The Eventide Owners Group news page, updated regularly

These pages will be updated on an almost daily, certainly on a weekly basis, from all the mail and information coming in to us.

Hope Santa brought you and yours all you wanted or needed, and you had a merry old time! We spent a few days with family up in Suffolk at Centre Parcs. Now back home to relax and recover after all the cycling, swimming, Badminton, 10 Pin Bowling, tired right out!

The January Edition of 'Classic Boat' has one of my pictures in it, that of 'Glasstide', sailing along side as we crossed the Thames Estuary a few years back, nice pic even if I do say so myself. There is also my write up on the Eventide.

Sadly none of my text nor photos were used by Practical Boat Owner in their mention of the design. Though they asked for photos and up to date information and I happily supplied it in abundance.......

Loosing faith in PBO. They have gone a long way off course. So much so that I am cancelling my subscription this January. Got every PBO from number one, (back in 1968...) mostly in folders and indexed. But when I take the time to send them details as they requested and they do not use any and instead fill the magazine with racing dribble and super yacht building, enough. I fear poor Denny would be turning in his grave, time to go!

Time to try to welcome another new member, Peter Gibson, we would be sending the official welcome mail soon Peter, however somehow his mail address was missing, so Peter please mail us, on enquiries@eventides.org.uk Peter owns a Barbican 33, 'Buzzard', another to add to the growing fleet of Barbicans! Sails the Solent area. When he gets in touch I will ask which keel configuration she has.

Had someone contact us re my round UK sail last year, looking for advice, pleased to assist. However there was the assertion that he was looking for some cheap paper charts as a 'back up' to his Plotter!!! No Never, a Plotter is the back up to the paper charts surely! They must always be the primary navigational tool on board any decent craft! Or am I really a dinosaur now?? Seen too many rely on plotters and come unstuck. Amazed that no one even takes the trouble to get their SD cards for the plotters updated before they go off.... and then when the wheel falls off they always can shift the blame.. sad.

It's panto season and I am being taken to see 'Diversity', a great group of acrobatic dancers, if only we could all perform in such harmony! Somehow I always seem to be the only one in step so often! Oh No I'm not!

All the best to all in 2019 and wishing for a good sailing season for all in the northern hemisphere!

The solstice is upon us! Soon the days will be getting appreciably longer, again, roll on the summer sailing season!

This in from Dick and Garth at East Coast Pilot. ( Garth is a Seagull customer of mine as well!)

As normal this time of year mails are few and far between, everyone has family things to deal with. No exception here, we will be here, there and everywhere, over the next week. Family and friends visiting, so busy...

Looked out the window and realise I only just got those bouncing snowmen out in time, its snowing!

Not long to go till the 'big day' now, but still just enough time to get in an order for a new burgee.....

We have heard back from one of our new members, Adrian, he has joined us really just to sell his Golden Hind. Sadly he is no longer in a position to use her, so she is advertised on the 'For Sale' pages.

Jim in Australia has a set of drawings for the Senior hull from Selway Fisher and is wanting our CD of drawings to complete her, hope to hear from him soon.

Had an interesting mail in from a member about yacht surveys, a bit of an eye opener. Always amazes me how someone you think is quite careful can go out in a boat that I would not launch! All down to common sense really. Have a look:-

Heard from Tony in Eire with the YM Junior. He has all the rig and is stripping dark stain from the spars to restore them with varnish! Will look great, but take a bit of looking after, but I think he has a large boat shed/garage.. that will help. Look forward to pics of her under sail next year!

Matt has sent some GH pics in that I have yet to post on the pages, a couple not seen before...

After a couple of sparkling, clear, sunny and still days, (great for burning up all the brush wood from a dead tree), cooler then wetter weather coming our way here in the UK. Today and yesterday were real bonus days.

We sadly had to cut back a dead Walnut tree here, we, (well the tree surgeon), has, reduced it to a 10ft stump with just two strong limbs, those with the garden swings on them. It is safe, for now. Now we have a pile of 6inch approx diameter logs, that we are passing to friends who do wood turning. We are promised a couple of egg cups! Walnut is a beautiful timber for this.

Anyone near to us in Essex want a bit of Walnut to shape into something? Sorry, no bits long enough to make a guitar fret board with. (One traditional use for it, another is car dashboards of course!).

So far no one has come forward with any news of the WW Witchwood. Wonder if she is still out there.?

All for now, counting the sleeps till the jolly fat man comes down the chimney, if you still have one!

Welcome to Adrian with the G.H. 31 'Mallibee'. Now that is an unusual name I have asked Adrian for the origins of it. Her home waters are Lyme Bay, big bay! lots of dolphins there last summer!

Welcome also to Jim from New South Wales, he has the Selway-Fisher Senior hull construction drawings and is in need of our Senior DVD/CD with the rest of the drawings to complete her, hoping to find out how far he has got.

Some may remember about 15 years back we got Selway-Fisher to design a properly engineered stitch and glue and tab construction hull, after several saw a diabolical floppy cardboard version some clown was offering as an 'improved' hull construction design. Pleased to say several have embarked on building Seniors the S/F way, but as yet not heard from anyone who has launched????

At least one Eventider has just registered on the forum, after my mix up with the security code! If you are a member and wish to join the Forum, mail and we will check your enrolment details, then send the password.

Lastly a call for Chris the last known owner of 'Lady Gertrude'. Chris if you are out there your mail address has bounced, we tried to put a former owner onto you. Bet you have changed mail provider... Let us have the new mail address and we will pass on the info.

Same goes for any member who may have changed e-mail address, please let us know if you have a new address.

Hello all I have an apology to make! For a little while I have had a finger problem on the pages, thankfully so many read my bloopers and can correct me, so the misstrypes only stay on for a day or two...

However I have excelled this time, I have been sending members the security code to access the Forum and including one of my finger mashups! Fortunately as Matt Ward was persevering with the registrations I was also communicating with the webmaster Peter, he spotted my deliberate mistake!

so now if you use the code I was giving out recently and could not make it work, Peter has amended it so it will! The older code will also work!) Clever.

Once again the weather is playing with us, 13 degrees outside today, but was blowing F5 to 6 and wet. Will we pay for it later I wonder? Day before yesterday I was out working in our little bit of woodland and it was too hot to wear a coat.

I have spent a few hours tucked away in the warm and dry today, updating the web pages, loads of them!

I have added a new Junior to the pages, a real rarity, a new Senior, 'Freya' with photos of her being built and afloat. A few more pictures of 'Marshallin' the GH and one of the Barbican 'Orion', formerly this one had three other names.

Also added updates on the new Senior 'Bethem' building in Norfolk. Thanks to Mat our Senior rep for this and the pics of 'Freya'.

I have moved the beautiful 'Jorrocks II' from the 'For Sale' page to the 'MG designs' page, she has changed hands.

Welcome to new members Pierre and Els in Belgium with the Barbican 'Orion' They have suggested they may be coming over to the UK next season, we will watch out for them. hope to cross wakes.

Had a few owners ask as they were on the lookout for replacement sails, sadly I only have the one near new set of Eventide 24 sails here at the moment, and an old set, very cheap... But I can recommend this site, formerly Sea-teach... https://www.oceanchandlery.com/sea-teach-sails-cruising-chutes.html I got a very near new tan genoa for silly money a year or so back, had it altered to fit 'Fiddler's Green' and used it on my round UK trip.. a quarter of the cost of a new one and no one could tell it was not new!

A local friend has asked me for help selling all his old sailing kit, he has swallowed the anchor. I am making an inventory and investigating values at the moment, when I have it all sorted I will be adding loads to the bits for sale page for him. Not a member, but did own the MG Bawley 'Banjo' years ago. Anyone after a Bickerton folder or a 4 man life-raft in a case on a cradle? Watch this space!

Had an enquiry about slack rigging. This is bad news, rigging should not be slack, the mast may then be at risk. When actually sailing the lee rigging should just feel slack but not be flopping about, that is asking for trouble. See the article on the owners tips page if you are concerned! I am amazed not many even put a static pre-bend into their masts, makes all the difference if you get it right... Difference between missing a tidal gate or closing time!

Think that is all for now. getting late and suspect I am going to be dragged out shopping tomorrow so must have an early night to prepare for the stress! Worse than crossing the Celtic Sea!

Welcome to more members enrolling! Three in the last week or so. We have had more information from some of them.

Robert in Devon has confirmed his Eventide is 24ft not 26 and is not the same 'Serenity' that friend Jack built. As John Stevens pointed out to me, that makes three with the same name, a GH, an E26 and now an E24. For this one I searched and found details of her going back to 1987 and was able to supply Robert with her sail number!

CJ has been given details of how to get the Eventide drawings he is after... Hope to hear from him soon...

And the latest enrolment, Allan in Queensland, is interested in the MG designs and lives on a 12m home built motor cat, see above. He chanced across a WW the other day and that is what triggered him to enrol. Sadly the WW was not in good order... As he built the rather nice looking motor cat he could easily have built a WW, but as he says, advancing years.... Maybe a model?

A member from Sweden requested a set of Cockler drawings, sadly he sent a cheque off some time back but it never arrived, so he is to try again. Watching for the post Ian.

I am hoping to find the time to edit the site today, for the last week there has always been a reason why I could not! Lots to add! Was poised the other night when I got a mail from the provider, Heart, telling us they were doing essential work on their servers so they were not available to us.... then we had a power cut, then it was my sisters birthday party... what next..

Almost forgot, PBO have been on and want to do a bit on the Eventide for their boating through the decades, I have sent a few pics for them...

We are now in winter mode here, our boat and our 50 year old moggy van both snugged up, under cover and logs ready for the fire. Told that warmer, windier and wetter weather on the way for next week. Hope your covers are secure..

Welcome to yet two more new members, 'CJ' from Sussex who at the moment sails a vintage Colvic, but is interested in building an Eventide. He is after a set of drawings on a DVD. We have had several recently express interest in actually building, rather than restoring, so much so that we are talking of resurrecting the issue of sail numbers! If the person in possession of the old sail numbers books is reading this, do the right thing and pass them on.... Do hope this building surge is a growing trend.

Welcome also to Robert in Devon who is the proud new owner of the Eventide 'Serenity', good to see her back on board. We were friends with the builder, the late Jack Shenfield and we see Steve, his son, often, he will be pleased she is being cared for again.

Had an encouraging mail from Mefo, his MG Classic 'Jorrocks II' has been sold and the new owner is keeping her at Faversham and keeping in touch with Mefo. I suspect Mefo will get another sail in her before long! I will be moving her advert from the For Sale pages soon.

Had an enquiry from Matt regarding the rigging tension on his Golden Hind, apparently it is a little slack!! I have referred him to the page on rigs and rigging on our hints and tips pages. Tighten it up! Never heard of a mast failing through tight rigging, many through slack rigs though!

