Stevenson Screens

I built this Stevenson Screen a few months ago with a veiw to selling them. I had an original Casella Screen in kit form and put it on ebay and to my astonishment it reached over £200.

The kit was not unlike a giant box of matches - mainly the louvre slats. And seeing a new screen for sale at £495 - thought there might be a market, possibly only a small one. My screen is still on sale at on ebay for £250.

Self Steering...........

I have been musing over the possibility of building a "self steering" gadget for Diva. Looking at commercial devices they mostly seem to be constructed of welded tube or aluminium castings and both of these ways of putting things together, I don't have the technology, so a composite construction looked good, being strong and importantly light. I have been making the bearing housings using a plastic form (in black). These are the wind vane bearings - I'm using some plastic bearings with glass balls as this needs to be built with as little friction as possible. More to follow...........

Starcross Merlin Rocket Open Meeting

I offered my boat as the Committee Boat for the Merlin Open this weekend 3/4 October. I had been keeping an eye on the weather and by mid week BBC was showing 35mph - gusting 55mph on Sunday but by Friday it appeared to have moderated 10mph Sat. 12mph Sun - Oh yea. Saturday was lovely with no wind at 09.30 but the forecast southerly coming in warm and sunny. Good day had by all. Baked potato, vegetable curry, few beers, mediocre band and I was ready for bed. Had to call the club house once on the boat! No problem getting to Diva. Checked the Navtex "Gale warning for Portand F8 southerly" oh well - got to sleep - but a bit lumpy wind increasing. Woken by wind at 04.30 pretty windy but no worries then wind dropped going east so no chop to speak of for a while then bang, back to the south and full on gale - sea was a " churning urn of burning funk" Had to get out and tie down tender as it was lifting itself on to its side (with the outboard) and try to stop the genoa cover flogging. Could not sleep - worrying about the mooring/mast/tender/outboard all much worse in the dark and on your own . Glad to see the "sun rise" Looked out the cabin and a cabin cruiser AWOL was in the main channel, made some tea and looked out again and cruiser was gone. Much too windy, still, to do anything about anything. Decided to lock the boat up and go ashore at about 09.30, still pretty windy - surfed over to the club. Amazed that the outboard started first pull - Unfortunatly, the tender got caught by a gust and dumped the outboard upsidedown in the water - that did it - wouldn't start after that - but its alright now. Girls in the galley were keeping an eye on me during my surfing and made me a most welcome cooked breakfast - very much apprciated.



Rest of the day was a breeze after last night. Turned out the cruiser crunched into Pete Browne's"Hunky Dory" Luckily, not too much damage to either. One of the SYC boats ended up on the mud up river a bit - undamaged - and another got a shredded genoa.