told. He gave me a signed copy of his latest CD – if you like jazz you’ll love it.

The following day was devoted to ‘make, do and mend’. I was particularly concerned about the boat engine which seemed to run OK but had stopped pumping cooling water. I couldn’t fix it and didn’t want to ruin it by overheating – so a good friend drove out to collect us and the engine so we could take it to a mechanic.

The guy had it fixed the following day and so we returned to the boat with a plan to cruise home. The IPhone told us the trip would take 30 minutes by car. On a weed choked canal however, the return trip took four days – with Susan (the crew) leaning over the bow parting weeds as we crawled along – three metres forward, then one in reverse to allow the accumulated weed to fall from the keels – average speed – probably 2 knots. At one point I considered changing the boat name to – the ‘Africa Queen’.

The situation improved though as we spotted a familiar boat coming towards us – an English narrowboat, bought and restored last year by good friends Dave and Natalie. The encounter led to a bank-side picnic – prawns, pate and good rustic bread washed down with local cidre and white wine.

Two days before home the weather improved, the sun shone and we cleared the canal. Once again we were back onto the weed-free river. Our last night was spent in Dinan where the port facilities are outstanding and the quay side restaurants are excellent. There was a three course dinner of shellfish followed by Moules a la crème and dessert for 25E. The following morning we even found a restaurant offering a ‘full English breakfast’.

The last day, there was bright sunshine and, after all that rain, the air was clear and polished. There were kingfishers on the river and the boat seemed to be moving as she should with the gentlest of push from the engine. We cleared through the lock into the estuary at the top of a spring tide and worked our way back through blue salt water back to our home port, a short country walk from home.

The boat is dirty and full of gear that we need to take off her. She’s taken a couple of scratches too,and we need to put the mast back on her but the experience was well worth while. As time passes, the memory of the trip takes on a new perspective. The highlights become more significance than the downsides.

The trip needed to be made. You can think a lot about renovating a boat. You can make all sorts of plans but until you’ve actually lived on one, used the systems and tested your assumptions, you can’t be sure of what you are doing. This trip confirmed my some of my ideas and made me re-think others – more about that later.

Seaward

Canal Boat

Regular readers (and there are a surprising number of you) will recognise this boat. She’s a Channel Islands 22 belonging to my good friends Dave and Nat. Before they bought her, she lay in Jersey pretty much neglected for several years. She was for sale but no purchaser could be found because she was slow and seemed unable to reach the speed needed to lift the semi displacement hull out of the water above her bow-wave. Over the years the asking price fell and fell. That’s when Dave took a look at her and noticed something that everyone else had missed. At some time in her past an owner had fitted bilge keels to her hull. It’s understandable, in that most Channel Island harbours dry out at low water. Bilge keels means that this boat could take the ground and remain upright without the need to carry and fit ‘legs’ each time. But those bilge keels were the reason why she behaved like a slow displacement motor-vessel rather than a semi-displacement boat capable of a good turn of speed. Dave, bought the boat, removed the bilge keels and then invested 1000 hours of work on her, bringing her to a condition better than you would expect of a new boat. He and Nat now have a luxury vessel with a cruising speed of over 12 knots.

Why am I telling you this? Simply because a few weeks ago, Dave and Nat were cruising North Brittany waters and took time to come up the Rance estuary and into the  canal. For a while they have been considering purchasing a holiday home here – they didn’t find one, but, they did find an eleven metre English narrow boat for sale on the canal in the beautiful village of Evran. Here’s the story.

Several years ago, someone decided to purchase a fleet of English narrow boats and operate a boat hire company here. The venture wasn’t particularly successful and as a result several of these boats were sold to private purchasers – mainly English people who know and love these vessels. Other nationalities probably failed to see the point in buying such a narrow vessel when continental canals are so much wider than English ones.

This particular vessel moved into private ownership and was used by a Guernsey family as a waterside

holiday home for several years but when Dave came past in his boat last week she was for sale, and had been for some time. Dave looked her over but the owner couldn’t start the engine. So Davy took a risk, made a reduced offer to purchase her immediately ‘as seen’. The seller, probably thinking of the lack of interest to date, the coming winter and the costs of insurance, mooring, maintenance and visits, accepted the offer and the deal was done.

Davy came back to the boat this weekend with a
friend who is a car enthusiast. The car, a beautiful 1968 MGB roadster attracted a lot of attention locally and within half a day, Dave and his friend Paul gained additional support and expertise from a local aircraft engineer and another guy who acted as translator. Dave and Paul stayed on the boat two nights and when they left, the engine was fixed and there was a fresh coat of paint on the cabin roof.

The plan now is to bring her down the canal into the tidal estuary and lift her out for a thorough inspection and re-fit over the winter months. She already has a wood burning stove for heating and a fully functioning galley so they’ll be comfortable even in the coldest of winters. Now if I were a gambling man, I’d make a significant bet that by the end of next summer Dave and Nat will be sailing one of the prettiest and most comfortable barges this side of the English Channel.