Another Mat, our Senior rep, has sent in a lot of information on a Senior he knows in Norfolk, 'Freya', he is assisting the owner alter the underwater shape to nearer the 'Extended Bilge Keel' version that Martin Lewis prised from the designer and that worked so well! Look forward to seeing the updates on that one.

We were approached by one of the editors of Practical Boat Owner last week, they are doing 'something' that required a front page picture of an Eventide, I was able to furnish them with a few good pictures. However with so many owners as members, it is a shame we cannot get more good shots of our boats under sail! Need to organise more cruises in company! All the ones I had were obtained this way!

And lastly a Free Book! Toby Harris has a copy of ‘Keeping Nyala in Style’ to give away. Just pay him the postage... If a member, members only..... is interested, please contact us at enquiries@eventides.org.uk and I will pass your mail on, (after checking you are eligible!)

We also have more Senior building pics and text to add to Mat's Bethem, coming on nicely!

Also had yet another enrolment, Alan in Queensland Australia interested in the Waterwitch design, seems he already has a set of old drawings, I will try and find out more.

Feels as if winter has arrived, a bitter Easterly wind blowing and hail stones heaped up on the window sills. Time to feel the warmth of the log fire.. Let the F7's blow!

Had a prompt to read an entry on the Forum over the weekend, about annoying leaks in GH cockpits and how to trace and deal with them, John has found the dreaded rot in his G.H. and he tells us how he has eradicated it. The forum is at last beginning to get some serious use, it seems to have taken a long time for members to cotton on.

If you are a member and wish to post something on it, or respond to a 'thread', as messages are called, you will need to first 'Register' on the forum, see the 'Register' button on the first page.

You have to chose a name to call yourself, I am 'Fiddler's Green' of course and then chose a secret password to go with the name for every time you visit. (remember it or write it down!). In addition, to initially register you will need a special code word, simply mail me to get that code, provided you are a member... Or Enrol with the EOG and we will give you the code on joining...

That tiller arrived here over the weekend, or actually I had to go and get it, it will clean up and be very suitable! When it is warm enough to get glue to set I intend repairing the small spilt in it and enhancing it...

Had a mail from Tony our new 'Junior' sailing dinghy member, he has saved the hull of his 'Junior' and is now working on repairing the decks etc. with any luck he will be sailing the inland waters of Eire next summer and we will have more pics!

Had an interesting one in from Jill Allen, could we trace her Dad's Waterwitch, 'Witchwood'?

She was built in Lytham, Lancashire in the mid 1960s and later moved down to Lymington, from where she was sold in the mid 1970s.

She has a photo and lots of movie footage and would like to know where she is now. If anyone can assist, please contact her, or us. jill.allen2601 at yahoo.co.uk or enquiries@eventides.org.uk

One of the interesting snippets Jill told us was she appeared in the background of the 1974/5 film 'Brief Encounter', with Richard Burton and Sophia Loren! Apparently in a scene near the end, she can be seen in the background alongside a harbour wall, (Lymington Quay), with her mother and father on deck and her brother up the mast!

She may have been sold to someone in the Netherlands and of course may have changed names. Jill cannot see a sail number on any of the photos or movie shots sadly, but does anyone know where she is now? She appears to have never been on the books.... We hope to add photos soon.

That's all for now, watching the thermometer plunge, thought the sunshine last week was too good to last.

Amazed to see the outside thermometer still up in the mid teens. Sure we will pay for it later.... When I drove alongside the River Blackwater a day or so back there were sails out there, in sunshine, in November!

Spent over an hour on the phone yesterday with Classic Boat. One of the associate editors there, Steffan, who I have known for years, is doing an article about affordable Classics and the Eventide is having its turn. Of course he has put me and F.G. in the article but I have supplied nice pics of over 20 Eventides under sail and I am told some will be perfect.

Then followed a flurry of mails back and forth with addendums and additions, explanations and information. Hope we have got it as near correct as we can...

I may be able to print the finished article here but there will be a link to it anyway. 'Classic Boat'.

Pleased to say our Database Manager John has acquired that long, laminated tiller he was bidding on. It is coming to me so I can renovate it for him. I am assisting with his restoration... Hoping it will be here later today. I will take before and after photos! John is making a new transom hung rudder himself using the free drawing of the rudder Maurice gave owners, and pics of that will appear on his page for 'Glasstide' eventually on the Builders and Restorers pages.

I shall be taking advantage of this warm (relatively!) and dry weather to get a little sanding and shaping done on John's bowsprit before I put it away for the winter.... hope to have it ready to fit in spring.

As things quieten down towards the end of the year we are once again looking at updating the EOG computer. To me it is a challenge, but with assistance I am sure we will win. As the EOG site is such a resource to many we have it backed up in several locations by really whizzy bits of electronic trickery that I do not claim to understand, but pleased to say others do! The site has grown to 8Gb now, so an 8Gb memory stick is too small, when I mentioned this to someone I know in a computer outlet they were astounded. Even multi million corporations do not have sites as large. And it is all thanks to the members. Well done you.

After the interest in the WD last week I am pleased to report that newly enrolled member James did buy 'Scoter'. I will be adding a picture to the WildDuck page shortly.. and hope to add more.

No sooner had we sent a DVD of drawings to James than we had another request for information about the design, this time from Tasmania! As a result we have yet another new member and a DVD will be winging it's way south today!

Peter in Tasmania is 3/4 way through the construction of a 12m cat in timber at the moment and looking at his building blog, https://pauseandreflect.blog we can see this is one determined chap who will get to complete the WD if he decides to build. He is wanting to plank in ply, something that has been done very successfully several times, but has never crept into the drawings, hoping Peter may share his experience with us and we can add the option to the drawings....

We also had a request for a sail number. Now years ago I used to send out a new sail number written on every set of drawings and kept a register of each design. Sadly those registers disappeared to the old assoc. and have not resurfaced, so we are looking at restarting these sail registers and researching to find the highest sail numbers in every class. Then we will start to issue sail numbers again! If you have an eventide with a sail number of 2100 or over let us know, likewise a WW over 1000 or a WD over 500, or any other relatively recently built boats with high sail numbers, then we can figure out a safe starting point for the EOG sail registry.

We attended a very moving concert in Maldon last night, courtesy of friends who have formed an orchestra! We were front row for 2 hours of the Essex Police choir, the Imperial War Museum, the Maldon Orchestra and the Maldon Drama Group.

We were all moved to tears by a clever mixture of war poems, music and a staged play.

Today, we, like over 250 other local residents, attended the Tillingham village 100 years memorial on the square in front of the church, Tillingham. Our friends son played bugle, you could have heard a pin drop!

There has been a flurry of activity on the e-mails and the web, in the last few days. Mathew our Senior rep and Steering Group member, noticed a 'project sail boat' for sale and recognised it as one of ours. He told us and I contacted the seller Phil. Turns out it is 'Scoter', as far as we know the only WildDuck to have ever been built in GRP. (Correct me if I am wrong!).

After a few mails back and forth with Phil, the seller, he has modified the advert, added the WildDuck name and our info, then another mail pops up from someone not a million miles away in Lancashire, wanting details of the WD. Coincidence, no of course not.

After a mail or two back and forth we can now welcome James to the EOG. At first as a 'friend' but we have a sneaky feeling it would be too much of a coincidence for him not to be the same James that Phil has just sold her to, so suspecting we will be altering his membership to 'Full voting Member' when he confirms ownership!. See the EBay advert has gone... We await confirmation from James that he is now the new proud owner and in the meantime he has donated to the EOG via our PayPal page and I will be sending him a set of WD drawings, on DVD, tomorrow.

Welcome too to Tony Baker in the Republic of Ireland, he has joined with a Y.M. Junior! These are so rare these days, hope to see pictures of her for the Gallery soon.

John Stevens is searching for a new longer tiller for the new transom hung rudder he is building, as part of his restoration on the Eventide 'Glasstide', yes another GRP version of one of our designs.... He has his eye on one on the Bay... see above. (using our page to bid I hope?)... With a little repair it should do the job nicely, if he can get it!

As far as I know his is the only GRP built Eventide. We know Chris in the Netherlands built a GRP Senior, sadly we have no idea where that one is now.... Wonder how many other designs were completed in GRP?

I bought a new usb drive yesterday, to plug in the back of the EOG computer. I save the web site files that are stored on this machine daily to a stick, this week we outgrew the 8Gb stick, so new 16Gb stick in and saved the site already. Boy our site has grown, thanks to all the 1650 plus members sending in those thousands of photos for the Gallery! Keep it up, lets see if we can fill the 16Gb stick!

If your boat is ashore I hope you have secured the covers well, if still afloat hope the mooring is safe. This weekend we have southerly 50knot winds forecast...!

Had a nice thankyou from Ian in Australia for the DVD of Kylix drawings. He also said thanks for the SOS flyer that I always slip in, as I sponsor the postage... Turns out he is a Seagull owner and has been on my SOS site many times whilst renovating his Seagull!

10 of us met at Maldon last week for a game of ten pin bowling, and a Chinese meal. All agreed it was a great night out! Started bowling at 1800 and we were still there at 2200, (no not still trying to knock the skittles over!)... Great crowd.

I have been down to the barn today and have gently washed the soot off the transom and the rest of the hull, checked all round for paint work blemishes, (none found!), and arranged the solar panels so they catch the sun through the skylight.. When I left the battery condition meters were showing 0.1Amp charge, and it was not bright sun today! That should keep all topped up over winter!

Parcel arrived for me in the week, from Lucy the new GH owner. She has found a set of instructions for home completers in her paperwork and passed it on to us, so we can all share it.

There are lots of pages, so I will slowly scan and copy it to the P.C. to join another lot of useful information in from Mark Urry, including fitting (refitting) bilge keels. As John Stevens and I will be doing this next spring, timely advice. I will publish this on the 'hints and Tips' pages too!

Lucy has also sent the drawings for the GH she found with her boat, on a DVD, as PDF files and Peter the webmaster has managed to edit a couple of the files to remove some personal details that were on them, now we are collating all the drawings we already had, plus the building instructions and the GH pics and info about the bilge keels and will be making a new DVD with them to add to our library.

Doing housework on the computer here last week in preparation for the switch to Windows 7 and hopefully 10. Yes we did try this earlier in the year and it all went horribly wrong, so we ditched the idea till we had more time, I was knee deep in preparations for the round UK trip at the time!

Sorting slight glitches in the way we save the contents of the computer, everything, to separate storage spaces, I realised that the web site, which had been saving to a small usb drive, had become too large for the drive! This site is now 7Gb! Boy we have come a long way from the first site back when!

So now the website and the EOG computer, is saved daily to several drives, here and elsewhere, just in case!

