The story here is that I had to end my involvement in the cruise a couple of days early. The O-bolt, by which the lower block on the mainsheet connects with the hull, pulled out of its housing. I rigged a temporary set up in light airs to get me back to Pin Mill. The fix was to source a new bolt, nut and associated washers, reach down and along through the bilge with a nut and washer and connect with the new o-bolt going through the hole, and then tighten. That’s the theory. The practice was devilishly fiddly, but I somehow managed to get there in the end.
Mended, with new bolt and penny washers included both on top and on the underside. The worrying thing is that no nut was found in the bilges from the previous fitting. So I have no idea how it has taken this long to break. This component copes with considerable forces.
This year's Deben Lugger rally was held on the weekend 31 July to 2nd August. As with last year, I decided to extend my involvement by sailing round on the 30 July and then back on 3rd August.
Here's some video of what was a wonderful event:
And then some more pictures.
I left Pin Mill at 0400 on Thursday 30th July.
Then, on Friday 31st, the fleet gathered and we went for a pleasant sail up towards Woodbridge.
On Saturday 1st August, we cruised down towards Ramsholt in light winds.
And then on Sunday, there was the obligatory race, which is always a bit of fun. Prior to this, the fleet gathered at Waldringfield for some rigging checks, not that it made any difference to the race outcome. Alex still won by several leagues…
And then it was time for me to sail back. I left Waldringfield at 0600 and motored down to Felixstowe Ferry, before hoisting sails and tackling the Deben bar. Winds were F4 NE, so there were predictably notable overfalls at the entrance, which can be seen in the video above.
Then, I had a lively run down the coast, jybing into the relative safety of Harwich Harbour, and on to Halfpenny Pier for breakfast.
Then back to the mooring.
This was the track from 31 July, when I forgot my usual Garmin chart plotter - 8nm.
Tracks for the rest of the trip: White: July 30th, 17.5nm Yellow: August 1st, 10.4nm Red: August 2nd 6.8nm Green: August 3rd, 19.1nm. Total trip length, 61.6nm
The last time I used the petrol outboard - a short-shaft Mercury 6hp - was in 2024. The last time it was fired up would have been at the start of the 2025 season when it went in for servicing. Since then, I've been happily using the Eprop. But the time has come to switch over since, in the middle of August, I'm running a week-long cruise in and around the east coast for which I could usefully depend on the security of a longer range. And I don’t want to be messing around with chargers and sponging off pubs for electricity. So, I've decided to switch over now, mainly to make sure the petrol one still works.
Today was just a short stint, running it for about half an hour. Next week, I'm cruising round to the Deben and back for the Deben Lugger rally, which will afford further testing opportunities. Once through with all of that, I'll probably switch back to electric power, since it is generally so much more convenient.
I met up with some sailing chums for an overnighter, based at Titchmarsh Marina. The boat was still on her trailer following the Coniston event in June, and also some further mid-season maintenance. And I had Kizzy with me. Otherwise, I would have sailed round. But it was fun to trailer sail once more. Fresh from a temporary repair to her keelband (see previous entry), we launched on the Saturday morning at thus ever welcoming Marina.
Herewith some video of the event.
Again, my failed electrics meant that I was unable to record my tracks from this event. Again, for the ship's log, I have entered an estimated trip length of around 10nm.
We attended the Coniston rally, 22-25 May. Unfortunately, the electrics on the boat had failed, so I wasn’t able to record tracks. My estimate (from previous visits) is that, over the two days, we went about 10nm.
As seems to have been the way with this season, this trip resulted in some damage, this time to the stainless steel keelband. When launching, unbeknown to me until hauling out at the end of the trip, I managed to catch to keelband between a fissure in the slipway, which resulted in the keelband peeling off at the stern and doubling back on itself. Consequently, we spent the entire trip dragging water around with us rather than slipping through it with more grace.
Initially, I managed to bend it back to this position, since it had been bent back on itself, pointing forward. I haven’t pictured the final repair, but it is now more or less attached to the hull, thanks to two longer screws and lashings of Sikalflex…
On our return, I managed to bend it almost back into position and applied sealant to hopefully plug any holes. Alex, at Anglia Yacht Brokerage, said that the best solution is to pull it off altogether since he'd come to the conclusion that steel capping on the keel was more trouble than it’s worth. That might be a close season task. Hopefully for the remainder of the season, my repair will hold, but I shall have to return to this issue at some future point…
I ran a little behind with the maintenance of this blog, so have lumped together various trips into one post, which I'll backdate to May.
Six sails happened during this period, prior to the boat coming back off the mooring for some mid-season maintenance, and preparation for a few trailer trips which will feature on subsequent posts.
Between the first and second trips, I had to indulge in some unexpected maintenance. The mooring strop became tangled around my centreplate and the centreplate uphaul snapped. To cut a long story short, the boatyard helped me run the boat onto the Hard, they then winched her up onto one of their slings and I had a weekend to put things right.
Centreplate woes. Daisy IV hanging ready for necessary repair work!
At this point, a new strop has been fitted, but the plate is incorrectly positioned - the plate shouldn’t hang down vertically like this since this impacts negatively on performance. I needed to haul up on the strop so that the black bead just disappears up into the case, at which point the plate is angled at around 70 degrees to the horizontal. To get this positionally correct, single handed, required some patience, but I managed in the end!
Which subsequently happened, although it wasn’t an easy job. If I find the time and the patience, I might get round to writing it all up in due course! The important thing is that, for the most part, the repair has worked, although later in the season I have had to change the rope I used for the uphaul, since the initial one was too stiff and wouldn’t spool around the wheel effectively.
The following video was from my trip on 18 April:
I also took some footage when I dry-recovered the boat back onto the trailer. Which means I've now launched and recovered the boat onto the Hard at Pin Mill. Who needs expensive slipways!?
Finally, a list of the trips, with colour links to the ensuing map:
This is a blog of sailing activities aboard Daisy IV, a Deben Lugger built in 2012 and purchased in 2023.
Previous boats were Devon Lugger, Daisy (2005-6), Drascombe Coaster, Daisy II (2006-2019) and BayCruiser 20 Daisy III (2019-2024). During the years of boat ownership, I have covered well over 6000nm around the UK, most of which are documented in my various blogs. Sailing grounds are based around the east coast, mainly the Harwich area. Over the years, making use of a versatile roller coaster trailer, I have also covered the east coast from North Kent to Whitby, and various other locations around the south coast, Severn Estuary, Cumbria, inland reservoirs, and the Norfolk Broads.
