Back on Board

We made it. Valent was relaunched on time and despite the abysmal weather for the second half of March, we managed to get the mast on and the majority of work finished. We hit our deadline of moving out of our rented property in Lymington by the end of the month so back to life as live-a-boards. The bad news is that the inside of Valent is currently a tip. Remembering which nooks and crannies everything went into is proving difficult. Added to that our personal stuff has multiplied, not least because we have ended up being in the UK unexpectedly over winter and have boosted our bulky clothing.

Once in the water we found a number of systems needed a tweak to get them working again, e.g. bowthruster, VHF or in some cases just decided to fail, e.g. relay unit for the anchor windlass. Most are easy fixes but as usual with these things you end up waiting for parts.

Suzy and the girls remained cheerful and enjoyed life in Lymington, and as well are very on top of the home schooling. The girls enjoyed going to some activities run by the home education network in the area, including art classes, forest school and a youth club. Mothering Sunday happened to be a rare sunny and dry day and we had a lovely walk to Mudeford and took the little ferry across to explore the other side. Lucy has cracked the Rubik’s cube and keeps challenging herself to get faster and faster. Sophie is immersed in her books and enjoying her choice of language to learn on Duolingo, Russian. Essential for all aspiring astronauts.

On the ferry at Mudeford

For those of you who like the technical stuff I will do a separate update on the deck repairs and other major works. Suffice to say, we now have a boat with complete deck that appears to be waterproof. Not only that, but you have to look to see the joins.

The new deck aft with flush lazerrette locker and moulded turning blocks.

All that’s left to do now (other than tidy and sort) is to get to sunny and warm climes, (and win the lottery)!

Work is underway

On Wed 23 Nov as planned Valent was lifted and moved into the shed. After a day of getting more stuff off the boat the work then started. Every deck fitting had to be labelled, every headlining taken down and cupboards dismantled. Whilst this was going on the scaffolders came in and erected scaffolding around Valent to provide some safety, security and a working platform to allow us to work more efficiently. Once this was done the deck fittings needed to be taken off – there are an awful lot of nuts and bolts holding things down like genoa tracks.

Finally we could start to strip the deck. This was a time consuming process as small sections were prised free and then with the judicious application of force lifted up. As expected some areas of the exposed underdeck were particularly wet. On the up side the further forward we went the less water we found. Having cleared an area on the focsle we were able to take a good set of moisture readings and confirm that the only issues for’ard were due to the leaking deck fittings. However, the aft third of the deck was in a bad way, especially the section around the starboard turning block. A polite word for the state of the deck there would be soggy.

Once the Flexiteek deck was up we cut out a section of the top fibre glass skin. This allowed us access to the wooden core below that needed to be dug, levered, chiselled out. The idea is to remove all of the old core and to dig back under the remaining fibreglass deck to create a cornice like cave. This will allow the new core to be retro fitted and provide a solid lip for it to be bonded to. To give an idea of the state of some of the deck, we had a variety of different smells. The drier balsa had a pleasant marzipan smell. The rotten balsa had a smell that was rancid – very reminiscent of the oil in an old deep fat fryer that needed to be changed a long time ago. And then we had the rotten ply – that just smelt like leaf mould, just without as much structure!

The upshot of all of the above is that the whole deck does not need to be removed. The plan now is to rebuild the aft third, strengthen those areas that need it and then patch in Flexiteek to match the remaining deck. Whilst that is going on we will be heating Valent up whilst blowing air through it to drive out as much moisture as possible.

Other tasks involved labelling all of the electronics connected to the switch panel, taping up the waterline and sanding it off, stripping more rigging from the mast & boom. Today we started work on the electrical rewire and upgrade. Identifying the redundant wiring is going to take time, but a good start was made. The old house batteries are out and we disconnected the comms pole;(unfortunately it needs to come down to allow for the deck repairs). The new switch panel has been ordered as have the Lithium batteries.

The cat’s cradle behind the switchboard

In the meantime Suzy and the girls have settled into our house in Lymington and are enjoying the dry beds and being in the warm. The Saturday market has been a hit and we have enjoyed walking down to the sea front and along the coast. We are now getting ready to welcome our first visitors later this week and our spare room will be utilised.

The hard work is about to start

Thank you very much for the many messages of support, sympathy, understanding and above all encouragement. We were very touched by the sheer volume of messages we received and by the various offers of help. For those few who had already booked flights and arranged their winter diaries around our trip, we are very sorry and think (hope) that in most cases you have managed to salvage something – even if it is going to be an extended holiday in Costa Rica or St. Lucia without seeing us or Valent.

Since the last update we have been getting ourselves sorted out and ready to commence repairs to Valent. We took advantage of the settled weather back in mid October and checked over the systems. The water maker was commissioned and worked once we managed to get the pump connected to the in-flow rather than the out-flow. The Blue Water Runner (our new sail specially designed for long distance downwind sailing) was hoisted and we went beautifully along the pontoon!

We also had the mast removed in preparation for going into the shed. This had to be accomplished around low water to give enough clearance for the crane to lift the mast up – a 20M mast is around the limit of the crane at Shamrock Quay. For those that wish to know the mast & rigging weighed in at a tonne.