The end of October Essex meeting has been put off.. I am hosting a night of 10 pin bowling and a Chinese buffet on Friday, for all my crew and friends... and as a couple of the Wednesday night regulars were away and others coming anyway on Friday, we have postponed Wednesdays meet to end of November.

We hauled out last Friday and this is the bottom as she came out, note the band of slight greening. An area below the top edge of the antifouling.. This is odd as the waterline was within half an inch of the top of the antifouling until Monday last week, when she was lightened by the removal of life-raft, dinghy, stores, outboard, sails ropes, etc. 4 van loads of kit... raising her that much, so has that slime fouling only happened this week? It was warm last week, but even so that is a lot of slime build up in a week... You can see the part above that was out of the water and is just about clean?? Still the boat is once again the cleanest to come out of Bradwell Marina so far this autumn. A quick, light wash off only..

As we were lowering the mast and chaining her to her trailer, ready for transport to the winter barn, we watched as several other boats came out, with 4 inches of fouling on some! Use EU45!

Hitched to the back of a tractor, now she is street legal! We weighed her this year and found she was over the legal limit for towing behind any car.... Even a big Land Rover...

Today I got our boat transported by the farmer to his barn. Apart from hanging about in the cold for 2 hours waiting for him, all went smoothly. Neil is nearly as good a tractor driver as my brother in law and crew Keith!

So the season is over. And it feels like it, not far from here there was ice on cars this morning, we are fortunate to be close to the sea and that moderates the temperatures, but the northerly winds for the past few days have brought a real chill..

Just had a donation in from the USA for a set of Eventide drawings, they will be on the way to Pierre soon.

Bede revisited a boat he saw a while back, to see if it was an Eventide. It is not, but so similar in profile, mast a long way back though, and round bilge. Can you identify it??

If you visit their site you may see a note about the demise of the old eventide association and a reference to the exchange of information. Well I started that, years back, 'Assofass' we called it... An association of associations! Now we hope to continue it. We are already swapping info with other groups and associations...

The old eoa contacted the LOA asking if the remaining 5 or so members with Eventides or Seniors could join them as, they allegedly said, 'there was no other organisation for them to turn to'!! Nick of the Lysander Owners and members of the EOG Steering Group have been in conversation since and he soon realised this was untrue and that he had been fed misinformation, thus the LOA and ourselves are wishing to swap information and become more closely associated. To be commended, as we have very similar interests!

Sooo pleased to have hauled out Friday and not waited. (I normally haul out in November!) IT SNOWED IN ESSEX TODAY!

OK not here but in Harwich, but it is that cold and wet it only had to drop a degree or two for it to happen...

Just edited the last entry on the Stoppress as I was picked up on a few typos! Hope I have corrected them.

I will be adding to this entry later when I will add links to various pages I hope to be editing throughout this cold and wet Sunday afternoon!

Update... Sail plan and more details added to the new Senior 'Bethem', that our Senior Rep and Steering group member Mat is building.

Lone Gull II 'Ivory Gull' seen in the 'Saving Lives at Sea' program, when in 2017 Clive and James got into trouble, James was injured.. Now sold and in new ownership, will the proud new owner please step forward... moored near Southampton we understand.. Must have sailed past her last summer! See Gallery and Archive pages.

A couple more pics of the Eventide Cameroon have also been added to the Eventide pages. She is gaff rigged!

And finally a reminder from Eilard in the Netherlands, Steering Group rep, this was what the summer of 2018 was about!.

With the stalwart assistance of my friends Keith and Phil, Fiddler's Green is now out of the water. This year she is being shifted to the farmer's barn by the farmer himself. When we found out the boat was over the legal limit for towing behind the Land Rover it was the safest bet. Tucked behind a powerful, but limited to 20mph tractor, she is street legal!

Are you ashore yet? No sooner than we got back here with the residual kit we removed, anchor and chain, bowsprit etc. then the temperature plummeted to 6 degrees and the heavens opened. At the moment the temperature is down to 5 degrees, any lower and the rain could be snow! Brrr. Pleased to have just sorted her before it got so cold! When we left her today it was still warm, in the sun and out of the building breeze! Don't do cold anymore, one of my crew is so anti cold, he is off to Madeira for most of the winter... good idea!

I will be spending some time editing over the weekend, I have the details of the GH Spoondrift to add to the For Sale page and the updates to the new Senior Bethem.

We promised a little announcement and here it is. The Lysander Owners Association and the Eventide Owners Group are to work more closely together, we will promote their events and maybe share them and we will exchange links. They are a similar group to ourselves and the Lysander boats no strangers to many of us, I have assisted with the building of two and sailed both, our Database Manager John has owned one too.

Finally a welcome to one of the luckiest guys I have spoken to in a while, Neil from the Isle of Lewis. He has just enrolled.. The night he retired and after several stiff drinks, he made an offer, at a very tongue in cheek price, on a Barbican on 'Boatshed'... It was in a heck of a state, as squatters had got on it, and trashed the inside.... A week or three later he was amazed to hear that the family of the late owner accepted his offer..... so he is now the proud owner! Needs cleaning out, but as it comes with new sails and decent motor the only major problem is the lack of a skeg/rudder heel fitting???

This is where the Barbican owners can assist. His 'Lady Bountiful' is a bilge keel version and it would appear the previous owner had removed the skeg/rudder heel fitting for some reason, it was bolted on, so he needs some pictures and measurements of the skegs/rudder heel fittings on other Barbicans so he can have a new one made before spring, when he hopes to sail her from the south coast back to Stornaway. As a retired, professional, fisherman he is looking forward to the trip, great boat to do it in! Could sign up for this trip, left a bit of string to follow, going that way....

Just back from my annual nod to Nelson and Trafalgar, three magnificent days afloat in balmy weather on the Blackwater with brother in law and faithful crew Keith.. We chilled!

Waiting for me when I got back to base was a DVD of drawings for the Golden Hind. I have yet to examine them but have to thank Lucy for finding them and passing them on, these may be of great value to G.H. owners in the future! Hope to create yet another CD/DVD of useful drawings, we already have a few G.H. drawings.... Like all our drawings we will also send copies to the Woodworking colleges and the National Maritime Museum so they are never lost to sight!

Have an update to the new Senior being built, to add to the Builders and Restorers page, courtesy of our Senior Rep, Mat, a boat builder from Norfolk!

As I have had a power outage here all day today I am only just catching up with the mails!

Spent the day instead filling my little van up with more kit off the boat, two van loads so far! Hauling out this week, before it snows! About three more loads to go yet!

We hope to have a little announcement on these pages shortly, have to run it past the Steering Group first. Will be contacting them tomorrow, too late now, past my bedtime!

Yesterday the temperature here got to 22.5 degrees! Hope to take advantage of this over the next few days to get afloat as well as cut the grass!

I have just added a load of photos to the restorers pages and Glasstide's section. John Stevens supplied them from his phone. Though Glasstide is glass... yes GRP, the principles of what we are doing apply just as much to a conventional timber built Eventide. Glad to see we are making progress.

John Stevens is laid up at the moment and we will not be back to his boat for a while, till he has recovered from a little op he had the other day... We wish him well.

Whilst laid up John S. has been researching and found loads of interesting articles on line. This one is of special interest to Golden Hind Owners. there is reference to a GH that sailed the Atlantic, I moored alongside her in the Caledonian Canal 5 years ago!

Another article he found was about anodes and their application. He surmised, as I did, that a lot of it was arguments about which firms products to use!

With steel bilge plates, galvanised, epoxy coated and painted with antifouling a simple double donut type anode , one half each side of bilge plate, through bolted to each keel is enough.

For prop protection either a shaft anode, if you have room, or if not, a pear shaped anode, (please blunt face forward!) and then internally wired to the motor and to the prop shaft. That works.

Seen too many props that have a pink tinge to them when cleaned off, because they have lost their zinc and the copper is exposed, tap them and they sound dull, ready to shed a blade! A good prop, properly protected, is shiny and yellow when polished and rings like a bell, does yours??

No sooner had I said it was quiet here, than the mails came in. Wim in the Netherlands is wanting to sell his Golden Hind 31. Several mails back and forth on that and an advert in the offing.

On the subject of the Golden Hind, we are extremely fortunate to have been offered the drawings. A few mails on these. Though we do not suppose anyone is going to build a Golden Hind from scratch, they could come in very handy to so many owners who may be renovating. Hope to be able to digitise them as all the other drawings we have and then offer them to members at cost too!

I have looked again at the photos I took of 'Swatchways Rambler'. I did not realise the cabin top was quite so boxy! When I look at the one I built on my Eventide and this one, I feel I far prefer mine! Question of individual taste I suspect.

Next weekend is Trafalgar, the 21st... (Sunday). I have a birthday party to go to that day, grandson born on the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, so I will not be afloat. However I hope to be out for three days beforehand, somewhere near Bradwell, in the Colne or Blackwater....

With the nights closing in, it makes the sailing time so much shorter if you are wanting to get snugged up in a creek before dark! Not like the last time I was aboard for my long trip.... I miss those long summer's evenings... Keith, the brother in law and regular crew, will be with me, consolation prize, as he missed out on his leg during the second part of my round UK trip, because we did so amazingly well in the first few weeks... (but he did do loads of miles with me during the first leg, up round and through Scottish waters.......). Be good to get him afloat for a few days.

Then it is time to haul out and as ever, I start unloading the boat of it's kit. I normally fill my little Morris Minor van several times, to the roof! This time I have even more kit to get off, all those extra bits put on there for the 'Fiddling Around' trip... Wonder what treasures I will find?

Heard from other members in the UK, that they too are hauling out, what about those in the Southern hemisphere?

Had a load of photos arrive over the weekend, on a CD in the post. they are to go with a lengthy log I have in. A WW to the Med. Will be working on that during the dark evenings! Makes good reading!

Which reminds me, another plea for logs, surely I cannot be the only one that keeps a ship's log and writes it up??

Welcome to Lucy with the G.H. 'Ella Louise', ex 'Katy Louise'. She is moving here from the Swale to Eastbourne at some stage. We know Lucy has been searching for her 'Dream Ship' for a while now, so we are pleased to see she has found it!

when we went down to Walton last week, I saw The G.H. 26 'Swatchways Rambler' in a local yard there. I meant to mention that I took some pictures of her, and was most interested to see the shape of the bilge keels fitted, see below. I will put more pics of her on the G.H. page shortly.

This keel fitted to a GH26 follows the advice I gave and published in the Hints and Tips page re Weatherhelm.

I have been assisting John Stevens with the refit on 'Glasstide' and this week whilst I was there he removed the other bilge keel whilst I was sealing the old rudder hole in the bottom of the hull... See his restorers page.

