Flying Fox
Flying Fox is a Salterns Stag 28 designed by Peter Milne and Built by the Emsworth Shipyard in 1978. She has a draft of 3 feet, but with a heavy centreplate that will take the draft down to 6ft 9in. One of the major points that drew me to Flying Fox was the handbuilt, light ash finished interior. Unlike many GRP built boats of this size there is virtually no GRP visible below deck. There is an owners group with plenty of archived info.
We keep Flying Fox on a mooring in Portsmouth Harbour close by Portchester Castle and we belong to the Portchester Sailing club.
For the technically interested there's a page explaining how I re-engined Flying Fox
Flying Fox, 2003
After 6 Weeks...
Well we've been sailing Flying Fox for about 6 weeks now. It took a while to get used to a boat that heels (after 15 years of sailing multihulls), I got a few bruises in the first couple of days. First impressions are that the Stag is relatively tender and the amount of sail needs to be tuned to the conditions a little more critically than some others of her size. We've sailed in winds from F1 to F7 and found her to be comfortable and relatively fast. The sails can be balanced to give a near neutral helm and she will heel to quite an angle before she gripes. Under cruising chute she sails fast and level.
Under engine she handles very predictably ahead, but with a marked pull to port on the tiller. Going astern is a different matter, she pulls hard to starboard initially and I haven't yet mastered the art, it's still a bit hit and miss as to where we end up especially if there's any wind blowing.
In port or at anchor she is very comfortable for lounging both in the cockpit and in the saloon. The amount of stowage space is amazing, I haven't managed to fill it all up yet.
After the first season...
Well after a season's use we now have a good idea of what initial changes we want to make to Flying Fox.
The first addition is a proper through hull log/speedometer with a cockpit display. I found it frustrating not knowing precisely how changes in course affected the boat speed, especially when beating. The GPS, although accurate, didn't give a fast enough response and, of course, didn't give the speed through the water which is what really matters when trimming.
Next is a lazyjack system with a permanently attached sail cover into which the main will drop when it is lowered. This will make sail handling much easier when coming into a crowded anchorage because I won't need to furl and tidy up the sail until we're settled. I will replace the mainsail reefing cleats, which were on either side of the boom, with jammers all on the starboard side. This should make reefing the main easier, as will the lazyjacks/sailcover.
During the season I noticed that the rudder had a permanent 'wobble' when sailing. After much thought, and consultation with other owners, I came to the conclusion that it was caused by the disturbed water flow over the big three bladed prop. At the same time somebody found a couple of folding props of about the right size for £50 each which is an incredibly good price. Anyway, I obtained one of the props and, if I can fit it in time, I'll give it a try. If it doesn't work I may have to dry out during the season and replace the old one.
In the cabin we have some headlining and sidelining to replace. This is turning out to be a really messy job because the foam backing has decayed into a fine black dust which gets everywhere. We are replacing it with carpet type sidelining which is made for the job. I must say this is the most satisfying job so far because the result is immediately visible (and the glue can give you a real 'high'!).
All the other jobs are the usual antifouling, polishing, varnishing and engine maintenance work. Oh, plus I need to replace the water tank which sprang a leak during the season.
All the above has to be fitted into the four months from Novenmber to February. At present we are just about on schedule. I say we, but really it comes down to me. Janis does the washing at the end of the season then likes to forget about the boat until next season.
Second season...2004
Second season started well with some good weekends away. The lazy jacks work just fine and make sail handling that much easier, as do the clutches that replaced the cleats for reefing. The big difference came from the folding propeller which has nearly eliminated the rudder 'wobble' under sail. For some reason the prop seems more efficient too, although the stopping power has diminished. I can now also look into the forecabin without wincing at the state of the headlining.
Fairly early on in the year we had a disaster with the engine (ancient Volvo MD7A), the head gasket blew, letting water into one of the cylinders. This was motoring home from Poole on a bank holiday in flat calm. First signs were more than usual steam exiting from the exhaust followed by a very gradual diminution of power until, eventually, the engine died in tickover and wouldn't restart. During the week I removed the cylinder head and took it for skimming as there were grooves worn into the metal from the passage of water. The machine shop were unable to fully remove the grooves but I hoped it would be enough to get through the season. A new head gasket completed the repair along with a flush out and replacement of the oil. The repair lasted several months but eventually the symptoms returned as we were leaving harbour on a beautifully warm weekend. Rather than waste the weekend, we sailed on to Newtown where we anchored. During the evening I removed the head, filled the offending waterway and head gasket with 'plastic steel' and put it all back together again. Having left the engine overnight to be sure the epoxy had cured, I started up, with some trepidation, and it fired first time and ran like a dream. That repair has now lasted a month or so with no apparent overheating problems. I'm hopeful that it will get me to the end of the season in a few weeks time. I do so like these 'agricultural' diesel engines, they seem to put up with no end of abuse and 'botching' but keep running. This coming winter is going to be rather expensive.
