Alistair Tyrrell

13 April 2014 The first cruiser race of the year today. Stuart, who crewed for me on my first race last year, came with me, the first real trip out to sea since the winter so we were a bit cautious in case of equipment failures. The forecast was for light and variable winds. We got off the berth about 0945 without problems, raised the main inside the harbour and motored out into the flat calm and sunny sea. The race officer today elected for a committee boat start, and because of the light winds he'd set out some dinghy marks for us to race around instead of the fixed cruiser marks we normally use further out to sea. The first leg was due west into the tide and the wind was so light and variable that it was hard to make progress towards the start line. Lots of us started engines (you can do that up to 4 mins before the start) to get within reach. Two of the faster boats took the idea even further by motoring right across the start line, stopping engine a few dozen metres beyond...

8th March 2014 I often take a week off work at the beginning of March and happily that’s coincided this time with some nice weather, after weeks of storms. Spring sunshine and light winds. I got the engine off the boat last Saturday. What that actually means is that I walked the boat around by her mooring lines so she was stern-to the pontoon, unclamped the engine and lifted it off (lying it the correct side down), moved the boat back to her berth, then lugged the engine up the ramp and into the boot of the car. Quite heavy. I took it round to the servicing man nearby for a full annual service and re-test etc. I have spent the week on varnishing. Elsa is mostly plastic but there is a wooden rubbing strip all the way round and a pair of wooden holds on the roof. I have had the pot of varnish ready all winter but not enough dry days to get it done. The man in the berth next to mine has taken his boat up river for repairs so his berth was vacant – that one has pontoon fingers each s...

19 Jan 2014 Lovely sunny day here today which makes a change after the recent storms and rain. In December I had a bloke build a new rudder blade for me at vast expense, to replace the one that snapped in half and got welded back together. Marine grade aluminium cut and shaped to the same size and thickness as the old one. I’d painted the old one with Trilux antifouling and it had gone brown very quickly but the man in the chandler said that Trilux was the only thing really suitable for aluminium. I decided perhaps the undercoat was the problem, as with the old one (once welded back together) I had just sprayed it with a can of primer from Halfords before applying the Trilux. So I have spent the first week of Jan in my garage painting my new rudder with several layers – a two-pack of epoxy primer, you have to mix a bit of each can into a container and stir it together and get it applied quick before it goes off, two coats each side of the blade. Horrible smelly stuff and Catherine...

31 Dec 2013 I bought Elsa at the end of Feb 2013. Lying in Portsmouth Harbour, I made many day trips down visiting her, familiarising, practising, and motoring / sailing around inside the harbour. A combination of unfavourable Easterly winds, lack of confidence, and hoping for crew availability kept her in Portsmouth until I made my epic solo passage round to Littlehampton in mid May. I bought the boat thinking I’d be doing coastal passages, overnight trips, weekending along the Sussex coast and to the Isle of Wight and places. But it turned out I didn’t do any of that. Someone suggested I go racing and I found that to be huge fun. Short duration cruiser races, around the cans outside Littlehampton, with various crew, combining with lunch and drinks in the clubhouse chatting to the other crews, was great. We’ve ended the season placed 5th out of 9 boats in the Arun YC ‘Len Nolan series’ of cruiser races, an excellent result for my first year of competing. I’ve had lots of advice a...

22 Dec 2013 The dredging activity has finished and the volunteer workforce at the club has begun to rebuild the pontoon structures. This will carry on into January but there's enough of it built now to allow some boats to move back. The club is also keen to minimise the cost (as the club is paying for the various temporary berths around the harbour). My temporary berth down the river was ok but very exposed and turbulent. On the hard sand Elsa sat up on her keel stub looking very ungainly. I was able to walk all around her at low tide and I took the opportunity to get the rudder off and took it to a metal fabricator to get a new blade built. So when the word came that it would be good to move back, I wondered how I could do that without the rudder. Steer her with the outboard alone? Maybe that would be ok in a wide flat smooth area but in that turbulent place with other boats around I wasn't sure. I went down on Friday lunchtime to see what to do and met John Bewsey who i...

24 Nov 2013 The club moorings are a desolate place at the moment. Most of the boat are lifted ashore and standing in the car park, and the pontoons are being dismantled ready for a dredging operation due in December to clear away the mud and sand and give us more depth. I decided to keep Elsa in the water over winter – I don’t have any work to do on her which would need her out, and I keep thinking I might even go sailing. The club arranged a temporary berth for her down the river at another club’s moorings. A couple of other guys have the same arrangement and moved theirs during the week and I managed to do mine today. I went down at low tide to survey the new spot and it was flat sand and clear of obstructions. My friend David, who has a pretty little red yacht Tigger, offered to help me. Haven’t used the boat for several weeks but the outboard started on the second pull and ran happily. We knew the other berth was much shallower so we’d waited until about 90 mins before high...

20 Oct 2013 Keen to gain experience of handling a boat under engine, and get more practice in the River Arun, and do my duty better during the Thursday evening committee boat work, I signed up for RYA Power Boat Level 2 which took place this weekend. Saturday morning found 6 of us plus 2 instructors in the training room at 0900 (another little hut next to the yacht clubhouse). I know both the instructors and some of the other students. The weather was breezy and showery with some sunny spells. We started off indoors being instructed, then got ourselves dressed in our sailing clobber and went to the boats. The club has a small but heavy diesel launch called Diamond, this is the committee boat, shaft driven tiller steered and very noisy and a bit smelly (air cooled diesel). Then there’s the three RIBs, rigid inflatable boats, with 50hp petrol outboards. After more instruction beside the boats we set off into the river and got to practice various manoeuvres. The strong breeze and fa...