TSA kit page

KIT CARRIED ON BOARD A TRAIL-SAIL CRUISER

The Spring Cruise around the Clyde Estuary during May 2001 was typical of many TSA cruises, but perhaps a little on the more adventuresome side. It is worth looking at the holiday voyage, and the kit carried on the boats that made it a success, despite encountering an unforecast gale. (The BBC Radio 4 noon Shipping Forecast promise was F5 falling to F4. In the event, the F4 lasted for about an hour, then piped up to a measured F9 that blew for several hours. It was still blowing hard at bed time.)

The equipment list looks rather long, but most of the items, other than the long ropes and flares, were used at some point during the cruise. Nothing was indispensible, but made things much easier.

WEATHER
The weather was not the best holiday weather one would hope for. The week started with comfortable sunny South Westerly winds, suitable for a large dinghy or small sailing cruiser. Then, as the week progressed, the fleet experienced one day that started with strong winds which fell slack as promised, allowing for an optimistic departure from the harbour. However, as the voyage progressed, a thick fog arrived, with visibility down to less than 100 metres, which lasted for a few hours. The fog lifted, and the day ended with winds of 25 - 35 knots. This sounds to be a terrible situation for even very large yachts to experience, but being in the sheltered waters of Kilbrannan Sound, the waves could not grow larger than a metre before they reached the shore. Almost all boats can deal with very strong winds IF there are no large waves. The following days saw nice sailing winds, and the trip was only spoilt by Met Office threats of strong winds on the last day. (The first strong winds were not forecast at all.) One experience of strong winds was enough for everybody to opt for returning their boats to their trailers a day earlier than planned.

Curiously, the six day circumnavigation of the Isles of Arran and Bute was carried out almost entirely on a Port Tack, as the wind politely changed direction each day.

Despite the strong wind, the crews of every boat enjoyed the cruise, and expressed a desire to return the next year. Glancing round the small fleet of trail sail boats, there were many common features that made the voyage a success, rather than a grim experience.

THE BOATS
Varied in size and type, but all had water-line lengths of 18ft+, and the largest boats were 24ft and 25ft over-all length. The majority were around 22ft over-all, and none of them was less than nine years old.

The crews of the three Etap 22i type boats in the fleet reported having the least/little difficulty with the strong wind. One boat - type not stated - nearly broached once, and the crew was very concerned that they could loose control during the stronger gusts.

All boats had outboard motors, and only the two with their motors hung on transom brackets had problems using their motors in the short steep waves that were encountered. Those with motors mounted within the hull said they had no difficulty with propellors coming out of the water, or felt that the motor was at risk of being swamped.

On the afternoon when the unforecast strong wind hit the fleet, one of the largest boats, which has it's engine attached to a hinged transom bracket, had to divert to another closer harbour because motoring was not an option due to the waves. It sailed to the harbour, and the other boats also continued to sail, rather than become motor boats. This was perhaps because the strong wind came from astern, as sailing across or into such a wind would be a very different matter. (The 25ft boat with the transom mounted engine that turned out to be useless at driving the boat over the waves because the propellor kept being lifted up to the surface as the bows passed over the waves was soon put up for sale after the expericence .....)

THE CREWS
All boats had two crew members, of which about half the fleet had a male and female on board, the rest were all male. One male + female crew were semi-novice, the rest had six years or more experience of sailing small boats on deep waters. All the crews felt that travelling about twenty miles each day was about the right distance to sail.

Some skippers have sailed their boats single handed at other times or places.

EQUIPMENT CARRIED
The reader is reminded that nobody in the TSA is competent to judge another member's choice of kit, or suitability of a boat for a particular voyage. The skipper of each boat makes his/her own assessment, and decides if the crew, boat and equipment carried are adequate for what it is about to be done.

All boats carried a lot of similar items of kit, apart from the obvious things like warm clothes, sails and engines. For example, they all had cabins with adequate bunks for their crews, and facilities to prepare hot meals in a harbour, as well as carry water to drink and wash-up with. All of which are part of any boat's basic design, and offer various levels of space and luxury to the crew, depending on the boat's design. As did the choice between using gas or alcohol for the cooker.

The owners have added other items, and the following list of what almost every boat carried is definitely not in any order of priority.

Anchor and sufficient chain + rope to stop in 10 metres of water without extending the
                  scope with extra ropes. Some boats carried two anchors.

Long rope - Most had at least one rope of about 100ft length.
                 Old climbing ropes were chosen by some skippers. (Nice & elastic !)

Compass - One relied on a flux-gate compass, the rest had traditional cockpit mounted
                 half-ball type magnetic compasses. Some carried hand-held compasses.

Echo-sounder - All boats carried one with a digital display.
                       All said they preferred the old-fashioned rotary arm type when the topic
                       was discussed by a small group of crews, because they felt more
                       information could be gathered from the old type of display.

