Hurley 2470 Sailing

Somewhere between sailing on an Oyster 55 this summer (see Artic Circle Sailing) and my recent addition of a home built sailing canoe, there sits my trusty Hurley 2470. Here's a flavour in photos of 'Concord' sailing. With a home port of Milford Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast this provides some excellent sailing opportunities and normally a trip once a year across the Irish Sea to the Emerald Isle.

Autumn, first light

Waterford, Ireland

Too cold for sailing!

The Irish ferry needs to be dodged several times a day

One of many favourite and unspoilt anchorages

Docks by night

The Smalls lighthouse

Rigging the new multi purpose genoa

Annual maintenance is very much part of the deal with boats (stripping the antifouling back to the gel coat ready for applying 'gelshield' took for ever last winter).

Some work gets a lot more interesting than scraping the hull, here I rope my Father into making some new wash boards and a sliding hatch for Concord.

Very smart and well sub contracted out on this occasion.

Over the fourteen years which I have owned my Hurley, a large proportion of the fittings have been replaced. This has included fitting a new engine, completely re-wiring the boat, some structural strengthening under the mast, replacing rigging. All jobs which have provided me with some good experience, the odd headache and an empty wallet (even though I complete all maintenance and improvement work myself).

For me a big part of the sailing is the access to the wildlife which it provides. Inquisitive seals always like to check out the boat. Also puffins appear fairly relaxed in our company.

A cliff walk from an anchorage always presents some photo opportunities.

A telephoto lens ensures that others are viewed but left undisturbed in their natural surroundings.

Rivers & Lakes

What's this, could my wife be gradually getting into boating? With Rivers and Lakes on our doorstep, we are now both having some mid life crisis involving canoes!

Looks fairly happy in a boat, now she has her own!

Made it to the other side!

Camping trips now involve at least 3 boats for the 2 of us.

Norwegian Waters

Just back from a 730 nautical mile trip from Bodo, up in the Arctic Circle down to Bergen, on an Oyster 55 (something of a contrast to my own smaller fleet of canoes).

Jackie dressed for Arctic Circle sailing and on the helm.

The land appears to instantly disappear into truly deep water allowing the coasters to almost skim the mountains, north & south, up the Norwegian Coast.

This coast is just peppered with rocks, with long stretches 15 miles or so out!

There were two highlights of this excellent trip for me and this was the first, diverting to explore the Svartissen glacier.

It's not every evening you pick up a mooring for the night at the foot of a glacier.

My watch on the helm!

Onoy Island

One of the Arctic Circle marks

Into Kristiansund to sit out some gale force winds in the forecast. I liked Christiansund, which was a good job as we spent several days here. The forecast around Statt headland (our next obstacle) turned to Storm force 10 and clearly that was not the place to be (so Kristiansund and surrounding anchorages became our base for a few days).

My second highlight was chancing on a wooden boat centre, including some real gems. The one that took my eye particularly, was the Colin Archer yacht 'Christiansund' and I would love the chance of a sail on one of these Norwegian classics sometime in the future.

For anyone wanting to see these heavy displacement historic boats (which formed the first lifeboat service for this coast), have a look at this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmI5_nrJ58k&feature=channel

A design above which has clearly influenced Iain Oughtred (designer of my sailing canoe on this blog) with some of his other great designs.

The moorings in crystal clear (but cold) water were something very special.

The Storm and Gales gradually went although the next 300 miles were sailed mainly in force 7, near gale conditions and with some big seas hard on the quarter. Surfing down these waves will be something to remember. The body clock during these passages had to get used to four hour watches, four hours off, repeating this cycle. This was definitely an interesting experience, particularly eating and putting sailing gear on, while the yacht rolled heavily down the waves. Sleeping was not a problem (at least for me) well tied into the berth with lee cloth in place to keep me there.

We eventually arrive in Bergen at first light.

A place of:

Fish

Dried fish

Photogenic wooden buildings and great views down over the city (below)

A really good holiday and for anyone else interested, Velvet Lady sailing comes highly recommended http://www.velvetadventuresailing.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=1

Quick video below (until I find time to edit the main video together), with Michael on the helm.