Do what you can while you can

Only a few weeks into 2018 and an old uninvited 'friend' turned up unexpectedly, who I hadn't seen for almost 7 years, and was hoping I never would.

Thankfully their stay was relatively short and, while a little painful in the short term, they made me think of my longterm goals and needs.

They made me realize that I have spent more time planning the things I wanted to do and far less time actually doing them. I'm crashing through my forties now, and my twenty-year-old self would be horrified to see what little I have accomplished of my lifelong dreams and plans.

Simple power for a simple boat

I have spent some time looking over the fantastic site No Frills Sailing and it has inspired me to put together a few more articles for this site and ultimately revisit the design of my own web site. So I'm picking up on Lars topic about power on a boat and what is and is not needed on board.

My little yacht has very little need for power as I've equipped her with LED lighting which are mainly internally powered but I have still pieced together a small battery set up the allows me to charge the obligatory phone and laptop at a push. However its main function is to provide power to the bilge pump, lighting for the compass and the anchor light when needed. So what have I done with the everything else you would normally worry about?

All ashore who's going ashore!

The best thing about having a little boat is how close you can get to the shore and up into those little estuaries to explore and come ashore.

So what do I have aboard and what do can you do on the coast?

Little boats and boom covers

Lets face it. A small boat is, well... a small boat. They weren't designed for individuals over 6 foot, never mind two of them. They sail more like a dinghy than a cruiser and so aren't always as forgiving (but this isn't always a bad thing.) So there are a few things to think about when you have a small boat...

Some people take little boats to the extreme, but I'm in it for the fun

Life in Auckland Harbour - Janice of Wyoming

I'm not usually a super yacht fan, as they don't represent something I'm involved in and would be a dream I will never attain too, but I'm making an exception here, because if you've walked through the harbour in Auckland you've seen her, to be fair its hard to miss her. If you've not seen her in the harbour you'll still have seen her 50m mast from the harbour bridge I bet!

At 40m LOA (130ft in old money) and 8.7m in the Beam, she dwarfs all of the yachts in the marina. The 20m motor cruiser moored along side looked oldly small and more than a little out of place when I snapped the picture above. 

But who is she and where does she come from?

Books aboard...

It's essential to have a book aboard so you can while away the hours waiting for the high tide or the pub to open. It's also important to have the right reference book to hand when handling those important details such as selecting the right anchorage technique, or the right medical process to stitching your thumb back on. So putting the Almanac and ships log to one side what do you have on board?

For those old sailors who are now land locked

I saw this on the internet and it made me smile a lot. When I'm old get me one of these!

Provisions for a small boat under 21 foot (Nano Project)

Tiny Galley
Like most people with a small yacht between 17 and 21 feet long you are more than likely only going to have a very simple camping style single burner stove. You would think that cooking would be rather straight forward. But unless you are happy with eating beans every day, this is far from the truth.

HUNTER 19 Galley - not mine!

Assuming you only have a single burner stove here's a few ideas on how I stock a few items in order to be ready for a quick dart to the boat at a moments notice for a long weekends sailing.

Just as a side note, cruising in New Zealand on a small boat is a little different from the UK as there are not so many places to come ashore for provisions. Its closer to sailing the west coast of Scotland! The popular Bay of Islands is no exception, either, so when provisioning it's best to a have a couple of days of food more stored aboard as well as all important water! 


Cooking Kit
You'll need a few simple items to keep aboard in a single, appropriately sized box (plastic box with a lid in my case) to allow you to have everything to hand to cook easily and not have to worry you don't have everything you need. Also make sure you also have a least 2 
spare cans of gas on board for the stove and store them outside in the lockers to stop gas leak issues.

Cooking Hardware
I have a small but deep frying pan and a medium sized pan with a lid that make up my main cooking set. I also have a kettle so I can boil water for drinks and also for washing up without worrying too much about spillages. I then have a large bowl for mixing in and a wooden spoon to go with it and stirring the pot. I then have a small and medium sharp knife, a tin opener and a chopping board and that all important pair of scissors. I also carry enough cutlery for 4 people (4 bowls, 4 plates and 4 mugs) and have a 1litre flask for those long night watches. It's also great to have some foil to hand and a couple of small seal-able plastic boxes (like you get form the takeaway) so you can keep opened items a little fresher and free from spills.

All these items can be packed into a small box and stowed easily under the stove along with the supplies you'll bring aboard later.

Basic Foods

I try and always have in a small plastic box with the following items in it ready to go, this way I can make a run for the boat and not worry I have left anything behind.