We had discussed the possibility of altering the shape of the keels and trying to offset some of John's weatherhelm and he opted to add a small triangle of steel at the back of the plates, as well as replacing the bad bits that fell off on the bottom! A strip had been very badly welded on years ago.... The back edges are now vertical, though it does not look like that from this pic.. The full story on his page, but this must help offset his weather helm, these plus the new transom hung rudder and the 3" longer bowsprit, should have a marked difference.

No other news recently, the mails have been strangely quiet this week. Maybe people are taking advantage of the weather!

After an afternoon of rain and wind summer is back! The met office man did promise us an 'Indian Summer' is this the start of it? Hope to get one or two local sails in before laying up.

This season, having established the weight of our boat on it's trailer we are going to use a different towing vehicle to make it legal. A tractor! (Found F.G. weighs in a 4.5 tonne!!). As most normal cars, even LandRovers etc can only go to 3.5 ton, we are trying to keep it legal.

As this seasons sailing days recede, we are turning our attention back to updating the EOG computer, it needs updating, not replacing, so I have the job of saving everything on it whilst then replacing the operating system, what could possibly go wrong? We now have several back up systems, just in case!!

A group of five members met at Walton and Frinton Y.C. the other day, joined by a couple who were owners but non members, having thrown their lot into the defunct assoc. We were civil.

The meal was good, the views from the club beautiful (As the weather was kind!), and the conversation varied. Friends Doug and Jo, travelled many miles to get there, very pleased to see them. It was good to meet up with local members Brian and Mavis again, they used to own the G.H. 32, 'Right Eh Oh' for many years. We wondered why the new owners have not been in touch as yet?? We also met new member Richard with the gaff rigged Eventide 26, 'Cameroon'. He is re rigging her, new mast etc...

We were going to visit the beach at Walton or Frinton, but as we left the clubhouse the fog rolled in, obscuring Walton, so we drove home instead. Back home the Blackwater too was shrouded in mist. If I do get out in the next week or two I can bet I will be using my radar! Up till now it has been an expensive toy, just there to give me a little reassurance whilst on my round UK trip. Scared me stiff 5 years back on the first leg, sailing past rocks in fog!

Time we read someone else's! If you have a log written up, of a sail in one of our designs, please send it in.

We have had one in, that is just awaiting the arrival of the photos to accompany it before we publish it. Looking to find a suitable 'Log Trophy' that we can then award... any suggestions. (Still wonder what became of the silver Maurice Griffiths plate the old assoc disappeared...)

Chris in the Netherlands is working on completing the Dorade boxes he has designed, when available, I will be posting an advert for them on the 'For Sale' pages I hope.

Spent a little while adding loads more pictures and text to my log. The final part really, the Crew Party!

However I keep going back correcting spelling mistakes etc. No matter how many times I read pages I still miss glaring errors! thank goodness others read it and let me know!

Had another new boat owner to add, Lucy has bought a GH! She has been on the look out for a long time but Katie Louise is now hers, hoping to get an update of the enrolment form soon, ownership will make her a 'Full Voting Member'!

Just typing this and there was a 'chime' from the P.C., we had a donation in from Australia for the set of Kylix drawings! In the post shortly Ian!.

We are off to Walton on Naze tomorrow, hope there is not the mist and fog we had this morning!

Had a slight alteration to the listing on our For Sale pages over the weekend, an offer of a free years mooring in Brittany for 'Sea Fever'. I am waiting on 'Ernie' for this one!

So far we have 7 attending the Walton and Frinton Y.C. Friday lunch time, any more takers, room for more just let us know! 01621 778859.

Ken Ward in Canada has been unlucky so far trying to contact Peter Hull the owner of 'Viking Lady', he has your address Peter but no mail or phone number, so he is resorting to the old ways, expect a letter! Found Peter on the list of local councillors for the area!

Had an enquiry for a wooden mast builder. Know anyone capable of making a new mast for a gaff rigged Eventide? Richard with Cameroon would like to find one... He has even toyed with the idea of an Ali one??

A couple of members have noted the Golden Hind 'project' on EBay has reduced to £400 asking price, so sad to see a boat in such a condition, sadly unless a VERY enthusiastic boat restorer comes along this one will be broken up....

Welcome to Ian Kendall in Queensland Australia, he has joined as a 'Friend' to get the drawings we have of the Kylix class, at the moment he sails a Herreshoff 28 but wants a boat more suited for his local waters and believes the Kylix will fit the bill...

Some of my highly competent crew and valued helpers with other halves opening the little gifts I presented.

Lastly we had a great Party here Sunday Lunchtime, the sun shone, at first, (got chilly later), but we were warmed by the company and the wine, plus the fire pit and BBQ. I had gathered most of the crew that assisted me on various legs of my 'Fiddling Around' trip and was able to present them with a little memento of their part in it.

John Stevens presented me with another verse and chorus for our theme song, '(Fiddler's Green of course!). Though I have not tried it out in the bathroom as yet!

Sister Sue and crew Keith had organised a 'Certificate of Achievement' for me! I will treasure it. It will be framed on the wall in the study!

I will put pics of the trophies and the certificate on the Fiddling Around page.

Yesterday was the last day we were likely to get warm weather, we had 23 degrees and light winds here, today the temperature is down to 16 C and with a northerly breeze. Outlook for the next few days is similar. Unless we get a break in October I think we can assume the good weather is now behind us.

What a great year it has been for sailing. As good, if not better than 1976! (not so good if you were trying to keep 1500 newly planted trees and shrubs alive though, hats off to Darian who kept our 'Bluebell Spinney' watered and alive..).

An owner in the Netherlands asked about builders plates. He has the fin keeled Eventide 'Perami'. Not many had plates as most were home built, but some builders added their own, for show? He is going to have one made. Wondered how many home built boats have a plate in them?

Had a couple of mails re a Golden Hind 31 for sale in Portsmouth, a project boat, and then some, galloping rot in the topsides and further inside by the looks of it, suspect this GH will end up being sold for its parts... Type 'Golden Hind Project' into the search box of our EBay page to see it.

Had another couple of mails re the problem some GH owners have had of water getting unde the teak cladding in the cockpit, see the Forum for advice on how to deal with it...

We are meeting up on a Friday soon, the 5th of October in Walton on Naze, the Walton and Frinton Y.C. for lunch. Do give me a call if you are a member in the area and can attend, have to know in advance as we have to book places.

I am having a 'Fiddling Around' crew get together this weekend so off to set up gazebos and the BBQ. Hope it stays dry!

Quick entry. Next Essex meeting at Walton and Frinton Y.C. at 1200 for lunch, on Friday 5th October.

If you would like to come along, we need to know call 01621 778859 to book places. This is courtesy of Brian and Mavis and Doug and Jo, hope to see a few members turn out! Darian and I will be there of course.

As of today we have longer nights, 6 months till the days get longer again. But the weather next week is supposed to be warmer and after this weekends wet and windy, dry again. just as well, I have something happening I need decent weather for next weekend! Are we to have the promised Indian summer?

Not sailing weather this weekend, make sure those covers are secure! We have Gale 9 yesterday and more of the same tomorrow. Seems since I got back from my trip the weather has been more foul than friendly!

One of our members sent in some pics of some nicely made deck vent Dorade box bases he has just made, later he maybe selling them via the site.. The Vetus cowls as shown fit it, a mushroom vent is fitted under the other end, that can be closed to make it waterproof! These allow good ventilation without letting water get below.

Another member contacted me yesterday to say he was considering buying a Senior and that he had a set of plans I had sent him 40 years or so back, when I ran the plans dept of the old assoc. Hope you find a suitable Senior to restore or just sail, easy to store at home on a trailer if you have room, then so easy to do a 10 minute job on, no travelling! I am going to pop into a nearby boat yard to see if a certain 18ft day sailer is still languishing in the corner, may make an offer! (Yes it is one of 'our' designs!).

All for now, out into the garden for a bit to get some fresh air, this cold has not left me yet... got a few leaves to pick up! (A gentle walk behind leaf sweeper!)

I have still got a stinker of a cold, so no work outside, not even cutting the grass in the wood, confined to barracks. Felt clear headed enough to start putting all the charts I have used and some I have not, on EBay, sold 3 straight away anther 27 on there and more to add.

So not going to assist with G.T. renovations this week! Hear that John S. is in much the same way for different reasons. Sad thing is time is flying and the days are getting colder and shorter.

A lot of photos and information added! Must say thankyou to all who continue to send in photos of boats you have seen either out afloat or on the web. Especially to people like Norman beavering away in Devon on his boat, great he takes the time to take a few pics and send them in!

Spoke to a member yesterday and he is trying to organise a get together in Walton on Naze. Was supposed to be the end of September, but people seem busy so it may be in October, the first week maybe and during the day, for a lunch.. More details soon.

Was hoping to report on the new liaison with the Lysander Owners Assoc. but not heard anything as yet. however last year I was sent a book to comment on and I will put details of that on the books page soon, it was Percy Blandford's own story! Interesting read! ' A life full of Hobbies'!

Heard from the ex owner of Barbican 'Viking Lady' trying to get in touch with Peter he sold her too, Peter if you are reading this your mail address no longer works.

The owners of the WW 'Blackwater Witch', ex 'Dougaljo', are beavering away in Tollesbury rebuilding her, and now looking to shifting their larger boat, an ex Admiralty vessel, to Tollesbury so they can live on it closer to the WW. Looking for moorings, have suggested a couple of places..

Enough for now, still got more editing to do, but brain getting fuzzy, keep taking the Beechams!

Neither John S. nor I were fit enough to go to work on his boat today, I seem to have a chest infection so grounded, John S. similarly grounded. We should be OK next week. However I have just managed to update the page for Glasstide's restoration! Click to go there.

So I have been sat at my desk editing the EOG machine. I have yet to add some more pics but spent a little while adding a little more to the postscript of my log... Amazed me when I wrote it all down! Click here to go to the log and scroll to the last entries...

Sorry for the pause, over a week, but I have been busy and sadly have caught a cold or something so not my best!

First a Welcome to new enrolments. To Bert Bom of the Netherlands, who is contemplating purchasing a steel WW in the Netherlands.

He also brings the sad news that Ben Bouma, the man who first converted the wooden WW drawings to steel, has died, after a debilitating disease at the age of 91 years, back in 2010.

In 1980 I obtained all the boat drawings from Y.M. and in amongst it were the steel conversions we added to the WW drawings and a first draft of the Eventide in Steel, later we had these redrawn to add a steel version of the Eventide to the plans folio!

Welcome too to Michael Gilbert of Middlesex, he used to own and sail Flying Tiger IV when I was Editor/Secretary of the old assoc. He has long since sold up but has joined to get a copy of the drawings to build a model of her. Like to see it when its done Michael!

