Refit and Maiden Voyage 2003-2004

Hitrapia arrived from Norway mid October 2003 - we purchased her in Levanger, near Trondheim, Norway in the September. Wayne finished ‘working for a living’ at the end of January 2004 and moved aboard ‘Isle of Mist’, our old boat in Plymouth, so he could work on ‘Hitrapia’ full time - the plan was to launch at the end of April and then enjoy the summer of 2004 doing sea trials, maybe even cruising Brittany, before setting off into the big blue, May 2005.

Oh, how naive we were!

What we intended to be a 6-month refit turned out to be nearly 18 months. Some of the extension, I guess, can be blamed on us ‘moving the goal posts’ and doing a lot more work on her than we though we would. Although a lot has been due to elements not being delivered when promised or newly fitted equipment being faulty and having to be replaced. Oh and Wayne being hospitalised half way through didn’t help either, but more on that later!

Having the boat minus windows and hatches only became a slight problem when we sold ‘Isle of Mist‘ and Wayne moved into Hitrapia’s ‘stripped out’ forepeak, while she lay in the boatyard.

So we changed/renewed quite a bit; changed all the through hull fittings, as the originals just fell out anyway; renewed all the stern gear; sold the Merc and put in a new Yanmar engine; new electronics and rewired with a good battery management system; solar and wind generators; new plumbing; Angie wanted the fridge under the galley worktop so we changed the galley around to get one to fit. After our visit on another Warrior called ‘Tidos‘, we made sure one of the first things we fitted was a full cockpit enclosure.

The woodwork was quite good, so we repaired and re-laminated it, as we wanted to keep it all original. The previous owner had painted it, including the bulkheads, with a coloured varnish, containing a red/brown stain, but we stripped it back to the original teak veneer and re-varnished.

We were very keen to have windvane steering, so fitted the Monitor windvane steering system, which we have named ‘Wilson’ after the football in the Tom Hanks film ’Castaway’; It is customary among cruisers to give self-steering systems a name as it really is like having a 3rd crew member!

Although the windvane has been a fantastic ‘bit of kit’, we had a few issues with the rest of the steering system. Whitlock have given us major headaches. We had to replace a part of the gearing on the original steering system and after a lot of running around, finally contacted Whitlock direct. Although Whitlock is now owned by Lewmar, they still seem to operate as an independent company. As sod’s law would have it the part that needed replacing was not originally a Whitlock made part - although the system is a Whitlock Mamba, Trident apparently bastardised elements - and all the new mamba systems have the bevel boxes integrated into the pedestals. So we had to change the entire system, including the binnacle, which has at least allowed us to have a binnacle mounted engine control. The system had to be manufactured as a special order, due to a cut-out base casting; we were given a lead time of 6 weeks for delivery. 5 months later and 3 delivery dates missed the thing finally turns up - incomplete - and without the steering wheel we’d ordered (had to have a new one, as they‘ve changed all the fittings for those as well). We eventually had to launch without the steering fitted because it was holding us up so much. Unfortunately, even when the steering was fitted, this wasn’t the last of the problems with Whitlock!
   

  We launched in July and had the Red Arrows do a wonderful display over the marina as she was being hoisted. The Red Arrows cost us a fortune, but were very good! (Not really - it was Navy Day at Plymouth Sound and they were there for that, but very lucky for us). Although she was now floating happily we still had no steering, numerous jobs to finish and the new engine was still not full installed.

A few weeks after the launch, we’d been working on the final elements of the domestic water system. This involved a lot of grunting, swearing and pushing of inflexible pipe onto spigots slightly too large for the said pipe. The next day, Wayne woke complaining of a painful, left elbow.

"…that’s plumbers elbow you’ve got there" our friends agreed
"we get it all the time!"

Being a logical explanation, considering our recent activity, we trundled down to Boots the Chemist, had a chat with the pharmacist and come away with pain killers and a surgical support that covered the entire arm, thinking this would sort it out. The usual custom for a Saturday night was to visit the local Pub and after declaring the night a great success, we went to bed slightly worse for wear. At About 3am, Wayne awoke in so much pain with his elbow, that he insisted he needed to be taken to casualty - Angie was less than sympathetic at 3am after a night on the town. But we got into the car and drove to Derriford hospital (the other side of Plymouth), which in hind sight was not a good idea, as Angie was maybe still over the limit. Due to it being now early Sunday morning, the place was heaving with people injured from the Saturday night activities (mainly fighting by the look of the injuries), so we were ‘politely’ told to come back after 9. On our return 6 hours later, we were surprised to be informed that the problem was an infection in the joint of the elbow and the consultant was quite worried about it. He was admitted to Hospital for a week while they pumped 2 types of antibiotics into him by IV, ever 4 hours. He was quite lucky that they had caught it in time; otherwise he would have had to have surgery. He was on 28 tablets a day when finally discharged.

So it wasn’t until September 04 that we were finally ready for our maiden voyage. It had been a terribly bad season, one consolation for not having the boat ready. We had planned to ‘cruise in company’ with two other boats (Wishbone and Pure Magic) from the marina during the second week of September. Unfortunately the weather was too bad for us to get out for the whole week, but we watched the forecasts closely and a window opened up for a quick dash to Fowey.

Fowey is about 21nm down the coast, so the plan was to go on the Wednesday, stay overnight, and get up early to scamper back before another big low came blasting in on the Thursday. We were both quite apprehensive about getting her off the berth and out of the marina. Other than a brief trial in Norway, we had never handled her. With a new engine, new 3 bladed prop and the Warrior’s reputation for being a pig in a marina, we didn’t quite know what to expect. Our friends must of thought the same because they suggested that they help us cast off. Why is it that when things aren’t quite going right, everybody in the marina seems to be around at that particular moment? We had become quite friendly with most of the local ‘yachts people’ - riggers, brokers, liveaboards, etc, and they all must have been on our particular pontoon to witness our departure. It was a complete nightmare. We had worked out a plan in advance and everyone was briefed, but the boat just wouldn’t do what we wanted. Every time we tried to go one way, she just went the other. We knew the Warrior was going to be ‘tricky’ in the marina, but not this bad. After about 15 minutes of bobbing around, throttling backwards and forwards, being encouraged with numerous suggestions from the growing crowd, now gathered on the pontoons, the penny dropped. The steering was backwards! Once we realised that when the wheel went to starboard she steered to port, we motored straight out with no problems. In fact we were so glad to be out, we just kept going, backwards steering or not. Underway the helm was very stiff and the more pressure we exerted, the stiffer it got, until we only had about an eighth of a turn either side of amidships. Despite the drama, we had a great trip down to Fowey and enjoyed a good night out with our friends.

The return passage was a little bit rough, but the boat handled it really well and we had a cracking beam reach all the way back. By the time we reached the breakwater of Plymouth Sound the sea was a sharp, short 4m swell. The entrance tends to concentrate the swell as it is squeezed between the headlands. A quick gybe around onto a broad reach to lay the western entrance and BANG - the mainsail blew! The leach line held like a sheet as the sail split along the first batten and was billowing out just like a spinnaker, out of control. The sail was totally wrecked. We had the mainsail serviced in the spring and hoped to get at least a season out of it, but I guess it was quite old.

So why was the steering Backwards? It turned out that the Mamba gearboxes supplied by Whitlock had been assembled backwards during production. This not only meant that the directional steering was backwards, but the input and output ratios were also the wrong way round, the more effort we put in, the stiffer it got. The lot had to be returned to good ol’ Whitlock.