• Tin of Baked Beans
• Tin of Tomatoes
• Tin of Tuna
• 2 small tin Sardines
• Chorizo sausage 
• Tin of mixed fruit
• Pasta (small bag)
• Jar of Pesto
• Pancake Mix
• Bagels (4 or as per the size of the crew!)
• Muesli Bars
• 4 instant Porridge sachets
• Cream Cheese spread and Butter Spread
• Dried mixed herbs
• Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper, Sugar.
• Tomato sauce and Mustard
• Tea Bags and Coffee (Fresh coffee for a French Press is best but instant at a push)
• Hot Chocolate (great for the kids in the evening)
• Milk 2 ltr (long life is the best for longer and hotter voyages)
• An unopened pack of ginger biscuits (or what ever you like)
• Large bag of sweats and a couple of chocolate bars for me and bag of marshmallows for the kids!
• 8 Litres of water min
• Trash bags

Extras to have to hand for longer journeys or a little more luxury.

• Bread - Fajitas keep longer than loaves and are just as good.
• Eggs (6 is a good number)
• Bacon
• Sun dried Tomatoes
• Bag of mixed leaf salad
• Fresh Apples and Bananas  

Simple Meals

I'm no cook (as you will see) but this is just a sample of what I like to do on a days sail and for the following day I'll just mix it all up again.

Breakfast - 

You can still have your cereal in the morning, but I'm not too keen on eating cereal on a pitching boat and long life milk doesn't taste so great on cornflakes for me. It also drains the milk supply very quickly!

You can get porridge quick packets now so these are a good option, even with long life milk. But if its a little more you're looking for try a Breakfast Bagel - Cream cheese one side, crispy Bacon a few loose leaves and sun dried tomatoes on the other served with a great mug of fresh coffee. You can always switch these around for lunches too! Bacon and Eggs is always a winner too. Simple to do and all in the same pan! A Boiled egg and toasted soldiers is also a firm favourite for the kids too. 

Lunch - 

It's the middle of the day and you're well under way on your voyage so something you can do quickly and eat at the helm is always a good idea. Scrambled eggs loaded with Ham or Chorizo is also great for lunch when the seas calm enough for cooking but more often than not in open seas it won't be. In some cases it's a good idea to prep lunch a little after breakfast so you can get it to hand quickly, especially if sailing short handed. When the sun is out I love a little sardine salad made up of a tin of sardines (drained) salad leaves, sun dried tomatoes and some olive oil drizzled on with salt and pepper and finished off with some nice crusty bread. If the weathers not so good then I try and have a trusty bagel to hand with cream cheese and thinly sliced Chorizo and a few leaves from the salad bag! Bread sandwiches can fall apart in the sea spray and rain, which I why I favour the bagel (they also last longer!)

Dinner - 

I love a fresh pasta and they can be had hot or cold and more importantly can be made in a single pan. Tuna Pasta is a favourite and just needs the pasta cooked off and then when cooked mix in some sun dried tomatoes, mixed herbs, some pesto sauce and then the tuna. Serve into a bowl and then throw on some salad and a shot of olive oil, salt and pepper to your taste and you're good to go. If you have some crust bread then use this to bulk it out. If you don't like Tuna try Chorizo instead, or even sliced Ham. 

Desserts - 

If you like a dessert (which I do) then there's a couple of very simple and quick ones you can make. If you have a tin of mixed fruit then I like to heat it up in a small pan and then smash up a couple of ginger nut biscuits with some chocolate which I then sprinkle over the top. If you have a little more time then make up the pancake mix and get it in the frying pan and then add the warmed fruit on top, perhaps try a little cream cheese on top too. If you have bananas on board, split these down the middle and add in broken chocolate (or marshmallows for the kids) wrap them in foil and place them in the frying pan on a low heat for 5 mins.

Snacks - 

Fruit is a simple one to snack on, but is also one of those things that is easily forgotten. I try to have muesli bars to hand especially with nuts on as these keep me going a little longer and help perk me up, along with a good cup of coffee. Don't forget to also call on the basics here, plenty of cups of tea for the skipper with a few biscuits to soak it up.

Keep the kids happy with the Marshmallows and in the evening have them toasted over the stove and to keep their sugar levels up (if you dare) serve with a small mug hot chocolate, perhaps having one for yourself before you turn in.

So that's about it. There's no gourmet meals here but they do make me happy when I'm sailing. Hope you found this helpful and it helps you break out of those endless tinned breakfasts and soggy sandwiches!

Bon Voyage!