I rebuilt a damaged Eventide 24 model that Y.M. had made, (M.G. was editor), for the debut of the Eventide at the 1957 boat show. Sadly that appears to have been 'disappeared', along with the old assoc. Made a great table display at meetings.

Several members have contacted me to tell me about the WildDuck for sale on EBay. This one looks salvageable if an enthusiastic carpenter/boat restorer can be found, check it out.

Had a suggestion from another member that I submit my 'Fiddling Around' log to the R.C.C., Royal Cruising Club! Did not think it that good! However I do intend to send it to PBO!

Last Thursday I did get to Tollesbury to assist John S. with Glasstide, I managed to remove the last of the offending rusted up inboard rudder and between us we got one bilge keel off. See the Glasstide page. Pictures await. John has them on his phone so he just has to mail them in to enquiries@eventides.org.uk .... Hint hint!!

I have half made his new bowsprit for him and if I can get rid of this nasty cough will be back to his boat with him to do more work shortly. And to finish the bowsprit.!!

Expecting the Lysander Owners Assoc magazine shortly, could be of interest to others...

Bede Strong, out sailing, has spotted an Eventide, believed a steel one, in Southampton, he is going back to get the name and a better photo!

Lastly Paul in the Netherlands has done an amazingly good looking restoration on the fin keel Eventide 'Parami'. I had difficulty downloading the pics and he kindly resent them in a form I could use. Think you will agree she is a 'looker'!

Yesterday had a very interesting conversation with the chairman of the Lysander Owners Association. We are hoping very good things will come out of this. Maybe joint meets? We will see, the Steering group will get to decide shortly. Thanks to Chris in the Netherlands for instigating this contact!

The weather has taken a turn for the worse, feel sorry for Tim in Wedjit, bet he is getting wet out there, he set off towards Harwich Monday and out of no where comes along F6 and now rain.. Hope the promised 'Indian Summer' does happen. I have an event organised for the end of the month that would be spoilt if it rains or is too windy!

John Stevens the database manager sent me a mail earlier with about a dozen typos I had made. I had already found some and corrected them but when I was correcting the rest I found another that neither of us has spotted. Very difficult to spot them all!

Had another mail in from Norman with the Tidewater yesterday more pics to add to the pages, will get on that later this week.

Also heard from William with the Senior 'Sandpiper' he is after a CD of drawings to assist his refurbishing of her....

Keith with the GH with the unpronounceable name admits he may be changing it at some stage, Suggested mixing up the letters and finding something you could say to the Coast Guard on the VHF.

Bede with the Falmouth Gypsy, he is an associate member, has sent in another nice pic for the 'Friends' section of the gallery, will get on that and a few others soon.

Paul in the Netherlands has sent in a whole load of new pics showing the restoration work he is doing to her, more power to the elbow Paul. On the site soon, Eventide pages.

Shannon has sent in more video clips of his WW out in the Atlantic, I will be getting the webmaster to put some of these clips on the WW Gallery pages.

I hope to be off to Tollesbury tomorrow, weather permitting, to remove the rotted bilge keels and remains of a frozen rudderstock from Glasstide. Good to see progress on this restoration after John has been laid up for so long.. John has a lovely set of new rudder fittings bought using our EBay page, to fit a new transom hung rudder he is going to make.. The drawing of which is available free on the 'Owners hints and tips' page.

Warren of 'Safrel' has been on, his is the lovely ketch rigged GH I saw in Mylor. He has been laid up for a bit but back up and itching to get out again, wishing you good health Warren.

Off out for a drift on the river today, gentle breezes just right to take the boss out afloat! Hope you are enjoying this weather afloat too.

Had an upgrade to membership in from Keith, he is now a 'Full Voting Member' as opposed to a 'Friend' as he is officially the owner of that G.H.!

Had an enquiry last week from a member who was also, until the split, a member of the now defunct old association. He asked, 'If the old association has now wound up, what happened to the silver trophies (and the silver plated one), the model Eventide in a case, the other trophies, like the Tony Nelson Shield and the bronze belaying pin?' I could also add, the original copies of the drawings on film and the book we all helped to amend.. 'Building chine Boats'. Plus the bound copies of Y.M., signed by MG, that were presented to the owners?? They have no real monetary value... They were last in the possession of Mr. Leaper. I do hope they have not been retained, as 'personal trophies'. The member, like me, believes they should be returned to the owners.. Wonder if anyone will ever do the 'right' thing.??

Had another member enquired after the Eventide 24 rig, mast and boom and rigging with roller reefing, that was for sale in Maldon, Ex 'Mayna'. Sadly he was the other side of the country and considered it too far to come. (Would fit on a long trailer with a support at the front to lift it above the towing vehicle..) Shame as from what I saw it was a cracking bargain at £200.00! Were else would you get an ali Eventide 24 mast at that price, let alone all the wire rigging etc!

Meeting a WW afloat today, 'Wedjit'. She is up for sale. The owner, Tim, rarely keeps a boat longer than 7 years, he has had Wedjit longer... says something. Student of the Lowestoft woodworking college, so should be in tip top order!

I have added the last pics to my 'Fiddling Around' log now, having retrieved my cameras connecting cable from the boat! I have had a lot of comment about the logs (2013's as well as this years one). Many suggesting I publish it as an e-book?? A thought.

Hoping to assist the database manager with his boat soon, last worked on it with him nearly 2 years ago... As John is up and fighting fit now, as shown when he crewed for me last month, hoping he get down before it gets cold.... Don't do cold any more!

Heard again from Shannon with the WW Kathleen, he has crossed Biscay and is now back home, having left the boat in Portugal. He has sent some clips of film, we will get a couple on the site next to his boat in the gallery... (but not the one filmed sideways, we do not want others getting a crick in the neck like I did, trying to watch it!).

An appeal for logs. Speak to many owners who are doing trips, but few seem to write up logs these days. We will publish them and there could be a prize.

Seems the August Bank holiday has heralded the return to the normal wet windy and dismal weather here it the UK. F6 and 7 and heavy rain today, yesterday the rain stopped just in time for the BBQ, but no one sat outside, too cold and windy. Always next year to look forward to!

So I have spent some time on the EOG P.C. today upgrading the antivirus and the special program we use to save a full image of the site and all on the EOG machine, to separate outside drives, a back precaution to prevent disasters! We are up to date, really up to date, as we now have a 2019 version of the program working.

Update on the Kent GH, Keith is the new proud owner, new enrolment on the way he says, with all the GH details!

Heard from Shannon with the WW Kathleen, he has sailed her across Biscay and is on his way to Portugal. Send a video that I will be asking the webmaster to post on the site for all to see, on the WW pages of the gallery soon... must say the seas looked a lot calmer than the ones we encountered crossing the Celtic Sea!

Shannon is hoping to sail to the Azores next year... Mmmm idea for the next big cruise??

Had another enquiry for WW drawings, from the west coast of the USA, wants to build in Steel or Ali! Waiting to get the enrolment...

And another wanting to join the forum, with a GH, again waiting for the enrolment.

They are still coming in fast sad the old association did not listen to us, they could still be in existence had they done so...

After 60 days afloat 'Fiddler's Green' is back and moored once again in Bradwell, just in time for this weekends Bradwell Meet! I intend to be aboard Saturday afternoon and will be in the marina bar for a BBQ Saturday evening. Hoping to sail out Sunday, weather permitting, Monday looks to be windy, last I checked....

I have had loads of mails and cards, congratulating myself and the stalwart crew on our achievement, the reality of which is still only just dawning! I do not know many of our number who have done this round trip and certainly none have done the Scilly to Ireland leg, to sail Irish waters as well. Only coming home and seeing the very large map of the UK with our passage marked on it... on the fridge door, made it sink in!

I will get to respond to all the mails ASAP. Starting tonight. John S., the Database Manager was able to answer a lot of new membership enrolments, whilst I was away, even when on board with me, well done John!

I have yet to add some pics to the 'Fiddling Around' log, but I forgot to bring the cameras USB lead home!

It is the MG 'Coronette'. Looking very sad now, can anyone save her? Bill Booth did such a good job restoring her years ago, really sad to see here like this... And I nearly popped into Millbrook where she is moored...

We did see 'Wisp', a Medusa 25 on our travels, in Mylor and now we have an enrolment from the owner Frank, welcome Frank.

I'm just writing to say that my old steel Waterwitch "Kathleen" is now in Galicia, North Spain. We have just crossed the Biscay, with an overnight stop in Brittany. I don't have many photos as I'm sailing single handed, only photos of bits of coast. I'll try to get some somehow.

Had a request from an old Eventiders friend, Keith Pryke, he is looking at a GH and wonders if anyone knows anything about her?

Golden Hind 31 called Oenanthe which is based in Oare Creek. She is Hull No 29, built by Hartwells in 1966.

Can anyone assist, we are looking her up on John Steven's Database.... but any info that may assist, apparently has sailed across the pond and back??

And finally another enrolment, this one from Greece. Andreas Angelopoulos, not sure what design Andreas is interested in as yet, but welcome anyway!

Working hard to ensure all ready for the start of Fiddler's Green's next adventure. Today John the Database Manager is meeting me to load his gear aboard.

Welcome to another new member, Frank in Cornwall with 'Whisp, ex 'Whisper'! A Medusa 25.

Had some sad news today, we have lost one of our founder members, Tony Sykes. Tony passed away on 30th May and his memorial is to be held on 19th June. Sadly I will not be able to attend as we will be sailing south and west then...

I followed Tony as President of the now defunct association. When the association committee turned against their members, Tony was one of the first to lend his support to us who were trying to form the now thriving Owners Group to support owners..... His Boat 'Galliard' was once the flagship of the fleet!

Spending more time on Fiddler's Green than elsewhere at the moment, still lots to sort! See the preparation log.

However I have found time to send a set of Curlew drawings to Joe in the USA, our latest new member!

We had an enquiry re the drawings for Tamaris. Sadly of course no one has yet volunteered these and we think they may have been lost in the 1940's, due to 'enemy action' as MG explained...

Not much else to report at the moment, mail has slowed recently, perhaps members are giving me a little space!

Ten days to go now.. The Database Manager John is coming over with kit Friday and after that is aboard it is just my clothing and the food to load. Got an inch or so of antifouling still showing too!

Talking of antifouling, we have no trace of any growth on F.G., but other boats around me have already got long trailing weed, and some were launched after me! EU45 works!

Wednesday we went to a very posh Italian near Chelmsford. That is the last Essex get together for a while, sorry you missed out, August the next one at Bradwell! (hope to be back for that!).

Today closed down my Seagull business for the summer, all my customers being looked after by the main agents! I am their technical advisor and main dealer, so the arrangement works well, same as 5 years back.

16 days till we set off and then these pages will be on hold. Will be updating the log of the trip daily though. See the Fiddling Around links!

