New Windows for Diva

Diva has been languishing in the Exeter Canal over the winter as she has for the last 3 years. Tied up to Grenvilles
"Gentlemans Cruising Yacht" Grenville lives on his boat and
produces handmade clothes and also does a bit of welding!

I had been working my self up to redoing the windows on Diva. They leaked - though not badly but were very crazed.


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Typically, doing this kind of job one thing leads to another and I ended up taking all the head and side linings out and getting rid of them and painting the inside roof and fixing the grab handles properly - bolting them through - setting them into epoxy. Boat a mess at the moment but it will
soon clean up.
After lots of investigation I decided to stick the windows in using double sided VHB foam tape (very high bond) and 295 sikaflex therefore no
screws to stop the window moving as it wants to.
More decisions - acrylic or polycarbonate. I found a web site with a little trick to make the windows
look good - its been done on car glued car windows for some time - paint the back of the
plastic with 2 part car paint and hide all the 'orrible tape and goo. Looks like the decks need attending to.

Diva nearly goes AWOL

Just checking Diva one Saturday morning, using the club's webcam, as you do, when I noticed there was no sign of the mooring buoy. Sometimes the buoy does disappear behind one of the amas but there was no mooring line to be seen either - thought I had better have a look. Got out to Diva - pulled up the mooring strop and nothing on the end - just a frayed tail. Luckily, I had been experimenting with a bridle of 10mm polyprop to cut down the amount of sheering about Diva was doing - thank gawd for 10mm blue polyprop. Diva was hanging on a couple of 10mm polyprop 'strings'... Time to put her away. So as a temporary fix put Diva on the club's visitors mooring

Next year, she will be moored with chain throughout. But Diva is now happy in the Exeter Canal.

Tendrils

I had been thinking about doing some sculpture using some of the methods that Simon and I had

learnt building his cat - I particularly liked the use of "armaflex" insulation as an armature to lay-up epoxy-glass on - Simon used it on the back edge of his boats cabin following its curves - so nice.

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.

Roger's last "Wings" trip

This was the last trip for Roger in his Kelsall cat Wings. Bought by Adrian who is the brother of the builder of Wings - so, I think its going to a good home in the River Avon (Bantham)

Left the Exe at midday - beam reach down to Start Point - untill the wind disapeared.

Motored the last coupe of miles into Salcombe in the dark - looks like Salcombe's sectored light might need a good clean.

Anchored in Millbay - where Roger produced a some lovely cous-cous and corma followed by a couple of glasses.

Mill bay is a perfect place to anchor just across the river from the Salcombe and the Yacht Club
After breakfast in Capt. Morgan's Cafe we left Salcombe passing Soar Mill Bay. Arrived at the Avon at an hour before high water - coming into the Avon can be a bit tricky if the weather is bad. Its strange to be passing surfers surfing 4/5ft surf 30 ft away. A good job done.