Small Boat Voyages

The retrieval from Coniston proved difficult once more. The boat was missligned on its rollers. The problem was it was evening and access to the water was cut off when the gates were locked for the night. I had to jack to boat up on the car park and reposition the trailer under the boat. Read more

It’s April. It’s still a few degrees below zero at night but can’t wait any longer. Time to brave the elements and go for a day or two sailing. Coniston Water in the lake District was our location here. Still fairly inexperienced at sailing and over a year since the last expedition at Bala. But Read more

Since Tarka is now over twenty years old I decided to do an inspection of the keel bolts after seeing some horror stories that some boatyards have unleashed into the public domain. One or two bolts did look a bit discoloured or rather the timber abound the bolts. After speaking to David Moss he didn’t Read more

I was supposed to have two days coaching on Bala but the second day was postponed and then cancelled. Victim to Covid. I’m still working full time but contemplating retirement. Now I can stay at home all week as long as I continue to put in a full days grind. Kind of spoils it but Read more

Trial launch and day sailing expedition is next on the agenda. I booked a qualified sailing coach from Bala Watersports Centre to accompany me on this first sail reason being that although I had worked on the appearance of the boat I was still as yet inexperienced on the water, and new to this type Read more

Refurb mostly finished I turned my attention to the trailer and launching procedure. The trailer is a tipping type, or break back trailer. The drawbar, normally rigid is, while still hitched to the car, partly unpinned and allowed to pivot downwards. As the loaded section of the trailer now has a weight bias towards the Read more