Welcome to new member Joe in Minneapolis, he has joined to get a set of drawings of Colin Faggetters Curlew dinghy! We will be sending these as soon as we hear back from Joe..

Chris in the Netherlands sent in mail re some good service on a bit of non working Nasa Kit. They charged just £5.00 plus post, to totally sort it, old fashioned service that, good to hear. I have a few of their bits of kit on board, the Navtext and a couple of clever battery monitors, they are great.

Working on my very old laptop now to get it all set up to be able to edit the on line log from the boat. Clever stuff! I use my phone to connect to the net and also to the laptop.

Took two of the prospective crew, nephew Harvey and grandson Brandon, out on Bank Holiday Monday, we all slept aboard, so they could get used to being in cramped conditions, then on the Monday the weather was perfect, F2 early on F3/4 later. We did not go far, but some must have wondered, we tacked and gybed, hove to and reefed in the same bit of water for over three hours. All within sight of the marina bar out in the Blackwater. By the end of it I knew they could handle her whatever!

A slow putter back and pint in the bar to celebrate! Later dinner when the boat tidied up.

Weather forecast for the bank holiday warm and wet! That's because I have decided to use part of the weekend for training! I was taking the two 18yr old crew members out Sunday, but at one stage F6/7 was forecast! Delayed till Monday.

John Stevens has just sent a database update to me and he is working on getting the three data bases combined into one, so it is more workable.

The Privacy Notice has been updated and edited several times and if you are anything like us bet you are getting loads of mails from companies and organisations you have never heard of, that you might have bought something on line from 5 years ago, begging you to sign up! The regulations are so confusing even the regulators cannot answer questions about it with any conviction..

Seems they will not be chasing small clubs. We will see. At the moment it appear that if you willingly joined us, that we are OK and can contact you if we felt a need to. That does not happen very often! most contact us.

One who has is Leonard from the Netherlands who has restored the Kylix 27 he found there, ex 'Johanna', now 'Tadaima'. Welcome to the Eventiders Leonard! Look forward to some photos of the restored boat!

Got a visitor coming Sunday, Garth of East Coast Pilot. He has a Seagull needing help.

Get his mails quite often and he sent me another this week. Already taken advantage and downloaded the new Deben entrance chartlet!

A familiar view above, just obscured is Woods pier and then the Thames River Police Jetty, The Gary Wells Pier, that I spent many years operating from!

Last I visited the London River I could barely recognise it. Pleased my sailing area has hardly changed since Maurice wrote that famous book! Love the creeks....

Off to the boat later with a bag of kit. Will be loading her all the time now, still 2" of antifoul showing! A way to go yet..

Whilst I am away the Database Manager will be handling new enrolments until he joins me on the trip, then we hope to have the webmaster send an auto response. These pages will be suspended of course.

I have just spent a few hours editing the site and replying to many mails that came in over the past 3 weeks, that we had been having difficulty responding to. Sorry to all who wondered where we were! It is great to actually be able to get back to editing the pages properly, easily, until the day before yesterday it had become almost impossible.

I have also added a bit to my new page for the 2018 'Fiddling Around'. This page will take over from the Stoppress pages when we set sail in a month's time. Still time for anyone to arrange to join us on any part of the trip, ups for a cruise in company??

Sent a welcome to Chris of Lee on Solent with a Barbican he sails in the western Mediterranean.

Welcome too to Jim in Stirling with a 1938 built boat that purports to be a D. Webb, as in Dan Webb and Feezy of Maylandsea, design, but looks just like a Tamaris by MG. Strange that. D. Webb and Feezy used to be one of the main yards building MG designs. This one however was built in Ceylon! checked my Lloyds list of yachts and it is indeed shown as a D. Webb design.... did other designers borrow plans back then?

I have managed to catch up on 4 other enrolments as well. Have to ask the Database Manager John what the numbers are up to now! they seem to be coming in thick and fast.

Members are given the security code to be able to join the forum and soon there will also be another section on there where you will need an additional security password to be able to access!

I have one last major catch up job to do, make a new page on the restorers section for Howard down in Devon. He has sent in a lot of photos and info regarding his restoration, hopefully tomorrow I can do that.

Hope you have been out enjoying the great weather. We have but nothing to do with boats, Young Farmers Show, always good. (I was Surrey Young Farmer No. 621. funny how some numbers stick in there but I can hardly remember my mobile number let alone the wife's!).

We have been required to publish our privacy policy for all to see. We have always had the same policy, so it is rather a waste of time but if you wish to read what we have had to print see the Privacy link and or if you have any queries, please contact us. enquiries@eventides.org.

Welcome to new member Chris Bellamy with a Barbican 33, Chris sails the western Mediterranean! I will be responding to your enrolment over the weekend I hope Chris. And to another 4 who have enroled recently.... got a little behind...

Hoping to finish off sorting the boat tomorrow, told it may be very quiet on the streets and down the marina, can't think why??

After days of struggling with the editing system I have at last managed to regain control, or I think I have. There were conflicts with programs and computers. At least now we know what they are and can work around them.

Talking of going around, I am still on track to set off in a months time.... This page will be suspended whilst I am away as I cannot commit to picking up all the dozens of eventide mails on the boat, doubt there will be time... Some may be intercepted by members of the steering Group, the enrolments, other normal enquiries will have to wait unless urgent and you want to phone me, my contact details will be on the Fiddling Around Log page accessed from the Home page.

Just a short note now to see if colour comes out as intended, (red). off to the boat now.

I am hoping to get down to the boat to try and load some kit aboard, but the computers have other ideas. Seems editing in other than the original FP program is problematic!

Thursday we floated 'Fiddler's Green'. Not without a little drama! All went like clockwork till we tried to hoist the genoa, then realised I have not reeved the genoa halyard through the extra block 9 inches from the masthead, designed to change the angle of pull and prevent the halyard jamming the spar. Rats! Took me a few seconds to realise what had to be done, but a minute or two to admit to having to do it! I had to climb those mast steps and prove they worked! Took me 30 minutes at the top of the mast, with bosuns chair and harness and two stout hands on the safety line... Taking me 2 days so far to recover!

Still fighting computers, this page is being edited on the EOG machine using a new editing program, getting my head round it slowly... just found the spelling checker, or had you noticed! I think I have corrected most of the errors, thanks to my proof reader Keith....

Sorry to all who have enrolled in the last 2 weeks, have been stopped in my tracks by the technology, hopefully now will be able to start responding to you with welcome letters!

Today another enrolment, welcome to Stephen of Spalding with the Eventide 'Talland', she is on the for sale page and the price has just tumbled, haggle with him for her! He also sent a donation in for assistance received, many thanks Stephen.

Jim of Stirling has also enrolled, he has a 1938 built boat 'Sinna Tara', that looks like a Tamaris but is supposedly designed by D. Webb of Maylandsea, the likeness is too similar... Dan Webb and Feezy built a few MG boats, wonder if they pinched a few ideas?? this one was built in Ceylon. Now where is that???

Ken of Streatham has joined us with the GH Golden Crest, he sails out of the Medway, so may cross wakes with him....

We are agreeing a 'privacy statement' to add to the pages, nearly there.... another EU directive!! Bet you have all seen these, a real pain. Especially when we already protect info.

I have only 5 weeks till I set off, lots to do... Still no takers for a cruise in company...??

That's enough P.C. work for now, the sun has just come back out and the road outside is drying, time to go to the boat and start loading kit. Then scrub the decks before it rains hard again later.. wash off the bird droppings! My over wintering barn had a few other residents....

Welcome to Another new enrolment, Ken Dyer with the GH Golden Crest... sails the Medway area.... I will be replying to you shortly Ken.

Had a great enquiry in about a mystery boat. Built as a double ender in Teak overseas, and now back in UK waters. Looks very much like a 'Tamaris' derivative. Many were built, some altered, and this looks as if it might be another. More info requested..

Editing in Windows 10 with the older editing program again as once again the later editing program could not cope. Could not change the font colours??

After several attempts the last entry is green! I'm getting confused! If I could fit a Whitworth spanner on this box of tricks I could probably fix it... As it is you have to sort of wave a magic wand... Rest assured John Stevens and Peter the webmaster are guiding me.. I need their help!!

Hoping to catch up with enrolments and adding pics etc. at the weekend, off to launch F.G. back into her element tomorrow... will take a week to load all the kit and gear back aboard and make her ready to use.. only 6 weeks till I set off......

With the hottest May Bank holiday on record in store I hope you are going to take advantage with sailing, lucky you, or finishing the fitting out! I managed to get both sides of the boat coated with Sikkens yesterday. inside the toe rails and hand hold to do over the weekend, and planning to launch Thursday.

We have had fun with the editing and transferring to a different operating system. Using a different program now but back on the EOG machine but still in the old Windows vista. One step forward 3 back!

Today managed to remove a few adverts from the For Sale pages to the Archive. going to have to start a new Archive page, it is getting too unwieldy!

We send a welcome to Lucille in Scotland, already mentioned her, but now know she has joined to sell her brothers Eventide in Tobermory, £500 take it away or she will sell it in parts..... advert soon.

Had two members re-join so they could send changes of details, many thanks to Jaap and to Simon.

I had been promising the boss to take her and hoped to win a few brownie points before I go off and leave her for 2 months! Darn good exhibition, well worth the trip to Liverpool. (Oh and yes we did the Cavern Club area too!)

We had our Crew meeting on our return and all bar one of the potential crew were here, the missing one was passing his VHF ticket on the day! All the dates for crew changeovers sorted, roughly, so everyone knew roughly when they would join me.. All dependent on weather of course. All enthusiastic to join the adventure, which was gratifying! I was able to display items like the personal IPERB's I had for us and the new battery powered red flares, very bright!

Talking of weather, cold wet and windy here, 6 degrees at midday and blowing 40mph plus! Northerly! Not sailing weather and not a lot of good for fitting out! Got a date organised for launching though, so got to press on..

Heard from John Hopthrow, he was in Titchmarsh and has sent in a couple of pics of the Eventide 26 'Cameroon', a gaff rigged version. Not many of them about. Pics to be added to the Gallery shortly!

Had two enrolments. So welcome to two more new members, actually one has enrolled before and this is an update!

Jaap in the Netherlands with an Atlantic Clipper in the Algarve, Portugal, and Lucille in Scotland with we believe, an Eventide that was spotted in Tobermory some time back. We will find out more!

Robin has sent in an amendment to the advert for his G.H., to be added this evening...

Mark Urry has sent in a raft of photos regarding the method he used for moving and lifting bilge plates into place on his Golden hinds. Clever cradle and trolley. I will be adding this to the Hints and tips page. Thanks Mark.

Matt in Brighton mailed to say thank you for the new Burgee and to tell me there was a scrap Seagull going begging nearby!

