The Hout Bay Yacht Clubs Market Day

Was this a wash out,? not really the clouds lifted just after I took this picture and I was able to brouse and meet some old friends without getting wet. There are many stalls just out of sight of this picture and the stall holders were only just setting up. The selection is varied, always changing, goods on offer can include tools, home made cakes,CDs, video tapes and yachting memorabilia.

In fact in my case I did well, a classic Smiths oil pressure gauge,with its connection pipe and unions was on offer at one stall, I snapped that up very quickly. Then I had the good fortune to meet the brother of the founder of the TBA (traditional boat association) and find out where Allan Craxton is now. Allan phoned me from Durban later and I will be posting him a copy of the TBA history, writen and produced by Colin Davies.

How good was that!

Roy

Note, the space for stalls is at a fee of just R50 a table ( i think) and all are very welcome to set up for the day. They start at 9am and run to around 2pm, so its quite casual, the trading days are the second and last saturday of the month. Tea and coffee plus snacks are available from the club house, you can have them on the timber deck in the front of the club, just check that view!

Perazim, a wooden boat from Zimbabwe

Perazim, a William Garden design, was built in strip plank by a team in Zimbabwe, it took them just sixteen weeks to build ! The build method is well known but what may not be well known is the amount of waste this method produces.

What happens is that first the wood is sawn, then resawn to the strip size required, it is then planed to the exact size the designer has asked for, leaving a lot of waste wood on the shop floor. The epoxy used will also be wastefull, its just the nature of the strip plank method.

Athol looks like a proud owner and well he should, the paints have all been renewed on the hull, plus lots of service works to the rudder and a new propellor shaft and bearings installed.

Perazim was built to do the Cape to Rio race about twelve years ago, after it had returned and some years later, I then did a survey and valuation for the then owner.
2000


The 2000 Cape to Rio race was the first major ocean event of the new millennium, and entries climbed to 72 boats.

Read more: http://www.southafrica.info/about/sport/south-atlantic-sailing.htm#ixzz27q7xjy94
http://www.southafrica.info/about/sport/south-atlantic-sailing.htm

Roy

International email bothers

We have just been advised the the so called dot com server site has crashed ,hacked or similar, this has stopped any incoming emails from outside the RSA (south africa) arriving in our mail box.

This has stopped mails you may have sent to kits@comlumber.com and roy@comlumber.com arriving.

So if  you have sent me an email in the last four days or so and never got a reply, this is the reason.

For important communications try me on 27 21 790-3859 which is both a phone and a fax line.

Our server advised we check out Godaddy


http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/10/godaddy-outage-takes-down-millions-of-sites/

Note, its now Monday March the 8th, the emails are fine, but Telkoms phone service is now down! so if you phone me, you will just get a ringing sound but not a reply.

Regards

Roy

Fitting a Gori propellor

Its always nice to see maintainace and upgrades being done to existing boats, fitting a new propellor is a big decision, fitting a three bladed Gori is even a bigger one!

This is both a fine piece of engineering and a work of art!  (the sling is loose by the way)

A helping hand shows me how the propellor will look when its working, it will reverse the blades for both forward and reverse and I assume the pitch is variable too?

They are made in Denmark

http://www.gori-propeller.dk/index.asp?ID=88

Roy

The new extension to the Hout Bay YC marina

Going back in time by way of photgraphs can be fun, this shot is of Janet, about 7 in this shot is now 29 years old and a mother with a husband who cuts our CNC boat kits for us!

The Tosca 36 Merry Waters is still on the marina but on the inside berths, Kite was dismasted during a club race when Windswifts radar tower caught her stays and pulled the entire rig down. The insurance paid for a brand new rig!

Right click the picture to enlarge it, taken with my Canon FT film camera.  This was around twenty two years back?

I can see the classic yacht Guide Me in the back ground, they did some 27 days Rio to Cape Town and with out an engine.

Guide Me

Owned by Judy and Jono Brickhill and she remains without an engine.

Name: Guide Me

Designer(s): P Perris

Type of Boat: Lugger

Year Built: 1911

LOA m / ft: 12.2 / 40

Guide Me

http://www.mbla.co.uk/guide-me.htm ( now this is good reading!)
FY 233: An engineless 40' Looe lugger based in Gweek in Cornwall and owned by Jono and Judy Brickhill and built in 1911 by Peter Ferris of Looe for Mr. W Pengelly. She has an overall length of 72' a beam of 12'10" and draft of 5'10" and has since sailed extensively across the oceans.

A pilchard driver and long liner she fished out of various East Cornwall harbours until being sold on to the Solent in 1966.

Via this news we can put a date on when Guide Me was at Hout Bay.

In 1988, the Brickhills sailed south, via the Douarnenez Festival, to Spain, Portugal, Tenerife, La Palma and a two-week hop to Brazil for Christmas. They returned, via Cape Town, and later headed back to the Americas’ coastline.


Now based at Gweek in West Cornwall, the Guide Me remains a very swift sailing lugger.

They were here some while though as Judy gave birth to another child here and Jono went to the UCT to work as a consulatant? I guess they were here two years? (roy)
Race results


CORNISH LUGGER ASSOCIATION 2011 biennial regatta

Large luggers, over 30-ft (all Marshall Estate Agency trophies)

1.Guide Me (Jon and Judy Brickhill, Gweek, near Helston)

2.Reliance (Deena Russell, Penryn)

3.Ocean Pearl (Nick Gates, Emsworth, Hampshire).


The new marina continued!

Hout Bay YC had by this time doubled the size of the marina. The new installation was sold at cost to the members and on the understanding that the cost was to be carried by them and not the club proper. By the time we asked the then Marina Officer Arthur Vink, to fax a copy of the marina extension so we could see what was left and buy one, there were just about four berths still free. We took the one where the Endurance 37 is in the picture.