Other great articles on provisions

This is a Blue Water Sailing guide to selecting food for you longer voyages...  
http://www.bwsailing.com/bw/cruising-news/food-for-thought-provisioning-101/

Again this is a very detailed article and has spreadsheets you can fill in your hearts content. There is an extensive list of items you can use to kit out your galley too. Aimed at the more serious journeys rather than my weekend runs!
https://theboatgalley.com/provisioning/

New Zealand pocket yachts- NOT UK pocket yachts

So, very occasionally, my afternoons may give me a few minutes to have a trawl over TradeMe (New Zealand’s equivalent to eBay) looking for possible boats and/or projects.
What's very obvious, other than the odd Hunter 18, the small yachts I have seen are not common in the UK and so I have spent a little time digging around in the small yacht market that is here in Australia and New Zealand.

This afternoon I have come across what appears to be a great little Trailer Sailor at only NZ$1800! Which sadly is $1650 more than I have spare at the moment ;o)

17 ft Pelin Caribou - ready to sail!

New Zealand, city of sails. Hauraki Gulf.

We are fast coming up to a year here in New Zealand and sadly, still no sign of a boat. More to the point, still no spare cash to buy a boat! So this has left me looking for very large projects (complete rebuilds) or give aways, which are very few and far between.

While I trudge onwards with my slow search, I take solice in crossing the harbour bridge every morning and being able I admire other people yachts in the city centres marina. Online scouting for New Zealand cruising books proved to be difficult. But now here the odd gem (books are insanely expensive here) does turn up in the clearance store. Cue William Owen's Hauraki Gulf guide for $15 

The Hauraki Gulf is, broadly speaking, the expanse water that stretches between the East coast of the North Island up to Cape Rodney and the mirrored west coast of the Coromandel up to the top of the Great Barrier.
Calling home the North Shore, and working in the city, this would be my cruising ground and ny the looks of things I don't think I would need to look outside of here for a good few years to fulfil my simple sailing needs.

The book gives a great guide to the region for both fishing and cruising, as well as some great insites from the authors 50 years experience in the area.

Complete with anchorage suggestions and simple outlines of the areas, this book will be a firm favourite on the bus to work as well as, hopefully, in my future "micro sailers" library.

Anyone wanting to get a copy here's the ISBN. 978-1-86953-750-0

Apologies for spellings and brevity as this post has been sent from my mobile

Roger Taylor - A Blog for our times

I found this Blog post from June 2009 on Roger Taylors (skipper of the amazing MingMing) web site (http://www.thesimplesailor.com/),  which made me laugh and think how 5 years later, nothing has changed...


"June 2009

CONFESSIONS OF A CREDIT CRUNCH CRUISER
(Warning: This article is not suitable for those of a nervous disposition)

The signs are omninous. The portents are not good. The outlook is bleak. The prospects for my particular sailing business look worse and worse. I'm worried. Very, very worried. I'm not sleeping well. My attention span, never great at the best at times, can now be measured in nanoseconds. I'm permanently irritable. My conversation has become monosyllabic. I now write very short sentences. Can't manage long ones. My world is falling apart.
I blame the credit crunch. It's ruining my business. I was on a roll. I was a high-flyer. Now, if you'll pardon my French, I'm foutu. Stuffed. I thought I had cornered the market. Got myself a nice little monopoly. Found my ideal niche. Worked up a unique selling point. I thought I had it made. Now I'm not so sure.

At first I didn't take them too seriously. The signs, the indications, that is. A yacht broker gone bust here. A superyacht builder closed down there. A boat show cancelled. A marina offering discounts. Yes, I'll say that again. A marina offering discounts. Maybe you'd like it a little bigger. A MARINA OFFERING DISCOUNTS. Something was in the air and I didn't spot it.

It's the old story. Complacency. Self-satisfaction. Or, if you want it in business-speak, a failure to critically re-examine, while successfully splitting infinitives, market forces in the light of ongoing changes to the econometric paradigm. Asleep on the job, that is.

My own behaviour should have alerted me. There's me stocking up for my next voyage. Do I buy, as usual, ten packets of Jordan's Super Luxury Specially Selected Exotic Fruit and Hand Picked Nut Muesli, at an eye-watering price? I do not. A strange magnetic force pulls my hand towards the Sainsburys Basic Muesli at 58p per packet. It is dry and dusty muck, with scarcely a shrivelled currant to be found therein, but I load my trolley with it. And feel good and virtuous into the bargain. It's the same story at the tinned vegetable shelves. Forget Hartleys Individually Polished Garden Peas in a Sumptuous Home Mixed Brine. Those cheapo tins of, yes, you guessed it, Sainsburys Basic Leftover Reject Damaged But Very Credit Crunch Friendly Pea Scrapings will do just fine. Yes, I'm stocking up for a voyage to the Arctic, and happily buying duff provisions in order to knock £3.57 off my food bill.

