Das Fun Fun Fun of Das Autobahn

Das Fun Fun Fun of Das Autobahn!
The Golden Cloud 03/02/2013

Flying down the Autobahn, Alun and I were singing Kaiser Chiefs and “Da Fun Fun Fun of DAS AUTOBAHN” (our cover of the Kraftwerk song) at the top of our lungs. We had only a handful of miles to the German-Danish Border (and safety?). Suddenly it looked like our game was up. An unmarked police car sped past us, slowed down, then lit up and pulled us in. The sharply dressed plain clothed officer walked up to the window and as Alun wound it down, said in an almost perfect Middle Class English Accent “Good Morning” “Good morning officer, I’m sorry was I going too fast” Alun responded trying to act the innocent, but dobbing himself in! “Oh no no not at all, just a routine check” to which Alun responded in an comically surprised tone “Oh… :S Oh, Great!”

The officer after questioning and checking our papers, looked over Alun’s shoulder at the suspicoulsy large load in the boot. “Whats in the back” he probed. “Ahhh, Yes, I was wondering when you’d ask. Were going on a expedition in the North, its our food for the next few months!” Rather confused the officer asked “For the winter!?! May I have a look?” “Most Certainly” Alun said, obviously looking forward to the officers surprise when he opened the boot.

“Wow that’s a lot of food” staring at the too the roof, 2 tonne, mountain of food, [Kicking Wheel] “looks heavy” “Yes yes it is… Could I interest you in a pringle to lighten the load?” Alun joked “Ha. Ha. Ha. [in a very short german laugh] no I’m ok. Please get in the vehicle” To which Alun attempted to get into the backseat of the police car. “No! Your Car”…“Everything is ok … Good Luck”

The overladen axel of the van

Finally the Danish Border!

 Gleefully we escaped and made for Alborg, humming the tune of the Great Escape.

Not Far to Aalborg

And so on we went up through the bland North German and the boring monotony of the Danish Landscape. We tried to brake the meloncoly by playing “spot the turbine parts” as wind turbine blades, towers, and hubs were zooming past us on the motorway from the factory. I eventually won this game as I was first to spot the massive Turbine Part Holding Bay at Alborg Docks… I think I won by thousands.

A small part of the turbine holding bay!

The joy of winning the turbine game was soon bettered by the feeling of job-done as we drove into the carpark of Royal Arctic Lines container port. They sorted out our papers in a jiffy (signing the container as Danish food to make export easier. We were then led by a floating container (our mini container on a forklift reversing away from us in a way that we could only see a flying container) to a open barn where we got to work unpacking the van and packing the container.

The flying container

And so started an excellent game of rugby pass practise with 2 tonnes of food! Amazingly our hands survived and we only dropped one tin. The Joy in Alun’s face as he finally shut the container door was worth every ounce of effort!

The food mountian

Aluns Joyous Moment

On goes the clip!

Then before we had time to breath we were off again heading to Copenhagen with only 18hrs till check in closed on our flight and 15 hours driving still to do. Before leaving Alborg we picked up a breakfast/lunch/dinner from a service station of Cheese, Danish Rye Bread, and Hotdogs. It was soooooooooo good.

Enroute we decided to try our luck in the town of Arhus for a ferry to cut the corner to the island with Copenhagen. On arrival we found the ferry not too dear, and one leaving that evening, added to that as a cargo ferry you got a Free Cup of Coffee, and so into Alun’s primordial soup of a thermos flask went 2 free coffee’s!

Cutting the corner on the ferry

(To be continued....)

What a Difference a Day Makes!

What a Difference a Day Makes!

The Golden Cloud 27/01/2013

So you may all be wondering why I dragged out a 4 month wait between the last blog and this one. Well I’ve been terribly busy!

In September 2012, Lloyd of the boatyard offered me a chance I felt too good to refuse. Golden Cloud, no matter how much we’ve gone through, with her 5ft8 max headroom is kind of too small. Lloyd himself had a 30ft Snapdragon for sale. It came with 6ft2 headroom, a toilet, 2 double beds, and shower. Seemed too good to be true. Lloyd offered me a fantastic price and a good deal on part exchange. Added to this because of his knowledge that I couldn’t leave the boatyard without his help, he said I could buy “Ob-la-dee” in instalments but could move in straight away!.

Ob La Dee is the big red one in the river

So on a Sunny Wednesday morning, after thinking it all over, I called up Lloyd and said I’d like to go ahead with buying ObLaDee. So started an amazing series of events.