One bit of good news, I've come to the top of the list for winter storage in the sailing club yard. That will save a good few hundred pounds, now I've got the job of making a pair of beaching legs ready for the craning in a few weeks time. Also went to the Southampton boat show and investigated all of the diesel engines in my size (10 - 20HP). The Vetus was impressively cheap but the winner was the Beta 13.5HP, mainly because the mountings are a close match for the old Volvo. Another reason, the people I spoke to on the Beta stand were interested and very patiently explained everything I needed to know. A little negotiating after the show got the optional (£100) shallow sump included at the boat show price so the order went in for delivery in November.
For the curious there's a page showing how the new engine was installed.
Third season...2005
Well, obviously, the first thing to do was to check out the new engine. Happily it all works perfectly well. It ticks over at about 1200 rpm which seems a little high to me, but then it is a high revving diesel. Maybe I'm a little disappointed that the noise level is quite high, next winter's projects are already forming! What I am very happy about is that my propeller calculations were spot on. The engine revs to just over 3000 rpm and the boat's top speed is about 6.9 knots, more than I'd hoped. (I spoke to Beta and they confirmed that the engine should tickover at around 800rpm, a quick adjustment and all was well).
Over the last winter I also completed the installation of an (Ebay bought) Eberspacher warm air heater. The first weekend away in April included a very cold Saturday evening when the heater proved an absolute joy. The only problem was that it put the final nail in the coffin for my house battery which, by the time I got home was showing 10.5 volts and was beyond redemption. That's another £50+ to spend out.
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Generally a good season, we've been sailing most weekends, with very few that have been blown out. I think I've only once had to wear oilies and that was at the end of the season. I'm still learning things about FF, this year I found that when beating, even into a force 6 and well reefed, she will sail herself quite happily, pointing high. I was even able to go below and boil a can of soup with FF sailing herself.
During the year I obtained a new 10kg Delta anchor (Ebay again). What a revelation. After years of using a generic plough anchor, with variable results, I now can sleep soundly knowing FF is not going to drag anywhere. The anchor bites almost immediately and is usually a hell of a job to retrieve because it's holding so well.
We are now at the end of the season again and winter maintenance looms. I have managed to 'inherit' (buy) a trailer in the club park (dead man's shoes). This gives me the freedom to come in and go out at times of my own choosing rather than being tied to craning dates. I have had to increase the width of the trailer, which involved some heavy steel work. This winter I will get craned into the trailer just to make sure it fits.
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Deepest winter, the dismal month after Christmas. I've fitted a new loo, having got fed up with the pump leaking (and resisting all repairs) on the old one. This one is a new version of the Lavac, cheaper than the original, but exactly the same principle and the same pump. The worst part of this job was routing the very intractable plastic hose that has to run through various bulkheads and inaccessible cavities. Whilst doing the loo I replaced all of the ageing gate valves on the boat with ball valves.
I have fitted soundproofing panels to all the surfaces I can in the engine space. A mixture of 1" and 1/2" sheets that I picked up relatively cheaply from the chandlery barge at Bursledon. I stuck them up with liberal coatings of PVA adhesive and a few screws in the more precarious ones. It would have been so much easier to have done this with an empty engine bay. The panels don't bend very much so maneuvering them into place when fully coated with adhesive is a messy occupation.
Apart from making some new cockpit dodgers, those are the main projects finished for this winter, the rest of the time, until March, will be taken up with cleaning and polishing the hull, antifouling, varnishing etc. etc. etc.
Fourth season...2006
The sound proofing definitely works, thicker would be better but I'm happy with the result. The season started at Easter with a circuit of the Solent, taking in Cowes, Lymington and Newtown. Other destinations during the season were Owers Lake, Bembridge (expensive),Birdham and Pilsey Island. Overall we've spent 40 days on the boat, all weekends and bank holidays. Is it my imagination or is it getting windier? We've had a few weekends when the forecast would have made it foolhardy to have gone sailing.
I've been playing with a chartplotter running on a PDA during the season. It's a great 'toy' and even came in useful on one occasion, in thick fog, short tacking along the shore to keep out of the tide. I wish I could justify the cost of a full sized one. Having downloaded all the tracks onto the PC it makes a very interesting spider's web in and around the Solent.
It's amazing how an expensive project always pops up during the year, this time it's the sprayhood that's reached the end of its life. For a lot of the season it's had several patches of gaffer tape keeping it together. Ideally I would get one of the local cover makers to re-make and fit a new one but, after getting several quotes, Quay Sails in Poole came out a lot cheaper. They made the original and they reckon they can copy it closely enough to not require a personal visit to fit it.
