Travels and boat care
Picking up Molia – I am touching up the antifoul.
You can see the mast on its trestles on the right.
Stepping the mast.
Back on our mooring.
Many thanks to the Portishead Boatfolk crew and rigger Andy Freemantle from Boatfolk Penarth.
Molia’s mast always had the top sheave and lower opening for a topping lift, but one was not threaded. Also, with the spinnaker control lines led aft, there is no jamming cleat for one (starboard side).
With the mast down, we have taken the opportunity to thread a new 8mm rope to make a topping lift. Its the gold fleck pictured here.
For now we will run the topping lift aft in place of the spinnaker halyard. In the future we will expand the deck organiser on the starboard side to 4 sheaves, and add an extra cleat.
The current spinnaker halyard jamming cleat is labelled SPIN.
We will leave the POLE UP line in place as we sometimes use the spinnaker pole as a whisker pole.
We are planning some maintenance and upgrades for the 2025 season. Some of these will be done before Molia goes back into the water; and others after.
E23 Replacement Anchor Lamp
E24 Boom Maintenance
E25 Reconfigure the Backstay Tensioner
We are taking the mast down this year to replace the standing rigging. As far as we know this has not been done since Molia was built in 2006.
Our ventilator cowls are dull, scratched and dirty. After several tries at cleaning them, with various products, I decided to replace them. It seems not that much more expensive than buying an array of cleaning products! Anyway the starboard-side ventilator drips when it rains really hard, so I think the sealant may need attention.
Removed the old cowl to reveal a lot of green!
Removed the ventilator cover. Everything in here is a bit mouldy!
Giving it all a good clean with boat cleaner and water.
Removing the old sealant with our trusty can of Multisolve.
Refitted the ventilator mechanism with a good layer of new sealant. You can just see it around the edges.
Sealant applied to the cowl’s screw holes as well.
New cowls fitted. Looking good!
New covers for the ventilators on our boat are the ‘Plastimo Streamline Dorade Cover Only for P51637 P51654 51654’ supplied by Chas Newens Marine.
We drifted up to the bridge and back with Catherine, on one of the hottest days so far this year.
We had a great morning out – reaching the bridge at about 1300.
We will use the tide to make the passage from Swansea to Portishead in one go.
The wind was light and the sea smooth for our last leg this year.
With many thanks to our crew guests this year:
And to the engineers who kept us going:
Nick Smith, independent marine engineer, Falmouth
Jerry at Falmouth Yacht Brokers
Mitch at Advance Marine, Portishead
Our ‘no anchoring at Padstow’ policy meant that we had to leave Padstow harbour at 0300! We made our way down the river Camel slowly and then loitered in the bay until there was enough light to see lobster pots.
With little wind, we motored against the tide towards Hartland Point and Lundy. We picked up the tide on approach to Hartland, and then made good progress across the channel. We arrived at Swansea in good time.
There was some good dolphin entertainment in Swansea bay.
Our aim is to get to Padstow and go straight in without anchoring – the wind and waves are not right for anchoring anyway.
We started at 0600 from Newlyn to get the other side of Lands End with the tide, and pick up the tide going up the north Cornish coast. Positive tide did not run out until well past St Ives. This gave us a problem later as we approached Padstow too quickly! With high water at midnight in Padstow, our earliest approach up the Camel was 2130. In then end we hove to a couple of times around Trevose Head and delayed our entry to Padstow Bay until 2100.
This gave us the best dolphin sighting of the trip. A whole pod crossed our path