Finally Chris in the Netherlands sent a link to an item in the East Anglia museum, a model of what they claim is a 'Lone Gull II'. What do you think? I have tried to add a comment but so far it has not appeared..

Makes me wonder which of the maritime museums the defunct association donated the model Eventide to, anyone know? Do hope it was not to someone's living room, that would be so wrong! (maybe the trophies are there too??).

When the rain eventually stops I have an urgent job, clear the gutters out! They were overflowing! At least they are easy to reach, just 8ft off the ground! See thee is a pansy growing quite happily up there, will be gently transplanted!

Not that many dragons about these days for our St. George to have a go at, but he could take a pop at microsoft and Windows! Having real fun updating and editing. They have not made it easy.

Aching from crawling under the boat yesterday so no boat work today, see my preparation log.. I am getting there..

Heard from others they are at about the same stage as we are... As the weather is back to normal after that brief hot spell.

It is another lovely day, the sun is shining and thanks to the assistance of our Database Manager John I am breathing easier. We can do all we need to from my business machine, and here I am again, just to prove it, with another edit, and we can sort the EOG machine at our leisure.

Because this is the first time we have been able to edit the pages on windows 10! I am editing using updated programs that I have always used to edit these pages, but until recently they were not compatible with Win 10.

So the EOG machine has been stuck on an out-dated Windows Vista, with all the accumulating problems that has involved and we missed the 'Free update to 10' because Microsoft has not organised versions of the programs we use to edit, until after the freebie ran out!

Well now we are editing and uploading using the upgraded programs I am used to on a win 10 machine, it all seems to work!

We had looked into buying a new EOG machine but we were told it was not out of date and very comparable to other machines we might buy, so were advised just to update to windows 7 then 10. Bought the upgrade to 7 but could not make it work, so we are going to have to wipe the old EOG machine we suspect and start from scratch with a 'clean installation.

So for last three days I have been tearing my hair out for nothing trying to do the vista to 7 upgrade! now we are at the stage where every item on the old machine of interest has been saved and we are about to wipe it and start again. In the meantime I am editing from my Seagull business machine. Also had mail forwarded so we do not lose contact....

Because of all the anguish I have not been able to take full advantage of this spectacular weather, though I have been working on my boat I did want to get the full antifouling done by now. Hope you are having better luck. Here in the Essex coast the sea breezes and fog have kept the temperatures to reasonable levels, 22 tops, and only 14 most of today whilst others have sweltered. Sure the weather is having a play with us, hottest April day in 70 years but not a single swallow as yet? Do they know something, is it snow for Mayday?!

Just heard from Peter Mellor, our most recent enrolled member. He has not got a boat but is a real Maurice Griffiths enthusiast! Welcome Peter.

Been back on the site editing a few more pages, items on the Bits for Sale page...

Heard back from Paul who had 'Olive Mary', she is sold and now down in the Weymouth area, hope we might cross wakes this summer.

Mefo Phillips has been in touch to say he has dropped the price of his beautiful boat 'Jorrocks II' by a huge amount, see the For Sale pages for more.

Speaking with sellers and brokers one of the trends to become apparent was that larger boats were being bought, not to sail, but as houseboats!! That would be a sad demise for a beautiful design.

Just gone midday here and though not the tee shirt weather promised, it is warm enough to tempt me to go to the boat... Jobs to do....

Just spent an happy hour or two updating the For Sale pages and editing out boats and changing asking prices etc. still waiting to hear from a few sellers. I have left loads of messages this afternoon. Some sold, others reduced in price, one or two sold but for much reduced selling prices, sadly it is not a sellers market.... If I do not hear back from sellers in a couple of weeks the adverts will be gently 'archived'.

Good news on the GH bilge keel front, Matt has found the drawing on our pages so can get the angles and scale the size and another member Nick has to make one to replace the one lost, but has a good one to get the dimensions from. Mark Urry has assisted with recommendations too and all on the forum for all to see. Hope we end up with a nice drawing we can put on the site!

At last the sun has come out here and the temperature is creeping up, now I have caught up I am off to the boat!

Here on the Essex coast we still have misty, murky weather, though the temperatures are rising. So no antifouling on as yet. Did win some brownie points by managing to cut the grass though.

We were out at another 'special' birthday party last night, Mo, wife of our fund manager. Made me realise that so many of us are getting to that stage where we are thinking of selling our boats. Brian is. Sadly it is not as easy as it was 10 years ago. Last week a rather nice 33ft Westerly Berwick sold on EBay for £3,800. Unthinkable a few years back but now getting too common. The cost of moorings afloat or ashore preclude just sitting on it till it sells!

On our web link to EBay today there are a couple of Thames Bawleys still to sell and recently an Eventide 26 has appeared and the bids are less than £500 at the moment"! It is 'Funky floater' ex 'Kinsman', owned and sailed so well by our friend, the late John Perrin. The present owner admits to there being a bit of work to do but I would imagine she was generally sound?!?!? (get a survey!!)..

On the other hand the WW that has just appeared is very much a project boat. Someone with a lot of commitment, time, energy and money needed, if this one is to survive. Sadly do not know her name.... and sadly the prospects of her being saved look slim...

I have to come back to these pages later this evening, after the family has left, as we have three rather nice boats to add to the 'For Sale' pages and a good GH sail to add too.

Hoping the coming week with the promised warm sunshine will get more of us 'fitted out' and back afloat.

The cold and damp is getting in me ol bones! For the last few days we have been shrouded in mist and fog here, as the sea mist rolls in on a gentle cold, easterly. Certainly not antifouling weather as yet. Far too cold and damp... Last Saturday I did get to work on the boat as the temperatures rose to a heady 18 degrees C., but it was only for the afternoon.. See my preparation pages...

I have been working on the EOG computer for a few days and trying to tidy things up before I take the huge step of upgrading the operating system. Do not know what I have done to alter things, but it is now working so darned fast its leaving me standing! Hope it continues that way.

Malcolm restoring the Kylix 'Jemima' has asked if anyone has any experience sorting out Saab motors... If you know of anyone please mail us we will pass it on, he is down in Devon. He has an 18hp two cylinder and wants to add a heat exchanger.

Funnily enough Chris in the Netherlands today told me that was what he was about to do. Chris bought a knackered 3 cylinder Solé and has pinched the heat exchanger off it for his 3 cylinder Nanni!

Time was you could buy Bowman heat exchangers at any marine engineers, what happened to them? Google it!

We have had another new enrolment.. Still they keep coming in. So a big welcome to Peter Mellor of Norfolk. No mention of a boat as yet, I will be contacting him and asking a few relevant questions.

We have had three owners contact us to sell their boats on our pages, a non-member from Germany amongst them, we have requested he enrol, but have not heard as yet.

One of the mails came from our friends Roger and Kathy, who are again selling up, they had 'Jua' and later 'Moondancer', and now their latest has to go as they are swallowing the anchor properly, buying an olive farm half way up a Spanish mountain... Sounds idyllic!

Had a mail from Roger with 'Good Hope'. I hope to cross wakes with him, and others, during my forthcoming 'Fiddling Around' trip, he is in Plymouth.

I am planning to set up the same daily log link on the Home Page so all can keep a track of us, just hope we get further than Ramsgate!

Had a mail from a member who said he sent a cheque in last summer but never heard anything???? When he checked seems he did not send a cheque at all, so we are now awaiting one for a set of drawings.... Please, we do our best to respond to mails and letters, as soon as we can, so if you do not hear from us in a week, contact us again. We had so many come to us when they tried to contact the defunct assoc and never heard back from them.. We are not them! Well they do not exist now... wonder why?

We are promised warm weather as of tomorrow, speaking to my daughter down in Brixham today, she says the sandals and summer clothes are out! That weather should be on its way here very soon.. I am normally in my sandals, but not as yet!

Itching to get the antifouling on, the motor serviced, and yes I will take pics of that water pump impellor that I inadvertently ran dry at the end of last season, for 10 minutes or so. Be good to see if the 'Speedseal, Run Dry' worked. I know the impellor did not break up, because it pumped water as soon as we realised and directed the hose up the intake!!! But sure it must have signs of wear.... Be a good advert for them if it looks OK! Watch this space, or rather my preparation log!

Pleased to say Suzy, who recently enroled, has got back in touch after I called and left a message, to verify her membership. Seems I sent her some 3 Tonner plans over 20 years back, but she never got to build, far too busy!.. Now she may be looking to buy a used boat, maybe a 3 Tonner? Welcome aboard Suzy.

Noticed another M.G. Bawley advertised on EBay, a lot cheaper than the one that has been there a while, but not looking half as smart... Wonder what they are really worth??

This morning here in Essex it was very chilly and a friend called me up to say he had seen a forecast for snow here again..! No snow here and no frost either, fortunately, as a lot of the sensitive shrubs in the garden are in full flower! Cherry trees just about to blossom, real feeling of spring, looking forward to the cherries, so no more frost please!

Got to eventually get out into the new 'Bluebell Spinney' yesterday, late afternoon, when the rain stopped, to put rabbit guards and supports on the few trees put in the day before, (odd bits of goat willow just poked deeply into the ground!) Bet they grow, the ground they were put in seems permanently wet, we think we have springs in the ground, there are others nearby... Great for willow... The ones planted are shrub willows that give those attractive 'Pussy willow' catkins. (memories of the late lovely Carol who named her Eventide 'Pussy Willow' after a cosmetic she used!) All round the wood trees are bursting into life. Great to see, boats in the growing!! This time last year it was just a field!

Did not load the van up with antifouling etc. yesterday, but sat watching the rain again and made great long lists of all the kit to load into the van for today... 14 degrees C outside now and not 1100 yet!

The sun is shining! Still up to our armpits in wet stuff, but at least it feels warmer, a heady 15 degrees C today! Give it a week and we will have forgotten all the rain!

Heard from Richard in Walton on Naze area with a really odd problem for an Eventide, lee helm! To be fair his Eventide is a little different, it is one of the few gaff rigged versions about. I can only think of two others, 'Freya' in Austria and 'Contaro', the Ferro boat built by member Roger Jones.... Richard says the jib as already been reduced in size and he is now contemplating a new larger mainsail... Sadly we cannot offer up much empirical guidance on Gaff rig....

I have taken the first step towards updating the EOG computer. I visited a local company that I normally buy hardware from and got first hand advice from their engineer. He confirmed that the EOG's P.C.'s spec is very good and comparable with many around today and suggested to avoid problems we upgraded to later operating systems. So today I have bought a kosher copy of the Windows upgrade program. With this it should be possible to simply load the new system over the top of the out of date one. What's more I can then go on to update it another step to the latest version.

Sadly we missed out on the 'free' updates, as the programs I use to edit and upload the website were not upgraded themselves until after the Microsoft offers ended, funny that!