At Lunch time I went to speak to a good friend (Nathan Thomas) to tell him the news. During this conversation Dr Alun Hubbard (of BBC Frozen Planet, and Operation Iceberg fame) overheard, and wanted to give me his 10ounces of advice.

Alun himself could be seen as a familiar face, and a knowledgeable one. As my 1^st year degree tutor he told me during a congratulatory meeting after getting very high results in exams “Joe you obviously don’t have enough fun, Go out get drunk more often!”, I went from a 92% average grade at this point to a 67% final grade in my degree so I obviously follow his advice intently!

Alun has owned the 47ft Sailing Research Vessel Gambo for a little while now, and was one of my first ports of call when I needed advice on getting Golden Cloud. His words in December 2011 were… “A boat is a hole in the ocean that you fill with money” and after hearing what Golden Cloud was like “You can’t polish a turd”. Spurred on by his positive tone I went ahead and brought Golden Cloud. His advice was now again coming at the operative moment.

It was however, not quite as I expected. His words were “If you want to go to Istanbul in a Yacht, take a few months out, join me in Greenland on my research vessel for the winter!”

It was an opportunity of seeing Greenland and learning a lot on boats… I couldn’t resist.

Soon I found myself on a train to Keswick in the Lake District. I was off to buy expedition clothes spending my boat upgrade kitty in the process. Later I met my parents to clear out Golden Cloud, and tell Lloyd…“For now I can’t buy your boat!”

Half packed bag full of gear!

3 days later I was in a van with Alun driving from the Cash and Carry in Aberystwyth to the Container dock in Alborg, Denmark. I manically searched the internet on my phone, in attempt to learn how to fill in a Customs Export Form in time for Dover. Between the M25 and the dock I cracked it and we were on our way.

Over weighed wheel axis!

At Dover

Next day I woke up near just outside Anderlecht, the van’s axel struggling under the load was wearing the bearings in a eery squeeling grinding sound woke me. It was now also my turn to drive. So it seemed a perfect opportunity for Alun to inform me about the issue with the Brakes… Brake hard and they jam open (not braking), you have to brake slowly, and/or engine brake (in an Automatic!)… Great for the first time driving on the wrong side of the road! We had 20 hours left to get to the container port, offload the van into the container, then get to Copenhagen Airport to fly to Greenland at 9am the next morning, I’d best get going.

With only a handful of miles to go before the German-Denmark Border (sounds corny I know!) with Alun back at the wheel it looked like our game was up…. (Continued in Next Blog)

Summer Time When the Weather's fine!

Summer Time When the Weather's fine!
The Golden Cloud 13/7/2012


Again after a little bit of a wait a return to the blog. Summer is started (apparently no one told the weather) and I've been up to plenty of memorable moments!


Sailing on the River Leri (with Nathan Thomas) (Following floods) Isle of Wight Festival (Mum & Dad, The O'Rourke's, Amanda Bright, and the Lovegrove's) (with floods) Wimbledon (With Dave Westmore) (with prolonged rain and abit of flooding) and then moving to North England to work in rivers (Same week as some floods) .... I guess its no surprise that people have started calling me Noah!




Although the international press may have told you the Isle of Wight Festival was a total wash out, in fact by my recent standards it was lovely! Great music, great friends, great times! And Wimbledon well it was just a walk in the park, I don't know why people make out like Wimbledon has a problem with rain!

After a fantastic few week's I have now I have migrated to the Preston area of England for 10 weeks work. The work is in River Water Quality Monitoring, and is for Aberystwyth University/CREH. 


The work is fantastic good fun, and also gives me plenty of time outdoors. It only builds my feelings of wanting to become more sustainable. The Beauty of the wild sections of the river, up in the moors and through the rolling hills. And the contrast of this, to the river's coming out of Urban Areas, and river's that are decorated like Christmas tree's with condoms, pantiliner, baby wipes, and tampons that have floated out through sewer overflows.


It makes you realise how bad our modern, unsustainable, not thinking lifestyles are. It makes you realise, something's got to change.


And so with the money I'm earning from this monitoring to help improve the environment, I will be setting up systems on The Golden Cloud to be more sustainable. Including Solar Panels, hand pumped reverse osmosis pumps for water sources, and onboard propagation for growing my own food onboard.


Fingers crossed I earn plenty of money, and I can put this all into practice.


