The 2nd weekend in September saw us back on the water after the August break.

August for some people might be Cowes week and the peak of the sailing season but for us its always been school holidays and time out with the family. This year we took advantage of the downtime to take Jengu out of the water and resolve some of the remaining items on the issues list. As with most task lists its very much two steps forwards one backwards, but at least we now have new items at the top of the list.

We have had Jengu since the beginning of 2016; she is very much a project boat. Whilst she has an excellent racing pedigree having won the 2012 J109 nationals with her previous owners she came to us in need of some serious TLC. In her previous existence she must have been a very dedicated race boat used for a lot of inshore racing, given the excellent state of the head and cooker we don’t thing anyone actually slept on her. 

When she came to us she was optimised to race one design, with a No.1, 2, 3 head sail setup, large overlapping Genoas rather than the all purpose blade Jib plus No. 3 found on most of the IRC focused J109’s. Consequently, our IRC rating is quite high 1.027 compared to most of the IRC boats who are in the 1.09-1.020 range. Our long term plan is to race Jengu mostly under IRC, so we will be adding a bob stay, in-haulers and probably an A0 over the winter. But for now we are racing in one design configuration to learn the ropes.

Late July saw us at Yarmouth for the Taittinger Royal Solent Regatta. After struggling against wind and tide to get to Yarmouth on Friday, Saturday and Sunday saw mostly light, shifty winds, building towards the end of each race. The racing takes place in the Western Solent in a strong tide which in places runs at as much as 2 knots.

We’d gone to Yarmouth with high hopes, the skipper and I think a few other people, mostly on other London Corinthian sailed J109’s, thought we would be able to take advantage of our more generous sail plan to at least beat the IRC J109’s on the water. The reality was somewhat different. I think its safe to say our boat speed didn’t set the world on fire and we finished the weekend with a series of DNF’s and DNS’s. We did however go swimming in the Solent off the back of the boat and the parties were awesome.

Saturday had started with the instruments crashing and showing Error No.3 as we motored out of Yarmouth towards the start. In the land of Nexus Error No.3 is no data. Jengu had sailed 500 miles since the last time we tinkered with the instruments without a glitch. That mileage had included this years Round The Island Race and a 150 mile thrash to Dartmouth with JOG.

We survived all that rough weather to loose all the data in pretty much a flat calm. No amount of rebooting or fiddling would bring the instruments back to life. So we sailed most of Saturday dinghy style with just the chart plotter, not great when you are trying to stay out of the tide in a boat that draws more than two metres. Fortunately the B&G plotter connected to the NMEA 2000 bus still worked and we were able to anchor for our afternoon swim based on instructions from our very patient navigator sat at the chart table. 

Sunday after a limited amount of further connection checking the instruments came back to life and we were able to race but our boat speed was comical.

The whole experience convinced us that whilst in June we had made progress with Jengu further work needed to be done. The list of priority items we needed to fix was actually quite short; just the depth and speed transducers and to check the state of the hull. Both of those meant that Jengu needed to come out of the water.

We booked ourselves a lift out at Endeavor Quay for the bank holiday week. Not surprisingly there wasn’t a lot going on in the boat yard on the Tuesday we did the lift out, just us, Alex Thompson working on Hugo Boss and the Royal Navy, we felt a little out of our league. 

The lift out showed us the state of the bottom of the boat. The hull aside from the waterline, didn’t look too bad but the keel had the beginnings of a set for Finding Nemo.

Most of the wildlife power washed off leaving a thin layer of anti foul. 

Jengu is painted with black eroding anti fouling. The pro’s and cons of anti-fouling are described on numerous other websites; Have a look at this article from Practival Boat Owner; PBO Anit-Foul Article

Eroding anti-foul is rubbed off by the action of the boat sailing through the water taking with it the sea life that has taken up residence. As with hard anti fouling it contains chemicals to inhibit the growth of weed, barnacles etc.. From a boat maintenance perspective the fact that it washes off is a big advantage. Hard anti-fouling, that just works by killing the wild life with chemicals, rather than killing and setting it adrift, builds up over the years and needs sanding back. Applying another coat of eroding anti-foul just involves cleaning and preparing the surface. 

I’ll be honest painting and decorating is not my idea of fun. We got the team from Gosport Boatyard to do the hard work; the result is a much better finish than I could ever achieve. We used International Micron Extra 2 in black to give a smooth coating. We also added a band of hard white anti foul just above the waterline. Previously the black eroding anti fouling ended at the waterline. This led to a buildup of weed on the gel coat giving Jengu the appearance of growing a beard at the bow. The beard growth could be removed with a pan scrub but the process was time consuming and we needed to do it on a monthly basis.

