Two years ago I completed a DIY replacement stack pack / sail cover for our Centaur. 

As it was my first ever fabric project I was satisfied I’d made something cheaply that did the intended job. But it faded within a year of sun.

I was disappointed that the “UV Resistant” fabric from Amazon was anything but UV resistant.  But not that suprised really. It looked a bit naff, but at least all mostly faded to an even shade of blue-grey.

But move on another year and the teeth of the zip started sticking, only after a few weeks of fighting this did i notice teeth missing. Then finally over the summer, unzipping the bag produced a steady tapping sound.. as 50% of the zip teeth spilled out onto the cabin roof one by one as the zip travelled.

Miffed, I still had a day of sailing to enjoy. But after about an hour, two of the white (again UV Resistant fabric) loops attaching to the dyneema lines simply disintegrated in a puff of white dust!

My invention had self destructed!

So! Two years and the unsuitable fabric was useless! Right now Rosie has an older cover on, which is itself not going to last very long but looks ok.

So, I think another attempt but with better fabric is on the cards this winter.

Rosie hasn’t had very many outings these last few weeks but I have been able to get some jobs done and had a few nice trips.

You might notice a different sail cover than before. The one I made to replace the stack pack that came with the boat had basically disintegrated through UV damage as we pulled up the main yesterday. The teeth in the zip pinged off as I unzipped and the webbing basically just evaporated and the lazy jacks all came loose.

Luckily the previous owner had kept the blue cover here and this is back on and protecting the sail from the elements. I think rather than trying to make another stack pack (which was HARD) I will be getting one professionally made for next season. This should do for the rest of the year.

Late last year I had some troubles with engine overheating. After several different sockets and a lot of swearing I was able to remove the old thermostat housing and replace it. Since then the engine has run very well, though I do still need to replace the sender cables for the rev counter.

We share Norfolk with a lot of wonderful wildlife, you’ve got to be polite to the royalty around here.

Very odd thing going on, no changes have been made to the site, it is hosted by wordpress and all the images are still in the media library, but for some reason none of the images load on any posts… It also seems to be an un-googleable problem

Last season was a good one, we got quite a lot of sailing done, nothing broke and the engine was reliable.

We got a bit more relaxed about sailing near the banks than before, which was good because you can point a lot more into the wind due to Bank effect.

I’m now getting started on the jobs for the 2024 season. In October just before lift out I broke the sliding hatch when I was standing on it while taking the main off to store for winter. Luckily I had the boomoto cling on to or I’d probably have done some mischief falling into the cabin.

So, one of the jobs is sourcing and fitting a new sliding hatch board, I might as well take the opportunity to renew or repair the washboard too.

Also on with some painting!

It’s been a lot of procrastination but also a lot of sailing. My replicated stack pack is finally on the boat and first impressions are that it’s doing just as well as the previous one.

I’m still a little worried that the blue fabric isn’t as UV resistant as the amazon seller implied.

Now, you might, like me, think this looks a bit ugly. Well, I think it is and probably because I’ve got it rigged wrong, it has four loops, and it really seems like three would make more sense. I’ll experiment a little more when I’m next on the boat as this setup like the previous one means the main can get caught up when raising it unless you are dead careful.

When I took the mainsail off last winter the stack pack bag had some tears in, over winter I replaced the fabric that wrapped around the foot of the main inside the boom slot, but the rest still looked a bit scruffy, and I was never totally happy with the angle of the jack lines.

While doing this temporary fix I measured the old bag to use as a template. It’s on the boom now giving me the chance to make a total replacement at home using new fabric and a huge zip.

So far, its set me back about £55 for all thr fabric, zip and webbing straps I’ll use, plus £40 for some new dyneema jack lines that I hope to fit this weekend

Fingers crossed that I don’t mess up replacing the old ones.

Rosie did well over the summer, nothing broke, we had some nice sailing days and even found ourselves brave enough to sail down the narrow (18ft wide) Candle Dyke.

We spent a nice week away where we sailed lots, got our confidence up and also explored more of the nearby towns and coastal beauty spots.

For winter, we opted to keep Rosie in the water. Partly for cost and to be able to get out sailing earlier in 2023.

Winter was mild, there were no major issues or breakages. Only problem was from some excess scuffing on one side where a fender slipped too low, nothing that our winter 2023 can’t fix.

Fast forward to April, a fre mild days got us the chance for a spot of painting.

That said, I’ve still not actually finished the painting! But Rosie is ready to go in her summer home.

Weather has been brilliant the last couple of weeks, shame we’ve not spent it on the water, but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been thinking about it.

I’ve been considering how to keep an eye on our boat while we’re far away, on and off I’ve thought about building my own monitoring system using a Raspberry Pi, some basic sensors and maybe an old phone or mifi for comms. That would be a fun project, but may well take a long time to get going. And before that I need to solve the power source, so I’ve been thinking about solar.

I am planning to mount one or two panels on the deck, possibly 2x35W panels either side of the forehatch, or maybe just one similar shape panel behind the hatch.

From asking around, googling and watching videos online I think I’m going to need ETFE coated semi-flexible panels.

Getting this fitted will help keep our batteries topped up and then open up the option of extra electronics, perhaps even remote monitoring.

I’ve been seriously considering VirCru, even with it’s annual subscription cost, it does look very good value for money, especially if I compare it to the running cost of a homebrew system (VirCru is about £10/month where I’d probably need to get a data-sim, account and a mifi, which would come out at probably more than £10/month. The initial hardware costs are fairly low, admittedly not as low as digging a pi out of my desk drawer and attaching stuff to it, but definately more reliable!

After slightly longer than intended Rosie is back at her usual summer home port. Engine is running well and I even managed a few minutes of single-handed sailing on the genoa before getting into Horsey.

Anyway, once underway I met a number of well turned out classic broads sailing boats, they really do well in these light airs compared to a big old Westerly.

The “jobs” list doesn’t seem to get much shorter, but has been OK so far. I never found the time to do the electrical work I’d planned nor fit the vetus waterlock. Both of which will be rainy-day jobs at some stage. What I would like to get done before winter is install 60W of solar and run some kind of remote sensing, perhaps a Pi+GSM mobile to text me if it detects water in bad places.

My provisional plan for winter 2022 was to keep Rosie at Hickling as she used to be, for one thing it costs less than getting lifted out and it’s a little nearer home (only by 5 mins) but I think I really would like to replace or re-seat the cockpit drain thru-hulls (only did the valves).