We have spent the last 6 weeks living on Valent over in Ocean Quay Marina, settling into the routine and progressing the home schooling. It was all very manageable (even enjoyable) until the weather broke and the storms came along. Then with the hatches battened down (literally) and rags soaking up the drips life became somewhat more challenging. The addition of an electric heater and a dehumidifier made a big difference. Next week we are due to be lifted out on Wed 23 Nov and move into the shed and then the hard work starts. Our forecast relaunch date is mid March 2023. So from Wednesday I will be clocking in at the shed 07:30 every morning and doing my utmost to get Valent ready as soon as possible.

Whilst this was all going on we had to work out where we could live – staying on Valent was not an option as she will be uninhabitable whilst in the shed (and not permitted under the yard rules). Also, since Valent has no heating and a deck that leaks, being liveaboards over winter was not an attractive option. After a frantic few weeks of searching Rightmove, making phone calls and conducting viewings we have ended up in Lymington. We have a lovely 4 bedroom house that is normally a summer holiday let; so fully furnished, well equipped and very comfortable. More importantly, warm and dry. The house also affords plenty of space to store all of our personal possessions and bedding. We moved in a week ago and can stay until the end of March. There is no extension, so Valent has to be ready and back in the water as scheduled!

Over the winter months we will think about what trip we can do with the time remaining available to us. We plan to be ready to leave in April 23 and need to be back by July 24, so 15 months to achieve something memorable.

Thank you again for all of your kind words of support.

Coming to terms with BAD News

If you are wondering why we appear to be going nowhere, why we still seem to be in Southampton and why we have been rather quiet then read on.

Last week we received the dreadful news that Valent’s deck is disintegrating, or in technical terms has delaminated. It would appear that water has been building up in the wooden core and gradually the layers of ply have separated. The new deck is no longer bonded to the core below, and the core is loose bits of wood (at best) or a soggy mess at worst. Some of the serious load bearing deck fittings are no longer correctly secured, and if subjected to stress would be liable to pull out of the deck and cause much worse issues at sea.

Core sample from under the Starboard Turning Block

Whilst culpability will be a question for another day, Valent is now stuck in a boatyard awaiting a slot to be returned into a shed for urgent repairs. The repairs will take 2-3 months. We estimate that we will now not be ready to sail until Easter 2023 and will therefore miss the ARC Atlantic crossing this year and the start of the World ARC in January 2023. During the repairs we cannot live on the boat (and even if we could, we wouldn’t want to live on the boat in the UK in winter). That leaves us marooned in the UK with no boat and our house let out. We will work out a solution, but current thinking is to find somewhere to live around the South Coast for 6 months. This will allow us to be close to Valent and to help progress the works as quickly as possible.

Once back on the water, we hope to be able to salvage something from our planned trip; but, given our requirement to be back by Aug/Sep 2024 we can no longer sail round the world. We can only get halfway round. Maybe we go to Australia and figure it out from there. Maybe we just do the Caribbean. Maybe we create our own route. Whatever it is, we are trying to stay positive, and focussed on getting Valent fixed and ready to go.

Living the Life

by Lucy Collins

On Saturday the 27th of August we set off to get a buoy in-between Tresco and Bryher. We set off early so we could get a buoy because there were only two that would fit us. We were a little unsure if we had made the right decision to set off early instead of exploring St. Mary’s more as we had only had one day on the island, but it all paid off when we got to Tresco as the buoys were all empty apart from 2 and we got to take our pick. By the end of the day all of them were full and other boats were anchoring.

The next day we went to the Tresco Abbey Gardens where there were activity sheets of items to look out for that you could cross off. We found everything. Our two favourite things that we saw were the Golden Pheasant, this was very bright and would be impossible to mistake for anything else. Secondly it was also a joy to see all the red squirrels, as the island is covered with them due to not having any grey squirrels there. There were so many that by the time we got back on to the mainland we had forgotten what a grey squirrel looked like. After that we went to do some geocaches (a geocache is basically a smallish box that you have to find and sign your name in the log, then you replace it). One of the geocaches led us to a secret treehouse which I will explain about in greater detail later.

Having done all our schoolwork for the day, and since we had had so much fun the day before, we decided to go back to the secret treehouse. This time we got tracked down by a tractor, but it eventually lost us as we clambered through some wood on the terrain that it could not go on. Once we had got there, we set to work (play). We took lots of weird and wonderful photos which we will show you a few of.

Having spent a lot of time on Tresco we decided to spend our last day over on Bryher. When we got to Bryher there was a big boat beaching itself on the sand. We found some geocaches and had a look in the art gallery and shop. We also went into the hotel and finally went and got ice cream from one of the cafes.

We slipped our lines from the buoy and started our journey back to Shamrock Quay (the marina we were staying in). The weather was bad, and it was the most unpleasant journey that I have had yet. Near to the Helford River our main fuel tank run out but luckily for us we had 200 litres in the spare tank. We were trying to transfer the fuel while sailing with little wind. Eventually we managed it and anchored the night in the Helford.

Having had a rest at anchor we went and got fuel in Falmouth. Then saying goodbye to the land, we started our over-night journey back into the Solent and to Southampton. Early on we saw the odd dolphin. As the weather was so calm, we got out the beanbags and later on watched a movie before we then had dinner. After that we cleared away for the night. While the grown-ups were on watch there was a most spectacular shoal of dolphins. Unfortunately, we did not get to see them as it was midnight. We ate breakfast while going past the Isle of Wight and slowly making our way back into Southampton Water. We had the suspense of getting under the bridge, but luckily, we managed it. We got Valent all tied up and back into Southampton.