Once we had the anti-fouling tasks under control we moved onto replacing the depth/log transducers. We’ve been working with MEI from Port Solent for a couple of months to upgrade Jengu’s electrics. This task had been on their list for a long time but had been stalled by the need to get Jengu on dry land to do the work. With the parts delivered they completed the work in under a day. We replaced the existing Nexus Log transducer with a DST 800 combined speed/depth unit from Garmin. This had the advantage that it only required one hole in the hull and that the hole required was bigger than the existing hole. The engineers from MEI bored out the existing hole and inserted the new transducer. This assembly was then sealed in with Sikaflex to create a water tight through hull fitting.

The Garmin DST 800 is an NMEA 2000 unit so it can be connected directly to the boats NMEA 2000 backbone. This required a cable run under the cabin floor and a T Piece with terminator in the forward cabin, again under the floor. The old depth transducer was left in place with the cables disconnected. At some point over the winter we will remove the redundant device and fill the hole. 

Finally we needed to resolve the loose connections with the instruments. We decided to take the bull be the horns and replace all the existing cable connections. We had used standard electrical connectors to connect the Nexus network cabling together. There doesn’t seem to be a standard connector from Nexus available to join the four core cables together. The chocolate block connectors worked fine in a relatively dry environment but looked to be shorting out when the going got rough, damp or when there was a lot of vibration. 

After a discussion with the support people at RS components we settled on Phonenix field install connectors as a better method of making the connections. The connectors are waterproof to IP67 standard and have screw connection terminals that make them ideal for connecting to cables where you don’t want to use a soldering iron. These are male and female plugs so a unit can be disconnected from the network without interfering with the wiring itself.

The result is a much tidier area behind the switch panel. We also put connectors between the Mast Display units and their cables at the point where they go went into the mast. One of the conclusions we reached was that a single short would crash the whole Nexus system not just the units attached directly to the shorting connection. 

The Nexus instruments automatically initialise with a device ID. If the cable connection isn’t complete, 3 out of 4 cable connections are good but one is faulty, the instrument doesn’t initialise properly. You then can’t configure the instrument and devices with matching numbers will conflict. As discussed in the post about replacing the wind instrument its very important to introduce the devices back into the network one at a time. That is a lot easier to do if you can simply unplug all the devices then plug them back in one by one.

After a couple of days work we had the system back up and running. With the transducer installed and the hull anti-fouled we were ready to go back into the water.

After a day at Gosport Boatyard where a couple of other issues, including a leaking port light, were resolved we headed for a Friday night at Cowes before the start of the Junior Offshore Groups Cowes Poole race on the Saturday morning.

The weather forecast for the weekend was varied, Saturday looked like gusting to 20-25knots with rain, then more rain, before the weather cleared through, the wind dropped and the sun came out. The forecast was for a steady South Westerly breeze for most of the weekend with Sunday being by far the better day. Our start was at 9.15am so we were going to be going West down the Solent with the last of the ebb tide, high water having been at about 6am. Thats an Ebb Tide out through the Needles with a South Westerly Force 5-6 blowing gusting to 28 knots at times. The wind over tide at the Needles looked like it would be a good test of all the work that had been done over the previous couple of weeks.

We got going early, breakfasting as we left the dock and motored away from Shepherds Wharf down the Medina to the start. Our race start was conservative but placed us in a good position, not too early, in clear air away from the other boats we hit the line at more or less full speed. We were lying 3rd or 4th having followed Just So and Alaris over the line, we initially went low to get good boat speed and clear air then started to climb back to windward to tuck into position behind J-Taime another J109 being sailed double handed. The course took us out of the Solent using the North Channel then up to the North Head buoy, along the edge of the Shingles to the Christchurch Ledge buoy, back to the Needles Fairway buoy then on to Poole. 

As we expected the sea conditions, a South Westerly Force 5-6 wind against an ebbing tide, made for a very rough ride out to the Needles Fairway turning mark. We then turned West towards the finish line at Poole. The last ten miles were a fetch in 20 knots and more wind, we carried the No. 3 and the full main all the way to Poole. 

Its worth saying that there are no photos of that 10 mile leg to Poole, its safe to say it was very wet and very fast. With 6 of us including the skipper sitting on the rail we were maxing out at about 11 knots speed through the water. Nick sitting forward on the rail got very wet from the waves, the rest of us just got wet from the driving rain.

But everything worked. Having set the course up on the B&G Vulcan as a route prior to the start the bearing and distance to the next way point appeared on all of the Nexus instruments. The B&G could work out when we passed a mark and updated itself to direct us to the next one. This gave the helm the bearing and distance to each successive mark without the crew having to leave the rail.  With the rain lashing down we counted down the miles to the finish, desperately looking for that extra half knot that would take us away from the other boats. In the end we followed J-Taime for about 20 miles about a 100m astern. The class 4 fleet crossed the line minutes apart after 4 hours racing. 

Relieved we headed to Poole to dry out. As is always the way, by the time we reached the quay the rain had stopped and the sun was starting to come out. We spent most of the rest of the day bailing out the boat. We’d taken a water over the deck and a lot of it was either in the bilge or the anchor locker. Once we had cleared the drain hole for the anchor locker we turned the boat into a laundry to dry everyone’s gear out. Then headed out for a well earned meal.