Seaward

One Step Forward

One step forward, two steps back – not quite but it sometimes feels like that. I was at the boatyard

yesterday feeling pleased that I now have the boat under cover, that I now have a twelve Volt circuit and that I’m now working on the final sanding of the gel coat (P 3000) more like a rub down with chamois leather than a sand paper. That was before I got into conversation with the owner of the boatyard – he’s a great guy, always there with helpful advice and support. Well today he pointed out something I had not noticed.

This boat has been modified. Originally she would have had either an inboard engine or an outboard hung off the stern. A previous owner had moved the rudder further aft and hung it off the transom in order to create space for an outboard well. To my eyes and those of others more expert than me, this was a good idea. The greater distance between rudder and keel should make for better manoeuvrability, and an outboard in a well gives you all the benefits of an inboard engine with the advantages of being able to lift her out and take her away for storage, maintenance or repair.

The boatyard owner had been intrigued by the arrangement and he had clambered around the boat to get a better look. In particular he wondered how the cockpit had been modified to keep her self-draining.

In his search he discovered an over-complicated arrangement whereby water landing in the cockpit was drained either side of the well to the stern of the boat to drain out through the drains which had existed before the well had been constructed. So far so good, unfortunately the well had been constructed of wood and fibre-glassed over and the cockpit water was able to run either side of the well by means of holes drilled through the well walls. It would have been better simply to drain the water into the well.  As it stands however, the arrangement has enabled moisture to penetrate the fibreglass shell and there is evidence of rotten wood around these holes.

It’s not the end of the world but at some point the well walls will have to be rebuilt. The situation isn’t critical, the current arrangement is still good for a few years and I could launch and enjoy her this season at least. Problem is – I don’t want to launch anything but an excellent sea boat. It is as if, we have come to a point where I no-longer own this boat – there is so much of me tied up to her that  she now calls the shots - she owns me. So, it seems I have another job to add to my list.

Maybe I should feel down and despondent but no. For some reason, I feel fine about it. The more you work on a boat, the more problems and challenges you overcome, the more confident you feel. Ok it’s a piece of work and an expense I hadn’t expected but  its part of the adventure so – bring it on! At times like this its good to remember that Joshua Slocum (the first man to sail around the world single handed) pointed out that when he had re-built ‘Spray’ for his voyage there were probably only two planks he didn’t have to replace. Well, if its good enough for him…… At the end of the day I'll get there even if I have to drag her to the water single handed!

Meanwhile for more news from this neck of the woods please visit my other blog at Frugal Living in France

Seaward

Boat Engines

These thoughts will be few because I am incapable of more! I don’t understand engines but I do appreciate them when they work. 

Engines? Don't understand Ok with rope though

Petrol or diesel?

Well, the received wisdom seems to be that diesel is best for boats and petrol is simply dangerous. I’m ignorant but unconvinced. Firstly, because I’ve heard of plenty of incidents where boats have exploded but the culprit was gas for the cooking stove not petrol. Secondly, because diesel engine reputations were built on marinised versions of heavy duty lorry (truck) engines. They had the reputation of running forever on a relatively inexpensive fuel. The reputation for reliability however, was based on a huge heavy engine block (a requirement of the time) to cope with the extreme compression needed to get the diesel to ignite.

But in recent years diesel engine manufacturers have progressively lightened the size of the engine block to improve fuel efficiency. A modern diesel is much lighter than its ancestors and so, potentially, its longevity has been compromised. Bear in mind also, that an engine which is kept running will suffer less wear and tear, than one used only occasionally. A truck engine used everyday will probably outlive a boat engine used only once a week in season. Running keeps and engine lubricated, stagnation invites condensation and corrosion. Just to rub salt in the wound, UK sailors will have noticed that in recent years diesel is no longer the cheaper fuel.

Inboards are good if you can maintain them

So, in my search for the perfect low budget cruiser what is it to be petrol or diesel? In truth, I don’t mind so long as the engine is reliable and not too big.

Outboard or inboard?

Well, an inboard puts the propeller where it needs to be, protected by the keel and rudder, well below the waterline, to keep it below the surface in a running sea. Inboards can charge batteries too but access can be difficult and, if like me, you intend to rely on an engineer to complete the annual service and checks, then his visits to your inboard commits you to some expense.   Add to that the constant danger in these waters of tangling pot ropes or netting and an inboard could require you to drop over the side with a knife between your teeth now and again.

So, it’s an outboard then? Maybe, but they have their downsides too. Firstly I have to admit a prejudice.I don’t like outboards slung on a bracket on the transom. They are as ugly as sin and not only that - they don’t perform well except in very calm water. In anything of a ‘sea’ they seem to spend half their time churning air. To be fair though, they are relatively light and they can be removed for servicing so maintenance costs can be lower (no call outs).

Beautiful boat - spoiled by the hunk of metal on the stern - nope won't have it!

 

Ideally then, would an outboard in a well, offer the best of all worlds? Yes, I think that might do nicely – providing I can find one that has a starter switch like an inboard and that will add a charge to the battery when running.

Seaward