{"id":340,"date":"2013-03-25T14:14:22","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T14:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/?p=340"},"modified":"2013-03-25T14:14:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T14:14:22","slug":"two-bikes-and-a-dinghy-in-an-anchor-locker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/?p=340","title":{"rendered":"Two bikes and a dinghy in an anchor locker"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend\u2019s purpose was very clear – get Adina as ready as possible. Ready to head off from Hamble any time after Easter. Saturday morning that looked an intimidating task. We’ve accumulated a lot of gear over the last few months, and now it all needs to go on deck or safely stored away down below. We\u2019ve read our Atlantic Rally Cruising handbook and made sure we\u2019re ticking off the recommended gear.<\/p>\n

\"Susie<\/a>

Finding a home for everything.<\/p><\/div>\n

We had decided that Susie with her majestic packing skills would tackle gear below decks, while Tom would get everything ready on top. Being Spring that sounds like a nice outdoors activity. Unfortunately in England we still seem to be in the midst of winter with temperatures of 0-2 degrees Celsius. Add to that a significant wind chill. Miserable March as the BBC weather forecaster described it! Added to that Tom has acquired a stinking cold. So plans were altered to braving 15 minutes outdoors at a time and then warming up downstairs!<\/p>\n

A delivery to get Tom excited was \u00a0all the lines and blocks for the spinnaker have arrived and Tim from TJ Marine <\/a>has been doing a sterling job putting pad eyes etc. in place. Can’t praise Tim enough – good guy and one of the few in the industry who doesn’t see dollar signs for boat work, wants to do a good job for you, and just all round helpful. In the bitterly cold both Tom and Tim sat trying to find the best way to rig our boom brake. We purchased a Walder boom brake on the recommendation of Jimmy Cornell. It’s a device rigged on the boom that helps prevent a potentially nasty disaster in the case of an accidental gybe whereby the boom can swing over at speed. The boom brake works by inducing friction on a rope slowing the boom down. Needless to say we think we’ve found a solution to rig it up and Tim is working on it this week! Tom has been admiring the new spinnaker lines all weekend long. Dyneema guys! Whoop, whoop! And for those looking for chafe advice, the guys have chafe covers at the tips to prevent chafe from the spinnaker pole.<\/p>\n

Come Sunday afternoon Adina was starting to look ship-shape. Homes found for all the \u2018living gear\u2019 downstairs, safety equipment attached, the new outboard attached to its new home, and the result of the day being we have managed to fit the inflatable dinghy and two folding bikes in the anchor locker! We bought a new hypalon inflatable dinghy at last year\u2019s Southampton Boat Show. When it comes to dinghies, \u00a0you can buy one with a hard bottom\/base known as a rib which has the advantage of taking the knocks on landing, but has the disadvantage of not being easily stored, and you need davits or to carry it around on deck. An inflatable dinghy with a pvc bottom can be easily stored but they are more prone to punctures. The happy medium is an inflatable dinghy made of a hypalon material which is a lot tougher and can take the knocks while at the same time it can be folded away, and even has an inflatable keel.<\/p>\n

\"susie<\/a>

Fitting a sizeable dinghy and two folding bikes into the anchor locker. Lovely weather too!<\/p><\/div>\n

Saying all that we still had some debates about the size of dinghy to order considering handling it etc. Tom got his way with us ordering a larger one (when will he ever learn!) but it\u2019s not exactly light lugging it around. The two foldable bikes are for exploring on land and do trips to the shops etc. ebay proved to be the perfect source as we found two bicycles in mint condition. With space at a premium getting all of that in the anchor locker was a splendid result.<\/p>\n

Still a few more things still to get nailed downed \u2013 mainly around the chart plotter and getting it all working courtesy of those who sold it to us. Simrad our bad eggs from last week are delivering a bigger screen to compensate for not delivering the original on time. Now we have the challenge that the Gold Navionics charts we bought are not showing the detail they should be showing. And these don\u2019t come cheap so hoping someone solves it.<\/p>\n

Other than that, we\u2019re looking on track. Fingers crossed , toes crossed, touching wood all round, who knows what goes wrong last minute! Everybody is asking when we will leave. Answer is dependent on the weather and the boat being ready \u2013any time after Easter essentially.\u00a0 We\u2019ve read it\u2019s bad luck to start a cruise on a Friday and the 1st<\/sup> of April! The dreaded weather window watching has commenced. We\u2019ve promised ourselves (and others!) we need to be sensible and safe, and wait for fair weather on our first leg.<\/p>\n

Definitely struggling with sleep, the excitement is there, can\u2019t think about much else truth be told!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This weekend\u2019s purpose was very clear – get Adina as ready as possible. Ready to head off from Hamble any time after Easter. Saturday morning that looked an intimidating task. We’ve accumulated a lot of gear over the last few months, and now it all needs to go on deck or safely stored away down…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-tj-marine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yachtadina.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}