How lucky was that!

Roy

Hout Bay YC marina as it was originally

This shot will trick quite a few HBYC members, those who do not go back about twenty five years will be really puzzled?

Robs boat Little Wing was a story all of its own, it was later sold and re named Whiblie?

Find Robs story here http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/03/rob-johnson.html

Windswift, just visible at the back, is still on the marina today and Alabacore was once John Ross's boat, today he owns a Morgan 31 and has that on the marina right now.

Click the picture for a larger view.

A photo taken by the late Rob Johnson. Check where we are, its over where the ABC is today, we used the walk on pier near the NSRI then and a club motor launch took us out to the marina then.

Later we were granted a larger water space and close to the quay we use for access today, the old marina, was then laid out in one straight line and on the inside as we know it today, then whats termed to outer marina today was installed and we in effect doubled the amount of berths and as we have it today

Roy

An Antartic white bird sighted in Grainger Bay

Its amazing what can happen when we take pictures, they remain hidden from view for years, in this case two decades, then a question pops up and those pictures are important?

A Snowy Sheathbill.

 Twenty years or so we had gone to a TBA braai at Grainger Bay near Cape Town. One of the members spotted the white bird and told me what it was, he was wondering how a Sheathbill had managed to get this far as its home is in Antartica. We assumed on a ship but why, it certainally was not bothered about our being close to him, so did some ships crew member bring him across?

Both pictures were taken with a Canon FT film camera.

I took the pictures and over the years while knowing they existed, I thought and did nothing about it. Then some months back,  I was asked about a blog entry on a Leopard Seal we had in the harbour at Hout Bay, it was on the HBYC and also the ABC marinas during its stay.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2012/10/seen-in-hout-bay-leopard-seal.html

I later mentioned the white bird and the result was confirmation of what we had seen came in yesterday.

Dear Roy

Thank you for sending the pictures -We have now identified the bird!  It is a Snowy Sheathbill. Check it out here:

http://www.arkive.org/snowy-sheathbill/chionis-albus/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Sheathbill

I think we must write a short note on this very soon. I am highly busy at the moment -but in the middle of October things should calm down a bit.

Thank you so much for sending this

Best regards

Katja.

Front disc brakes for Hillman Imps

This subject has seen at least two Imps in Cape Town and Johannesburg converted to front disc brakes in the last year or so. The two cars in Johannesburg are both racing at Zwartzkop, the two cars in Cape Town are road cars.

This picture was supplied by the maker of Imp front brake conversions in the UK, he also shipped two sets to Hout Bay this year, click on the picture for a larger view.

This is the set I fitted to the Imp sprint car early this year, I now intend fitting a similar set up on our 1967 Singer Chamois and find I need a set of Ford KA or Fiesta brake calipers, can anyone help me with a set?

 

Note the yellow striped road springs, they are lower Monte Carlo competition springs. Some standard South African cars had the same marking but they are a normal length spring.

 

The discs we can get off the shelf as an after market part, its the calipers I need.

Roy
 

Heritage Day in the RSA, a new holiday

I reconise this holiday as what I feel is none political and one for the people, the text from the government web pages say it all quite well. The holiday was added to the calender when the new government was elected, so in a long term meaning this can still be said to be a new event.

For many its the start of the braai season! (barbacue)

I would like to thank fellow HBYC member Justin Philips for the use of his pictures as he rounded Cape Point on his way to Simonstown and the FBYC for their Spring Regatta.

Justin heads out to False Bay from Hout Bay.

24 September [Heritage Day]


"The day is one of our newly created public holidays and its significance rests in recognising aspects of South African culture which are both tangible and difficult to pin down: creative expression, our historical inheritance, language, the food we eat as well as the land in which we live.

"Within a broader social and political context, the day's events…are a powerful agent for promulgating a South African identity, fostering reconciliation and promoting the notion that variety is a national asset as opposed to igniting conflict.

One of South Africas heritage sites must surly be Cape Point and Justin has that off his port bow in this picture.

"Heritage has defined as "that which we inherit: the sum total of wild life and scenic parks, sites of scientific or historical importance, national monuments, historic buildings, works of art, literature and music, oral traditions and museum collections together with their documentation."

(Statement issued by the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, 17 September 1996)

In an address marking Heritage Day in 1996, (former) President Mandela stated:

"When our first democratically-elected government decided to make Heritage Day one of our national days, we did so because we knew that our rich and varied cultural heritage has a profound power to help build our new nation.

We did so knowing that the struggles against the injustice and inequities of the past are part of our national identity; they are part of our culture. We knew that, if indeed our nation has to rise like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of division and conflict, we had to acknowledge those whose selfless efforts and talents were dedicated to this goal of non-racial democracy."

Government determines a theme for each year’s celebrations.

Cape Point to port, well done Justin, I suspect he did this trip single handed (again)

Thats my take on a holiday for heritage and South Africa.

How nice can this be!


Roy

Heritage Day weekend

With a public holiday posted  tomorrow, many are off for the long weekend, sailing is the Spring Regatta at the False Bay Yacht Club and one of our yachts is entered, thats Nandi the Didi 34 kit we supplied to Nick.

The boat was built by Nick in a time of two years, I was surprised myself at Nicks fast build time and to see the boat being craned into the waters of Hout Bay Harbour one fine summers afternoon.

Picture by Kate Turner-Smith, many thanks.

This is a larger Dix Design, its a Dix43 sailing out in Chapmans Bay on Heritage Day in September 24th 2003. The hull took one man six weeks of working time only to build. So Nandi was even a faster build, proof we can have the boat of our dreams if we get stuck in and do the work ourselves!

How hard can that be?

Roy