In other news I'm now on Twitter follow me on @Goldencloud24


Speak soon

Getting a bit choppy

Getting a Bit Choppy
The Golden Cloud 16/6/12


As You may have heard on the national and international news, over the last week or so, the river I call home (the River Leri) has has some serious flooding. Luckily like Noah, I got myself an arc before these floods arrived, and so unlike the villages of Tal-y-bont, Dol-y-bont, Borth and Llandre, as well as the countless caravans who I share the valley with, when the floods came, the water just passed peacefully under my keels!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-18378124


The event was quite exciting and kept me onboard for a few extra hours but other than that was just another adventure!!! 


The day when the floods came started like any other at Ynyslas... Windy.
But that day the wind was different, it blew hard and strong, and for once being on the water was quite different to land. Every gust changed my perspective on life, from sea, to sky, to sea, to sky! It was getting a bit choppy.

As I knew I had no chance of paddling ashore as per usual, I decided at that point to row an anchor chain from my boat to shore, that way at least I knew there would be a way out if things went wrong!


In the process of putting in the anchor, I had a bit of a bear grylls style manly moment. A gust of wind (on that day we had gusts up to Force 10!) blew me back on the bank, and as a result I slipped and gashed a hole in my foot. Needless to say in the moment I didn't even notice, but by the time I returned to the boat, it was starting to hurt. So I decided to reduce the gangreen risk, and boiled up some water, put in a dab of flash, and with a scouring pad brushed out all the mud from the river... I must admit it kinda hurt!

The cut post cleaning up, was alot more impressive when my foot was covered in mud and blood with the cut open wide!

Then I settled down with a mug of hot cuppa soup, and got ready to sleep through the storm.


As the night went on, the waters only rose, the tide never went out, Lloyd of the boatyard tried to wake me up by beeping his horn and flashing his lights at me from the bank. He'd been told of what was to come and wanted me to get away to saftey! (although in all honesty I was probably in the safest place!) Needless to say, I slept through it like a baby!


I woke in the morning to the sound of police sirens, then Lloyd tried again, and this time I woke up! He took me to shore, for me to find the area a police cordon and was being evacuated! The flood waters rose all around. We sat on the bank watching it all, as the land around us flooded the boatyard was fine! Maybe I shouldn't be supprised, as Ynys is Welsh for Island, and Ynyslas boatyard was the only land for miles around!

As the morning became evening, and the weather settled, I hoisted my bedding up the mast to dry it out. Tomorrow was another day, and this was just another adventure!

The flood was just another story for the boatyard, but it also brought with it free gas bottles, and firewood, we even saw bikes and tables float by!


Since the floods have receeded, and I've been back to the usual ways, with the exception of the extra fun of collecting tree's from the river and sand bars for firewood!

During my search for firewood yesterday, I also harvested a bucket of Samphire, a small succulent plant highly prized in culanary circles, should go nicely with my dinner!


Onboard the flood showed up a few leaks and a few worries, so I've now wired up the VHF so I can call for help if the worst happens, practised crank starting the engine and rigged up an interior tent so I'm dry from the leaks.


This evening the rains are falling again, and the wind is howling too. Who knows what will float down the river tomorrow!

We are sailing!

We are Sailing
The Golden Cloud 8.6.12


Once again I've left you lovely people for too long. So much has happened in so little time with me and the boat, and now I type sitting onboard my boat as she sways in the Gales.... Maybe this wasn't the best week to give her some sea trials!


About 10 days ago I had a bit of an issue at Uni, and as a result I was frustrated with life. The result of this frustration was me deciding I should spend a week or so tending to my Boat.


As I started working me and Lloyd the boatyard manager, started talking and we decided that it was probably better for me to work on getting the boat to sea for a short period of time, to suss out any issues she had before I spent out on the interior. For all I know I could spend thousands making her gorgeous inside and then the engine might not work or the hull might have a massive leak!


First I repaired the mast, her spreaders (the arms that keep the mast upright) had snapped over winter. To save the extortionate cost of buying Yacht Spreaders, I went to a metal merchants, brought the tube raw and manufactured it myself!

Then I got to work on was sanding down the hull to check for any dodgy repairs... I found a few! 


Turns out at some time in the past her long keel had hit bottom and got damaged. Whoever owned her at the time did a quick repair job with car filler fibreglass, and never got round to going over the job properly.


Needless to say this area now leaked,and so needed a repair.


So I sanded the area down, chipped out the fibreglass, drilled it around the hole, and left it to dry.... Apparently 40 years of soaking water into a concrete cored keel meant it didn't dry, and as time past it kept seeping water.

In the end we decided to mark down the affected area, reseal it quickly and come back to it in the winter, put the boat in a barn and let her dry out.

Next on the list was getting the engine started. So we charged up the battery, put a hosepipe on the water intake, and next morning started her up.

