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Afloat again...

saxonaxe

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I have an arrangement with a marina whereby my little boat spends winter safely ashore chocked up in the boatyard, and 6 months or so swinging on a mooring buoy out in the harbour. Last couple of days have been launch time..Couldn't have timed the weather better and all went smoothly. So, ready now for a summer exploring all the little creeks and shallow harbours and places that the big posh yachts can't get into...:D

A few photographs of a couple of cooking sunny days..They haul her out of the yard and put her in 'The Pool' which has a lock gate, to wait for the tide to flood. My boat is the bilge keel blue sloop next to Fizgig.
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Low tide, acres of mud and weed. A great feeding ground for all sorts of wading birds. The berthing area gets periodically dredged, which is occurring this month hence the big dredger left of photo.
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I row out to my mooring and spend the night, sometimes a few nights on board, surrounded by the silence or just the call of the birds and the sound of the tides as they ebb and flow. It is a beautiful area. Boats on swing moorings already, extreme left of photo.
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A pair of Common Buzzards nest in those trees opposite my mooring.

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Here she is, safely moored for the summer. That's a mooring buoy with a 10 ten limit on it's tackle, and as she weighs point 7 of a ton...she's secure there. :D
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It's about a third of a mile row out to her from the harbour jetties.
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I've got a trek planned for East Anglia soon, so we won't be going 'A Viking' for a while, but a few nights aboard are in order I think, if only for the solitude and waking up surrounded by Redshanks or Turnstones. :thumbsup:
 
Nice - more "boatcraft" than bushcraft, but I dig the feeling. :p I just finished my work on the STS Stimmung, too. Used to be a deal EUR 400.- including trailer, with uncountable flaws but a sturdy character. Three years of maintenance and yet again she is about to launch tomorrow, finally with a finished coating, repaired mast, stabilised hull and a replaced sword.

Here we have a saying: "Koop een boot - werk je dood" (buy a boat, work yourself to death).

And we all know that with "death" comes "freedom". ;)

Last year's maiden voyage:
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The reward:
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Always have a hand's with of water under the keel, my friend. Safe travels!
 
She's from the very early 1970's, called a Sun Star 21. From the fairly early days of fibre glass boats so she's built like a tank. 21 foot overall x 8 foot beam, bilge keel and a great little sea boat for her size, in rough weather.
 
Lovely, so almost the same size as my Sailhorse (6,02m x 2,01m). I bet she'll beat the flat bottom and bulb keel though (fast in calm conditions, predestined to capsize in rough waters though).
 
Nice Sunstar...not having read all the posts...is that the Backwaters?
My lil' boat has just been launched at Mersea.......

(no such efforts for the Canadian canoe!!)
 
" ..is that the Backwaters? "

No Lol, it's the South Coast but strangely it was a stay at West Mersea that led to my buying the Sunstar 21. I had been away cruising in the Mediterranean for nearly 2 years and on returning home I looked for somewhere to winter (my boat was my home) and I ended up spending the winter on a buoy by the old Oyster sheds out on the little island off the Coast Road boatyard at West Mersea.

I wanted to explore the local rivers but my cruising boat at that time was a 12 ton steel Gaff Cutter with deep draught, so I couldn't get as far up the rivers and smaller Essex creeks as I wanted, so I decided to look for a bilge keel, shallow draught, that I could play about in, and found the Sunstar abandoned and neglected (and very cheap) in a Sussex Boatyard the following Spring.
My gaff cutter in the Greek Islands, she was a great Ocean voyaging boat but hard work single handed in confined waters.
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One day maybe next summer, I'll get round to the Blackwater, Stour and Orwell..:D
 
@saxonaxe

Hi Sax.

Living on board and cruising the Med must have been an awesome and challenging experience .........good on you.
Never tried any sailing.....especially as bold as your trip.....and single handed too.
I expect the Sunstar 21 is a lot easier to sail and maintain than the cutter:D
 
Aha......that's not a Chuck Paine design is it? A beautiful thing........................
The Oyster shed is right opposite my winter storage yard and she's moored further up one of the channels. Sailing the east coast is a revelation after the busy ness of the south...although it's catching up :( A mud puddling day sailor!!!:D Come and join us!!!!
Never sailed serious offshore, only to channel, although (not the same thing I know!) done a couple of "Round the Island"* races!

(-I've never seen in mast mainsail reefing on such a boat (Sunstar) before? Must be a big help sailing solo?)

* for those that don't know , that's an annual open race for all classes and sizes and people round the Isle of Wight. Often well over a 1000 yachts take part from family cruisers to ocean greyhounds.
 
" I expect the Sunstar 21 is a lot easier to sail and maintain than the cutter: "

Easier to sail generally Willie, but strangely when it comes to maintenance in many respects the Gaff Cutter was easier. She was steel so a quick dab of two pack epoxy paint kept her looking smart, but with fibreglass any knocks or scratches need a bit more work. I had no trouble pulling myself aloft on the steel boat but the little one has to have her mast unstepped for any mast head work, but yes she's more suited to being sailed singlehanded by a wrinkly..:D

The Gaff Cutter was by a designer much loved up your way, Lol. Robert Tucker. I bought the plans from him in 1995 and her hull was built by a brilliant steel boat builder here in the South. I spent all winter rigging and painting her. I used old fashioned sash window weights buried in concrete in her keel as ballast. Her rigging was galvanised steel wire that I bought from the Otis Lift Company.

That winter at West Mersea I hired my mooring from the people in that boatyard on the Coast Road, where the Victory Pub is, and I had a buoy just above the old Oyster shed in a deep part of the channel there. I used to row ashore in my dinghy and go to the dinghy landing stage and then a short walk to the cafe...to occasionally escape from my own cooking...:rofl:

I voyaged in her for almost 10 years to the Med, Canaries and the Caribbean but lost her on a reef in the Bahamas in the aftermath of a tropical storm called Andrea which didn't obey the rules and came along 2 months before humans say the Hurricane season should start..:p :D
 
No wonder you ride a Guzzi!

Is that the same Robert Tucker of Silhouette fame?
How about a Blogg on here about "Andrea"?..........sounds like a ex manager of mine, lol!
 
"Koop een boot - werk je dood" (buy a boat, work yourself to death).

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
" Is that the same Robert Tucker of Silhouette fame? "

That's him, also Debutante and Caprice design (Shrimpy, Shane Acton's circumnavigation boat) and many other designs since 1953.

" How about a Blogg on here about "Andrea"? "

I'm ok with a few photos and the occasional post about voyaging, but Blogging! Not for me I'm afraid.. :)
 
Every sitting room should have a Mk11 Silhouette on the mantelpiece, so pretty..........

(...and his son did the little Pippin?)
 
Well...... did you get round to the East coast this year?
 
After 2 weeks of wind and rain...was planning on getting to the boat this week coming, not having seen it since launch and a couple of days away in May......and they've just given a thunderstorm yellow warning for the week......and last week it seemed set fair...………..

No sailing
No canoeing
No camping
No motorcycling...……….ah...retirement in the summer......………….
(those pigeons are going to suffer!!)
 
After 2 weeks of wind and rain...was planning on getting to the boat this week coming, not having seen it since launch and a couple of days away in May......and they've just given a thunderstorm yellow warning for the week......and last week it seemed set fair...………..

No sailing
No canoeing
No camping
No motorcycling...……….ah...retirement in the summer......………….
(those pigeons are going to suffer!!)
Well mate you have to blame something :lol:
 
Been sailing the east coast for a couple of weeks......
Sunrise 4.30 am in the Deben.....just leaving for the Medway.
 

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