Being Ed...

This past week I have been hanging out with the 'LADS' (aka Mark Andrews and Jack Bouttell), after taking on the responsibility of preparing Ed Hill's boat, Figaro 37, for the road trip to France. Getting the boats ready has been a long process, starting way back before the new Academy guys had even arrived to Cowes.

For the past few months I've been working with Phil (who looks after Academy boats and logistics) on inventories, kit storage, planning the winter refit, ordering in supplies and cracking on with some boat work, amongst other things. It has been good to get the final stage of this process- covering the Figaros up in bubble wrap! All of the movable items on board needed to be lashed down or removed and placed into stacking bags, to avoid any damage being done once the boats have been loaded up onto a big lorry. Last Wednesday I had an early start, motoring 37 over to Southampton in the pouring rain, ready for it's lift out at 9.00 am. The was howling by the time it came to lift the last of the three boats out of the water- and I found myself being dragged along the decks of the ship Bladerunner by the tag line on the stern of the boat. On dry land the boys were having just as much fun, chasing after two Figaros that had decided to go for a dance in the wind! After what felt like an age, the winds eased enough to get the flying Figaros back in one place, and the boat I was holding onto down onto it's cradle. After whacking in a few two tonne concrete blocks either side of all the boat's cradles, we could have a cup of tea safe in the knowledge that the boat's weren't going any where!

Jack then ventured to the top of the masts in a brightly coloured cradle, lifted 30 m above the ground by a crane. He had his camera with him and managed to get some cool photos- while removing the wind vanes from all the boats. The vanes have to be removed so that they aren't damaged when the cranes lift the  masts out. Wrapping the masts up in bubble wrap and cling film was a bit back breaking as they were low on the ground; particularly for Mark who is pretty much double my height!

Also during the week we went to the Spinlock HQ, were we learnt about lifejacket design and how Spinlock are at the forefront of improving safety gear. In the UK many people don't wear their lifejackets even when it is rough weather, and they're out racing on the big boats. It seems quite a 'culture thing', which has not been helped in the past by lifejackets being big, bulky and ugly. However these days lifejackets have thankfully much improved and are more comfortable so that now, when sailing solo it would be silly not to wear one. The french are particularly good at wearing safety kit and sometimes can even be seen racing in their survival suits!

Mark tries on a lifejacket



Throughout the day we learnt about different types of clutches and rope holding properties, heading down into the basement to the 'testing room', where the clutches are loaded up to increasingly high amounts until failure. It was an interesting day and it was pretty cool to see how designs have changed over the recent years.

 

Loading up the clutches in the test room

The damage afterwards

Throughout this coming week I shall have more to do with the Figaros, with the main task being to prepare the vans for France- they need to be cleaned, loaded up with the right kit and all be in good working order. On top of that there are a few more sails to find, some freeze dried food to seek out, and the easy part...getting the boats onto three lorries!