Log - All boats carried one.
                     There was general agreement about the distance travelled each day,
                     implying that the logs were correct to +/- 10%.

Wind Speed - Two boats had wind speed and direction displays in the cockpit.
                     The rest relied on traditional means of assessing the wind.

Life jackets - Mainly the shawl type with either an auto or manual gas inflated bladder.
                   All carried life jackets for each crew member. A few wore their life jackets
                   as a matter of habit when sailing. More wore them when using the dinghy
                   to go ashore, and yet more life jackets appeared when using the dinghy to
                   return to the boat after an evening in a pub.

Inflatable dinghy - All boats carried an inflatable dinghy, none were new, all floated
                          properly with both crew on board.
                          Only two boats carried a small engine for the dinghy.

Legs - All boats were capable of drying out on mud or sand, and had legs if needed.
          (It made for a peaceful night when it was still blowing old boots mid week ! )

VHF radio - Only one boat relied on a good quality hand-held set, the rest used fixed
                  installations with mast-head aerials. Three boats had both types on board.
                  Some boats had cockpit speakers, others had the radio mounted in the
                  cabin near the cockpit, where it's speaker could be heard whilst working
                  the boat. Some had the aerial passing through a deck plug, a few had the
                  aerial leading directly from mast to radio.

Flares - The topic was not discussed.
            (Some boats were known to carry them, including out-of-date items on the
            basis of having something that might work is better than having nothing at all.
            It should be added here that flares that are well out of date can be worse than
            having nothing at all, because they can explode in the firer's hand. Also, red
            flares may become pink flares with time.)

GPS receiver - All boats. Assorted makes and ages but all fully useable by the owners.
                      GPS was the method used on all boats when the fog descended.
                      All expressed satisfaction/confidence with the system's accuracy.

Auto-Pilot - All boats carried either Navico/Simrad or Autohelm/Raytheon tiller pilots.
                 All were stand alone units, and not part of a 'Navigation System'.
                 During a discussion about auto-pilots, owners of Navico/Simrad units
                 seemed to be more enthuiastic about their choice than those using
                 auto-pilots made by Autohelm/Raytheon.
                 (This may be a personality thing, rather than an objective assessment.)

Charts & Pilots - Mainly Imray charts and MacMillan's Reeds Almanac, all of which
                         were either current or a year or so old.
                         Two mentioned carrying the Clyde Cruising Club's pilot book.

Tidal Data - Came from different Authoritive Sources, none of which agreed about the
                  times for High and Low waters, there being occasionaly more than half an
                  hour variation in predicted times. One was better at getting Low Water
                  right in the context of observations, but High Water was wrong by 30 mins.

Entertaiment radio - All had some sort of radio, be it a car radio or a portable transistor
                             radio receiver capable of getting BBC Radio 4 shipping forecasts
                             on 198 metres long wave, as well as FM broadcasts.

Battery & Charging - All the boats relied on the out-board motor to re-charge their
                              batteries, most of which were Leisure batteries in the 60 - 75
                              amp-hour range. Nobody carried kit needing shore power.
                              One carried a half amp solar panel - useable for only 1 sunny day..

Spare Petrol - Carried in cans, starting the voyage with enough for perhaps eight or ten
                     hours of motoring. A few boats, with larger engines, carried more.
                     There was no common agreement about the minimum to set off with.
                     Nobody ran out of petrol. There was little need to motor.

Mobile phone - Just about useless in a sparsely populated area with high mountains.
                      Only Vodaphone worked in East Loch Tarbert. Seemed popular things
                      to carry, and useful when they worked.

Navigation lights - Not relevant when cruising in an area where the sun sets at 10pm
                          and rises at 4am.
                          All boats had Nav Lights, either mast head tri-colour or mast head
                          and pulpit mounted bi-colour for inshore sailing.

Riding lights - Most carried a portable light bulb that could be hung from the rigging, or
                    had some form of parafin lamp suitable for use as a riding light. In the
                    event, when the fleet anchored, there was no point in rigging riding lights.

Navtex - Two boats carried NASA Navtex receivers. Irish transmissions were the most
             reliable source of weather information via Navtex. (Not the nearer UK station.)

Torch - Every boat carried at least one good torch.
           Some also carried a half million candle power search light, ('search light' means
           cheap car supermarket type), that could be powered from the boat's battery.

Spray hood - Just under half the boats were fitted with spray hoods.
                    It was very noticeable that the crews on boats with spray hoods did not
                    feel the same need to fit the wash boards and close the main hatch when
                    in a marina or harbour, as those on boats without spray hoods.
                    This prompted a debate about it being better to spend money on a spray
                    hood or an auto-pilot. There was no conclusion drawn.