Another thing I'm getting fed-up with is the anchor taking chunks out of the gelcoat every time we lift it. The bow roller just doesn't extend far enough out to keep the anchor clear of the relatively vertical stem. I'm in the process of making a cardboard mock-up of an extension that will fit inside, and bolt to, the existing fitting. When it's done, I'll get the local 'stainless man' to weld it up.
At present we have a three quarter tide mooring, just grounding in soft mud on most tides. As it's quite sheltered and close to the club slipway we've been quite happy with it. A major drawback is that we get quite severe barnacle infestation that the current anti-fouling paints just can't cope with. I reckon that by the end of the season, if we haven't managed a scrub off, we are losing a knot or more of speed. We have been offered a deep water mooring for next season that's a bit more exposed and a bit further from the slip. After a little contemplation we have decided to go for it. I knew our own mooring intimately having laid it myself several years ago. An annual visual inspection of the warps, shackles and chains was sufficient to assure me of its longevity. A new mooring is an unknown quantitiy and that means that I will have to get down and dirty in the mud giving the new mooring a thorough check over.
Fifth season...2007
Out of the yard and onto our new mooring at the end of March. Our first trip out is over the four day Easter Bank Holiday and we enjoy a light wind and sunshine sail to Poole. Brownsea Island is exquisite in the spring sunshine.
I had the stemhead bow roller extended over the winter and it works a treat. The anchor now stows on the roller without nibbling at the GRP and I can raise the anchor without taking chunks out of the stem. Another improvement over the winter was to fit a pair of Lewmar 40 2-speed winches bought at a boat jumble for a knockdown price. (I even managed to sell my old, smaller, winches on E-bay for more than they originally cost me). I can now winch the large genoa without putting my back out.
We have probably done fewer miles this summer than in previous years, partly because we took a three week camping holiday around the south of France and partly due to some miserable weather on a few weekends.
All the rain over the summer revealed a weakness in our forehatch, the bedding is brittle and the crazed plexiglass is letting in water around the edges. Rather than get new glass and try to re-seal it I've decided to replace the whole thing. The Lewmar Ocean 60 would be the ideal but for £100 less I can get the Gebo equivalent which is perfectly adequate for Fox. I fitted the new hatch in the early part of the winter; it looks good and is well made. Another job for this winter is to take the antifouling back to the gelcoat, it has become thick and crazed, I'm convinced it is taking a half knot off our speed. In the end I only take half the hull (starboard side) back to gel, it's just too much like hard work. I'll do the other side next year (maybe).
Sixth season...2008
We didn't get to sail FF until the beginning of May this year. The weather had been hopeless since we launched. We are now both retired from work (early) so many of our weekends away turn into 3 days, deciding to stay out for Sunday night to enjoy a little of the solitude which we used to find 25 years ago. We often sail, and anchor, in company with another boat so we still tend to sail weekends.
I can't believe it but this year turns out even worse than last year for nasty weather. We spent less than 40 days on the boat and sailed less than 500 miles. That's the fewest days/miles since we had our first boat, a 20ft Vivacity, nearly 30 years ago.
This winter I scrape the port side of the hull back to the gelcoat. Hopefully next season we will get the full potential out of the boat with the bottom being smooth all over. No major changes or additions this winter, just the usual engine maintenance, hull polishing, antifouling, rig check, sail check, varnishing etc. etc... On checking the rig I did find an alarming problem, one of the U-bolt type fixings for the masthead shroud had parted inside the deck. My guess would be crevice corrosion had been at work for a few years and I suspect we were very lucky not to lose the mast during the year. Of course that meant having to replace that fitting (and its partner) but also removing every other fitting and examining with a magnifying glass. Luckily all the others appeared OK.
Seventh season...2009
Well, this has been a much better season weather wise. It started with unseasonable warmth and sunshine in mid-March and went on 'til mid-Ocober. We had 60+ days onboard and sailed close to 1000 miles, much more like the 'good old days'. The sailing was mostly made up of 3 day weekends but we did manage to spot a good week coming up so took the opportunity to head off toward Poole. We spent a lovely week checking out old haunts like Pottery Pier, Shipstal Point and Ridge Wharf inside Poole harbour. Also spent a couple of days swimming and enjoying the sunshine anchored in Studland Bay.
Again, this winter, there is no big project to get stuck into, just the usual maintenance. I did check the attachment of the lifting cable to the centreplate. This involved digging a hole under the yard trailer into which the centreplate could drop. As it turned out, the cable is fine but the fitting on the centreplate was very corroded and worn. I think it would have failed sometime next season. So it was out with the angle grinder to remove the old fitting and to fashion a new one. A very obliging club member welded on the new fitting and I epoxy painted to keep the corrosion at bay. Also found a (cheap) source of 12mm marine ply so fashioned a new set of washboards to replace the rather tacky thin ones we've been living with since we bought the boat. I'll keep the old ones to use in the winter, hopefully saving the immaculate (?) varnish of the new ones.