Sunday was a completely different day. As forecast it dawned with a zephyr, blue sky and sea, so we took our time over breakfast in the expectation that the race start would be delayed. Breakfasted and with the crew who had stayed ashore back on board we headed out to the start line to join the other boats milling around. After about half an hour of holding position enjoying the sunshine, standing on the bow to drain more water out and passing sail repair tape to another J109, Red Arrow, the committee boat announced that racing would get underway. 

This time we got a blinding start, with the No. 1, that we had high hopes for at Taittinger, finally paying off. In the light Force 2-3 Southerly breeze we were able to make better boat speed to windward than most of the rest of the fleet. We again hit the line at speed in clear air and were able to pass the majority of the fleet on the line. Sadly, we once again fell back into yesterdays position behind J-Taime, albeit in 2nd place. 

This was looking promising, the boat speed was looking good and we were holding our position against the rest of the fleet who appeared to be luffing each other higher and higher away to the south. We made good progress back towards the turning mark at the North Head Buoy. About a 3rd of the way to North Head, Just So, another J109, raised its Asymmetric and started to come down to us. As they had moved further to windward they now had an angle on the next mark that allowed them to fly the Asymmetric kite on a very close reach. They crossed ahead of us and J-Taime to take the lead. 

We looked at the possibility of hoisting our A2, but we were still sailing to close to the wind. Instead we decided to head up to put ourselves between the mark and the fourth placed boat Moontiger IV which had also hoisted its Asymmetric. We luffed them for a short time, but were unable to keep them behind us. So we hoisted our A2 and sailed a slightly lower course. Alaris the fifth placed boat was a way back but catching and we didn’t want to concede another place. 

As we neared North Head and the Shingles bank the wind headed us slightly and we dropped the Asymmetric to give us a better run to the mark. Alaris was still flying their Symmetric kite and started to gain on us. The fleet converged as we reached the North Head buoy. We headed up a little closing the gap to windward to one of the slower boats from the earlier class starts that we were now starting to overtake. Alaris continued to carry their spinnaker right up to the mark but the slower boats meant that to get past us they would need to sail higher than their spinnaker would allow. We rounded the mark well, in wide, out close and Alaris overshot ending up closer inshore. 

We turned and headed east up the North Channel to the castle at the Hurst narrows the next turning point from which we could sail up the Solent with the tide. Alaris and the rest of our class had dropped back. We made it into the main channel, the water swirling at a couple of knots past the castle. Once out of the rough water we hoisted the Asymmetric again and started to head up towards the island shore.

The tactics were simple, sail as high and fast as we could, keep flying the spinnaker and keep Jengu between Alaris and the finish line so that they would have to sail around us to overtake.

With the wind blowing off the island from the East/South East, it would head us occasionally, increasing then decreasing as we passed each valley on the shore. We did our best to stay in the deeper fast flowing water past Yarmouth and up to Newtown creek. We overhauled a number of other boats going up the Eastern Solent mostly from the earlier starts. 

NJOS from the later class start caught and over took us at or around Newtown creek and proceeded to do a very slick spinnaker peel, switching one sail for another. We carried on with the fast and high strategy. We gained the ground back on NJOS who fell away to leeward with their new spinnaker. Alaris maintained the gap but couldn’t get closer than a couple of hundred metres, The dirty, disturbed air that both Jengu and NJOS created meant Alaris closed up to about a 100m, found they couldn’t sail over us then dropped back in the turbulence. That cycle repeated itself a couple of times.

Finally we got to a point far enough up the Solent that we could see Cowes to the East and the finish line. As we cleared the headland the wind shifted and headed us, the shift was probably about 90 degrees. In a mad scramble we dumped the spinnaker down the hatch and headed up back onto the wind. NJOS followed us further to leeward. Alaris did more or less the same thing a couple of minutes later but clearly with warning as they had seen us headed as we cleared the headland.

Now we were heading for the outward end of the JOG start/finish line at the Gurnard Cardinal mark. The wind blowing from the south meant we were now beating up to what was effectively a windward mark with a strong favourable tide still behind us. 

It quickly became obvious that we weren’t going to make it in one tack. 5 boat lengths to leeward of the mark and a little way short we tacked over onto port. We sailed that tack for a couple of minutes to be sure that we would clear the cardinal mark then tacked back over onto starboard. We crossed the finish line beating NJOS by metres. We had maintained the distance to Alaris and the rest of our fleet and held onto 4th place on the water. 

We beat Alaris on the water by 59 seconds after 3 and a half hours racing, though it felt like much longer than that and lost out on handicap by less than 10 minutes.

As a crew we have clearly improved but still have much work to do. But we’ve proved its possible for us to produce competitive results and be consistently not last. Most of all Jengu now works and we are getting a good understanding of what not to do. Its a good way to end the season and something to build on for next year. 

Bill October 2016

Originally published October 20 2016