Amazingly she started first time!!!! Turns out the engine name SABB (not SAAB like the planes and cars) which is Scandinavian for hard working and reliable, is quite fitting.


Then I unpacked the sails to check for damage, all sails were the original 1970 sails no damage, just a bit of oiling on the Hanks! This was too easy!

 Then the issues began....
1st I noticed that the prop shaft was disconnected with the engine. meaning although the engine worked it didn't turn the propeller!

And because of the engines age, the bolts were not modern metric dimensions! So out with the hack saw and manufactured some new bolts.

Then all bolted up. Me and the lads from the boatyard slowly hoisted the mast up by resting it on the roof of a shed! By the end of the beautiful evening, we sat around with Golden Clouds on the horizon, sharing a curry and a can of lager! Wonderful!

Then to make her ready for sea, I removed the infamous freezer, and put in a worktop to give me space for chart work. While a porta potty was installed in case I journeyed to Aberystwyth Marina, where the bucket and chuck it method isn't accepted.

Soon it was time to get her afloat, and after a day of cleaning her up and cleaning the area where she once sat, Lloyd picker her up in his tractors slings, and down to the water. Mick from the yard who also owns a Falmouth Gypsy, came on-board to help with proceedings. 

Down into the water, and away we went FANTASTIC! She sat beautifully in the water! And she reversed with ease out of the slings.


oh


wait


She could only reverse!


NO FORWARD GEAR!


Mick ran to the front of the boat and prepared the Anchor!


OH NO!!!!


Luckily the beast of a rudder this fantastic boat has meant she steered OK in reverse. So we gently reversed her onto the mooring, with a bit of help from the nose of Lloyd's rib. 

When low tide game I got down underneath the prop, and saw that too big an    anode (piece of metal to stop the propeller deteriorating) had been installed. So I unscrewed it, put it onboard, and readjusted the bolts on the propshaft.


Tide returned. FORWARD Gear existed.


Since then, I've happily lived onboard, and every high tide myself and Mick have gone down the estuary to try and iron out any issues with the boat.

Yesterday we even got a jib sail up, and in the wind this was enough so we didn't need the engine.

Needless to say these sea trials are showing a few faults (3 a4 pages so far) but nothing that cannot be worked around.


This weekend when the weather dies down I'm going out without Mick for the first time, but with some friends out fishing. Safe Seas and Tight lines!

What to do?

The Golden Cloud 6/5/12

What To Do?

Again after a long period away with work including time at sea becoming an "Advanced Powerboat, Day Skipper, and VHF License holder" I came back to my humble aboard at 12 o clock last night after a hard day’s work. (See what I did there, humble abode, aboard :D)

Then I notice.... Tarpaulin has gone....Great

The strong East winds we had last week, tore the tarp clean off the ropes and tossed it across the boatyard! The grand cost of a 6 by 8m tarp which I cannot afford to replace means I now have to re sew seams, hem, and eyes onto the tarp, before re-ropeing it and tying it back on a more secure way. An obvious result of this was that the boat had about 5 inches of water in the bilge to pump out! Amazingly though, it wasn’t too damp.

Then I go inside, and flick the lights, power was out. I didn’t have time to work out if this was as a result of the water, or I’d just used up my credit on the meter, but the rest of the evening was by torch light.

Then I get down to my bed to go to bed.... COCK IT! Left the sleeping bag somewhere else... not actually 100% sure where to be totally honest!

So as I wrapped myself up in blankets fully clothed and settled down to a total of 4 hours sleep as I had fieldwork in the morning.  Surprisingly though, I felt warm, safe, and at home. The only thing that wasn’t great was the sound of ropes slapping the roof, a sound not heard on the boat for a good few months while the tarp was alive!! REMINDERS TO SELF NEVER LEAVE A BOAT UNATTENDED!

In a months’ time, I'd been planning to meet up with a friend for a long weekend in Cardiff. But on the realisation that hotels cost money, this idea soon gave way to the invite to my friend of "come stay on my yacht instead!"

4 days, 3 nights in June in Ynyslas... that’s the great British summer holidays for 50% of Birmingham! However, they don't have to sleep on a clapped out boat!

So with the realisation that I've not got; a chimney that works 100%, a roof that stops water 100%, and 100% of my insulation, the boat needs painting, the cupboards need finishing, and really the 2nd bed isn't very good, Oh and that the boats a dump, I've got a lot of work to do!

If you didn't guess, this last bit is kinda a call to arms... If anyone has some spare time in Sunny May to help out, please give me a buzz!