I just didn't get it. Now I do.

Every man and his dog is going Basic. No more superyachts. No more gin palaces. No more gin. No more conspicuous consumption. No more extrovert extravagance. No more chuckaway chequebook Charliedom. Forget your Fairlines. Forget your Oysters. Think more, well...yes...Corribee.

Yes, dammit, the world is coming my way, and I don't like it.

It's taken a lifetime of sacrifice and deprivation to become a Simple Sailor. It's not been easy, honing those skills of sailing frugality. I've suffered, let me tell you, to get where I am today. Don't think it's easy, being a contrarian. If only you knew what I've had to put up with. Those condescending smiles. That amused disbelief. You go to sea in THAT? How on earth do you manage without a satellite telephone and an inbuilt entertainment system? Have you had a sanity check recently?

Yes, I've suffered every kind of insult and innuendo and not-so-subtle put-down. But that's the lot of the contrarian and, of course, I enjoy it. There's nothing better than getting up people's noses. Challenging their assumptions. Cocking a snoop at convention. Presenting two fingers to the established mind-set. A spot of iconoclasm is good for the soul.

It's become my business, this advocacy of plain sailing. And now it's under threat. Every Tom, Dick and Hooray Henry wants to get in on the act. If we end up with a world full of Simple Sailors there'll be nothing left for me to do. It's pretty clear the way things are going. The Chief Executive Officers of FTSE 100 companies will soon be hosting corporate bashes aboard Hurley 18's and Westerly 22's. Ageing billionaire playboys will lure nubile arm candy aboard their Pandoras, anchored enticingly in pristine sun-drenched waters off Southend-on-Sea. The Vivacity will be the must-have status symbol for A-list celebs. Offshore powerboat racing will be sponsored by Seagull. I have it on good authority that the next America's Cup will be contested in Halcyon 23's. Well hotted-up, of course. Team Alinghi is already scouring the mudberths of the East Coast for a nice little hull to renovate. I've gone very long on the designs of Maurice Griffiths. Even as I write, Camper and Nicholson are securing the rights to a production run of luxury Eventides, with an eye to the Mediterranean Classics Circuit. No expense will be spared, with the top of the range model featuring a Portapotti with varnished MDF seat. And, joy of joys, the OSTAR, which, by the way, should really be the NOOSTAR - the Not the Original Observer Singlehanded Trans Atlantic Race - will have a maximum overall length limit of 25'.

Yes, the world is going Simple and I, dammit, am almost out of a job. Redundant. On the scrap heap. Yesterday's man. As relevant to the New Order as Gordon 'My MP's Kept Strictly Within the Rules While Diddling the Taxpayer' Brown. Let's face it, there's not much mileage in preaching to the converted.

So I'm considering my options. Thinking outside the box.

Keep this to yourself, but I just might abandon the Simple Sailor monicker. Go for some corporate re-branding. Get myself back on the other side of the fence with something brazen and consumerist and nicely at odds with the zeitgeist. I've been rolling a few possibilities around my head. The Buy-it-Quick Boater. The High-Spend Helmsman. Hmmm. How about the Chandlers' Chum? Or the Size-Is-All Seaman? You get my drift.

Mingming, of course, will have to go. From here on I wouldn't be seen dead in a thirty-year-old ridiculous-sized junk-rigged Corribee. Junk-rigged? Yu-uck! How sad can you get? What I want now is size, shiny brute power, gizmos galore, fifty or sixty feet of thrusting phallic aggression. What I need now is a montrous throbbing engine, an illegal decibel count of good old-fashioned pollutive noise, infinite excess, whale-loads of wastefulness. Henceforth I'm not going anywhere at less than twenty-five knots. Watch out for the Great White Monster! Mobility Dick's a-comin'! Hold on to your hats! Yee-haa! "

Less is more?

Lets be frank, money is becoming ever thinner on the ground and with 2 young children I don't see the finances coming through any time soon, unless our number some up on a scratch card or Saturday night!?

To this end I have come up with a further reduction in the finances and have born out 2 further sub categories to my sailing options.

Nano (nano – n – billionth) and Pico (pico – p – trillionth) budgets have been established to allow to to have a possibility of actually making it out on the water. 

Nano sailing has made me look to the older smaller pocket cruisers such as the Hunter 18 and the very attractive Leisure 17. I have seen these boats for as little as £500 and as they have a much more trimmed down and basic set up the overhaul of such a boat should be vastly reduced.

Pico sailing is set to take it all back to basics and look at sailing lakes and coastal waters in the likes of a Mirror Dinghy or GP14. This option makes simple weekend camping trips very possible with less than £1000 to spend.

