John Ridgway Save the Albatross Voyage 2003-4

AIM: TO PREVENT THE NEEDLESS SLAUGHTER OF THE ALBATROSS

Preparing the yacht by John Ridgway

Arun Bose fitted-out English Rose VI from a bare hull and deck in 1975. Twenty-eight years later he is still fitting her out; he certainly “leaves things better than he finds them”. Without Arun we would have gone nowhere.

Andy Adamson has been with us for fifteen years, sailing to Polynesia, Antarctica and Greenland. But he suffers seasickness so badly he has had to give up the sea. Andy has spent the best part of most winters working away to improve the boat. Some of his finer hours were spent rigging a derrick on a cliff in the wood, so we could lift out the 70-foot mast for a re-fit, during the very short period at the top of a spring tide when we could position the boat under the cliff. And, putting the mast back in, in the following Spring. Exciting stuff.

The boat’s designer, David Cooper at Holman and Pye, has kept up a steady supply of sets of drawings as they have faded, decade after decade. I have often phoned and got information which has saved the day; most recently, to increase our diesel reserves, I wanted to fill the two 180-gallon water tanks with diesel and put flexible water tanks in the single 150 gallon diesel tank. David advised me against it for reasons I hadn’t considered.

English Rose has taken us on many long voyages. In the summer of 1999, during a family cruise to West Greenland, Marie Christine and I discussed improvements for short-handed sailing. One thing and another led us towards preparation for a west to east circumnavigation of the world, this time to try and help prevent the extinction of the albatross. I have listed below the steps we have taken:

The Mast and in-mast mainsail furling

We sailed round Britain to celebrate the millennium. Along the way, we called in at Hood Yacht Spars at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, where the ever-helpful John Boyce and his team removed our trusty veteran Proctor mast. In its place John stepped a new Hood 70-foot one-piece aluminium extrusion, complete with the proven Hood electric in-mast furling system. Standing and running rigging was replaced at this time.

In 1983/4 Andy Briggs and I set a 203-day record for a non-stop passage round the world. In 1985, the American, Dodge Morgan broke our record, he was using a Hood in-mast furling system. I reckoned that if the Hood system was good enough in 1985, it would be pretty near perfect by 2000.

Furling other Sails

With the new Hood main mast we have been able to fit a second forestay some 18 inches aft of the main forestay. This enables us to pole out furling yankee sails on either side of the boat for downwind sailing. In addition to the yankees we have fitted a Profurl system for the staysail, and loose-luffed Profurl systems for the drifter and mizen staysail

Sails

Over the years, Peter Sanders of Sanders Sails in Lymington, has been a tremendous support as we geared up for the new rig and I have nothing but admiration for his strong long-distance cruising sails. I have always specified Duraseaming to save the stitching.

• 1 x Furling loose-luffed drifter
• 2 x Furling No 1 to No 2 Yankees
• 2 x Furling No 2 to No 3 Yankees
• 2 x Furling Staysails
• 1 x Furling Mainsail
• 1 x Trisail
• 1 x Furling loose-luffed mizen staysail
• 1 x Slab-reefed mizen sail

On deck line management

In the early 1970’s, when Rodney Hogg was starting his famous Spinlock company, he came on a course at our school of adventure in NW Scotland. His advice on jammers and organisers has been invaluable to us over the years. We soon had the boat laid out to efficiently work all the new lines from the Profurl systems and Hood in-mast furling gear.

Hull Protection

Since 1976, on all her voyages round the world, as well as to the Arctic and Antarctic, English Rose VI has been protected by International Anti-Fouling paint. On the 'Save the Albatross Voyage 2003/4', she will be protected by International MICRON-55 Anti-Fouling paint.

Main engine and drivetrain - Mercedes OM314 + Newage gearbox

On our slipway at Ardmore, Andy Adamson spent the best part of the winter of 2000/1 stripping and re-building our faultless Mercedes OM314 engine. Chris Cartmell and Andy James at Mercedes in London, went to great lengths to source the parts in Germany. The engine went across the loch and a hundred miles down the road in bits, to Andy Horne, at Precision Engineering in Inverness, for a major 10,000 hour overhaul.

In the last resort, our Startwell pocket battle ship of a mechanical starter inspires confidence. Shaun Sen-Gupta speaks very confidently of it.

The Gearbox - We have a Newage gearbox. Marie Christine and I visited the factory in Coventry. Eddie Gould and Paul Oliver supplied us with a right-up-to-date PRM 500 gear box for our old PRM265, which they put on show in the works.

Electronics and Navigation

Neil Millerchip of Raymarine has made the long trip up to Ardmore on several occasions. Always cheerful, nothing was ever too difficult for him. I wish he were coming on the trip with us. We made a complete change of navigation systems, radar and autopilot. Though it didn’t seem so while I was feeling seasick, the hours I’ve spent pouring over those hand-books has proved well worthwhile. I’m constantly surprised at what the various equipments can achieve, it’s nothing like English Rose IV in the Golden Globe Race Round World Race for singlehanders back in 1968, surely my brain is going….

As with our 2001 trial voyage to the USA and back, C-Map have supplied their excellent C-Map cartridges, this time covering the world.

Power Generation

Our Fischer Panda AGT4000 generator is clearly a key piece of kit for the whole trip. I got the idea of Fischer Panda straight from Pete Goss’s book but later read in a sailing magazine that it was too high-tech. Barry Fower and Shaun Austin did their best to keep me on the right road. It worked faultlessly on the trip to America and back in 2001 but we had hiccups later and I’m pretty anxious about it.

Renewable Energy

George Durrant of Ampair has been our patient mentor, there have been plenty of emails. For 203 days, in 1983/4, we towed an Aquair generator right round the world. It functioned best going to windward and tended to kink the towing line in the big swells of the Southern Ocean. But it never failed. We hope the new Aquair 100 will do even better.

The Ampair Pacific 100 Wind Generator looks well-proven. I think we’ll mount it on a bracket half way up the mizen mast this time: last time the wind generator cut my head as I climbed over the stern to go ashore in the Marquesas Islands.

Solar panels we are not so sure of. The cash has just about run out.

Whatever, this time, each of these systems will have its own ammeter, to measure output.

Freshwater maker

Mike Niven of Waterlog made it look easy. We hope the Waterlog 200 will do its stuff, towed from the stern but we’re uncertain how it will tow alongside the Aquair 100 towing generator. At the end of the day fresh water could be more important than electricity.

Steering

Over the years, Julian Whitlock and Bryan Stokes of Whitlock kept a careful eye on our Mamba steering system, often servicing it at the factory in Luton. Now we might have got lost in the giant B and G conglomerate, but Graham Smith is still there and a lot is riding on the 1/2hp Mamba autopilot drive.

Wind Vane Steering Systems

Monitor Self steering - Hans Bernwall at Scanmar is a great steadying influence on all this. A stainless steel self steering gear, well, well. It’s going well and I hope we never have to use the MRUD emergency rudder but we’ll try it out before we go. Anyway, I think I’ll take a couple of Aries gears from 1983/4, just in case.

In conclusion

Well, this is just the new stuff. I suppose some people might think I’d get all this for free. Sadly, not, it’s tough all over and Marie Christine is not always thrilled. It has knocked a big hole in the life-savings. Ah well, you can’t take it with you and perhaps it will be better than knitting and gardening, then again – perhaps not….

John Ridgway
Ardmore, January 2003

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