I am very excited that these 2 options have been established and I am especially keen to look into the Pico option for New Zealand whether we are there for 2 months or 2 years. 

Hunter Europa... a history

I have simply copy and pasted this from another web page as it is just plain interesting...

Hunter Europa

HUNTER EUROPA : a epic success in the 1972 Single-Handed Transatlantic Race 

Hunter Boats started life close to the Wakering marshes near Rochford back in 1969. A few years later the company moved to a new custom built factory off Sutton Rd, in Rochford where the building of Hunter boats continues to this day.

The first famous sail-boat was the National Squib, designed and finished by Oliver Lee and first moulded by Hunters (then called the Essex Boat Company) in 1968. The Squib flourished, achieved National Status, and is still built to this day (not by Hunter Boats), with total numbers now above 800. 
A year or so later, one Michael Poland asked Oliver if he could put a lid on a Squib, so that he could go cross Channel JOG racing in a boat that would cost less than a full set of B&G instruments. Oliver relented, and designed a proper fibreglass lid to go on the Squib. Since Michael Poland’s other favourite pastime was hunting, the new model was called the Hunter. And so began the new Hunter line. Oliver designed several other Hunters for the renamed Hunter Boats Ltd between 1969 and 1975; the 16′ lifting keel Hunter 490, the 23′ Hunter 701, the Tracer (a mini Squib with lifting keel) and the revamped Hunter 19 that changed her name to the Hunter Europa. All sold well, and multiplied in yacht harbours in the UK and abroad.

Perhaps the most famous exploit was David Blagden’s epic success in the 1972 Observer Single-Handed Transatlantic Race. His diminutive Hunter Europa 19  “Willing Griffin” survived many Atlantic storms and finished the race, the smallest yacht ever to do the official Single-Handed Transatlantic. Visit your library and find “Very Willing Griffin” by David Blagden. It’s an inspiring read

The Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race was conceived by Francis Chichester and Herbert “Blondie” Hasler in 1956. The whole idea of a single-handed ocean yacht race race was a revolutionary concept at the time, as the idea was thought to be extremely impractical; but this was especially true given the adverse conditions of their proposed route — a westward crossing of the north Atlantic Ocean, against the prevailing winds. 

1972 Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race

Skipper	Nation	Yacht	Type	LOA	Time(D H M)	Place
Alain Colas	French	PEN DUICK IV	Tri	70	20 13 15	1
J.Y Terlain	French	VENDREDI TREIZ	Mono	128	21 05 14	2
Blanden David	British	WILLING GRIFFIN	Mono	19	52 11 06	37

Hunter 19/Europa Details
Built From:	1972
Built To:	1982
Number Built:	782
Designer:	Oliver Lee
Specification
Length Over All (m):	5.78
Length at the water line (m):	5.24
Beam (m):	1.87
Draft (m):	Fin 0.91, Shoal 0.68
Air Draft (m):
Displacement – fin (kg):	681
Displacement – twin (kg):	NA
Ballast (kg):	340
Sail Areas (sq m):	Main 7.80, Jib 6.30, Genoa 11.10
Berths:	2 to 3
Engine:	O/B
Remarks:  Hunter 19  built Sep 72 – Feb 74,    Hunter Europas built 74 Nov 82

Mixing children and boats

When I first started to think about my sailing venture I was young(ish) and free of family life, constraints and concerns, but times have changed. I now have a young family meaning that sailing has had to take a back seat for almost the last 10 years, and in fact my partner has never know me to sail and has very little interest in it, in fact its safe to say that she has no interest.

That said I would love my children to, at the very least, have the opportunity to try sailing and if they like it, pursue it. The obvious route (like mine) is small dingy sailing, which can offer all sorts  but I would also love for them to be able to experience the 'camping' style of cruising offered by a small trailer sailer.

Safety is an obvious concern on board a boat and currently we have a 5 year old and 2 year old, and IF we were to get a boat then these tender ages need to be taken into account. Interestingly enough there is a site that offers advice for sailing with children, which oddly enough is run by... women.

Womenandcruising is a great site for the real practicalities of cruising with kids and offers a great amount of resources from real experience, but surely there is some fatherly advice knocking about for cruising with young children?

This is still a theoretical exercise and all depends upon actually getting a boat and then convincing the other half that her and the kids would be safe aboard!? 

Kids in the Cockpit

Updated WebSite

I've managed to get round to updating the look of the web site and slim it down a little.

Updated WebSite Look

Funds are building and we're now waiting on confirmation of a job offer in New Zealand which will have a massive impact on this project.

I just can't to get this project off the ground now, either here or in New Zealand!