Still as you can see, as you are reading this, the editing still works with the later program running on the old operating system and I have been able to test it on my Seagull computer, which is running all the latest operating systems and software. Works fine.

John Stevens is still working on the new data protection rules, and we seem to have found a way of adding the correct sort of wording to the pages to comply. Got a few weeks to finalise this.

Off out to load my van with kit for tomorrow and the rest of the week, antifouling, rollers and brushes, masking tape, prop polishing gear!

The rain has hardly stopped here all weekend, but the forecasters are promising a great weekend next weekend! I feel the urge to antifoul!

We were down at the marina for lunch today, barely a soul working on boats, only one visible trying to clean the bottom of his motor boat in the rain, plenty of ladders up to boats, but no one working outside! Hoping the promised warm up is on the way.

We have had another suspected duff enrolment purporting to come from the same person as before, with an address as a boatyard, but nothing more, if the person is genuine, why don't they pick the phone up or mail as per the home page of the site's instructions... It may be we have to improve security yet again on this enrolment page. We can already track their IP addresses...

Have just added anther 5 pictures of the MG Kylix Jemima see the Kylix pages. The number of pictures of our boats now fast approaching 3,000!

We had a great mail and another new member, Geoff with a 3Tonner 'Petite Fleur'. see the 3Tonner pages. Great when a mystery on our pages is solved!

After a cold start today, as it gets dusk, the temperature is gently rising... is this 'fitting out time' arriving at last?

Wettest Easter for a while, huge puddles everywhere , fields flooded, roads awash. roll on Summer! The long range forecast for the UK is talking about a very hot May, hope it does not all go downhill from there!

The Steering group have authorised a new addition to one of the programs we run, a better Firewall so we are safer for the new Data Protection Rules. All up and running and a good extra layer of protection...

Off to local computer shop later, to get further advice and maybe more updates... more later.

Well the carvery last night was just as good as before, if not better! Sorry you missed out, 4 of us had a great evening!

Though this website seems to glide along smoothly and effortlessly, I think it is rather akin to a graceful mute swan, under the surface there is a lot of furious paddling!

Today I took the bold step of editing and publishing from another machine with a totally different operating system, the latest Windows 10.

We have been toying with the idea of up-rating the now 10 year old EOG computer. We are still on Windows Vista! But before we could do so, we had to find, download and test more modern editing and uploading programs to check they would be capable of dealing with our now massive web site, safely, in the latest Windows environment.

So we are actively looking now at replacing the aged EOG machine, as per the mandate at the Annual Meeting 2 years and 1 year ago!

I have just checked the size of the website. It is an amazing 6.4Gb! To think, when Barry started this 15 years ago it was only a few hundred Mb! Have to thank all the members for the continuing supply of information and photos!

Just today we had a tip in from the Netherlands, on how to mount a laptop for navigational use and recreational use, clever. That will be on the hints and tips page soon..

Lastly I have just mailed the latest new member, Suzy from West Sussex, to find out about her interest in the group, more later I hope.

Sorry should have added to the last entry that all the Steering Group and Representatives, were re-elected to posts.

We are in Maldon tonight for this month get together. We have found and used a rather nice carvery, so are going back to have another try, in case it was a fluke last time! Maybe you can meet us next time??

Had yet another enrolment and another of the old assoc members joining us. Welcome to Suzy in West Sussex, not sure if it is a '3 Tonner' or a 'Storm' class she is interested in building/buying, will find out more.

Rejoicing in the fact that it is absolutely tipping it down again here and is supposed to be doing so for days. Not because I do not want to cut the grass, did that 2 days back!! No heavy rain will prevent 'Travellers' getting on the fields! Yes its that time of year again and we are on Traveller watch, I will be out there before day break... just in case, Barristers phone number on speed dial!

Assuming all quiet, hoping to get fitting out, what little there is to do, started this weekend. Already primed the marina for launching... and I have little excuse for not being afloat in April...

Good news from our Database Manager John, his foot is getting better... but whilst he is still laid up he is investigating what we have to do to comply with the new Data Protection rules imposed from Brussels.. and I though we were leaving?! Speaking to others they appear to be demanding an un-enforceable, unworkable, arrangement to be implemented by tomorrow. Oh how so typical of people with their heads in the clouds!

Hoping John can get his head round it and we can get an additional line added to the enrolment. We have ensured we have all the protection in place on the 2 P.C.'s that data is held on. As you know we do not release anyone's details to a third party. When we get enquiries about a boat, we never pass info back, instead we always contact the owner asking if they would like to be in touch. Most of course are delighted to do so.

One snag we find, is the loss of peoples mail addresses. Not by us, but because some change e-mail addresses like vests, and then forget to tell us.... As we charge no fee we cannot then afford to write to the postal address, so until they come back.....

And finally a pic from Ed in Dakar, with the GH 'Moondancer' hauled out and repainted ready for the sail to Senegal. Fair winds Ed.

We have just returned from a very convivial meeting at Bradwell marina bar. The 15th Annual meeting of this group. Pleased to say I was not there alone! Good to see so many make the effort. A special mention of Phil travelling up from Kent and Alan from Lincolnshire!

We spent a couple of hours talking boats and enjoying a meal and 30 minutes doing the official business.

A couple of things came up that will be discussed with the Steering Group with a view to bringing them back to next years meeting for approval.

Hoping to publish the approved minutes and accounts shortly, suffice to say we are still thriving and solvent!

Just before we left for the meeting we had a great mail in from The Gambia and the skipper of Moondancer, Ed. He was wishing us all well and setting of south for Senegal. Good sailing Ed.

Spring really is in the air, made 11 degrees today and looking around the marina, there were a few working on boats. Time for me to get cracking, prop polishing and antifouling soon, just got to shake off the tail end of this Flue first!

We have been laid low here, for over 5 days, with a nasty Flu Bug. Only just up and about but working on just one cylinder, (like my Seagulls!).. Never felt worse in our lives... this one is to be avoided at all costs. Boss on medications now but I have come through relatively unscathed... now just got to get the brain working again, so I have half a chance being able to deal with the Annual Meeting on Sunday!

Still hearing from those who cannot come along, thanks for the mails, (sorry for delay responding...) but not from many who are attending, maybe they will just surprise us on the day. John Stevens our Database Manager is home bound, convalescing after his foot op but has managed to send me the latest version of the Database so I can check members in on the day. Get back on your foot soon John.

Brian West our Fund Manager, also convalescing, from a knee op, is doing amazingly well and hopes to be there Sunday, well done Brian, suspect Mo driving though!

Had another two great new members join in the past week, Welcome to Roger with the first MG, Cape of Good Hope class, 'Good Hope' a 39ft classic to envy! Maybe we will cross wakes this summer, as she in based in Plymouth.

Welcome too, to Geoff with the beautiful 3 Tonner 'Petite-Fleur'. He tells us he sailed her all the way to Corsica, before selling her later. He bought her back last year and is renovating her to use her this year, well done that man!

Now I am off to write out the site Coordinators report and make all ready, if I can, for Sunday.

See you in the Bradwell Marina bar at 1230 for lunch! Remember first drink on me! Any mystery prize for first 6 members or members family groups signing in!

The Easterly winds are set to bring more snow to much of eastern and southern Britain again this weekend, hopefully though it will be short lived. With temperatures in double figures today and the spring bulbs all showing, they are going to have a shock!

Had more calls to say members will be coming to the Annual Meeting on the 25th at Bradwell, which is a relief.... Be great to see you there! Remember first drink for all attending, on me, as I do not have to travel far! Also a special gift for the first 6 members or member family groups to sign in! Further incentive!

Had a nice mail from Norman with the Kylix 'Jemima' down in Bideford. I will be adding pics and words to the gallery shortly. He is doing a great job of giving her a facelift! Also taking the bold step of converting her to Junk Rig! hope to see much more on that...

Hello and Welcome to another new member, Matt in New Zealand. Matt has just joined the forum and is looking for the drawings for a pair of steel bilge plates for his GH 31.

Sadly someone removed them some time in the past.... We have another owner who is having one made for his GH31. So maybe we can liaise? Nick who bought the GH at Tollesbury.... His missing bilge keel is still in the creek, no one recovered it for him....

Finally we have been invited to a Classic boat event in Suffolk in June this year, anyone up for it??

Suffolk Yacht Harbour’s Classic Regatta

With beautiful meadowland and rolling banks, it would be hard to beat the stunning view around every corner while sailing on the River Orwell. For classic boat owners undoubtedly the best opportunity to take in this gorgeous Suffolk scenery is the always popular Classic Regatta at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, held this year on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th June.

Now in its 17th year, returning participants and newcomers will head to the Levington-based marina for two days’ of coastal racing in Dovercourt Bay, Harwich Harbour, and the Orwell and Stour estuaries.

The Classic Regatta is expected to attract a fleet of beautiful classic boats of all abilities across Fast, Slow and Stella classes. The weekend event has a reputation for being relaxed and offers an opportunity for classic boat owners to come together and enjoy sailing on the Suffolk coast.

On Saturday, competitors can often be found socialising at Haven Ports Yacht Club and enjoying the regatta party onboard the HPYC lightship with live music and supper. It’s a great way to catch up with old friends, make new acquaintances and have a marvellous time.

After the racing has finished on Sunday, competitors are invited to a prize-giving in the Harbour Room, where they enjoy a cold beer or two and find out more about the services available for classic yachts at Suffolk Yacht Harbour.

With spring on the horizon and the regatta season fast approaching, it’s a great time to secure your place at one of the seasons’ calendar highlights. If you would like to find out more information about this regatta, please contact Jonathan Dyke at jonathan@syhabour.co.uk or 01473 659465.

Suffolk Yacht Harbour boasts a 550 berth marina with access to all states of the tide and is fully committed to the classic scene, with specialists in classic boat restoration and repair available on-site in our newly refurbished workshop.

For more information visit

www.syharbour.co.uk

So that's it for now, go and check those covers again, then give it a week it will be antifouling time!

I spent some time last night in the District Council planning meeting, preparing to stand up and fight ruthless developers, only for them to throw the towel in without a fight. Disappointing, would have liked to have given them a bit of a public humiliation! Just shows you that determined small groups can win, if you have the truth on your side! Reminds me of the eoa/EOG debacle!

Had some good mails in over the last few days, at least one trying to get to the annual meeting by sea! Richard with the Eventide Cameroon. Still hearing from those who cannot attend?? Surely someone can join us???

Peter the webmaster is working out how we can do a lot of the official business on line, in a members only page.. More when we have something concrete.

Good news about the GH that sunk at Tollesbury. Nick has it washed out and partially repaired, sadly no one could be bothered to recover the missing bilge plate from the bottom of the creek for him though... He also had to scrap the motor too, thought he would have had to, although it was got going again after the sinking, without loads of attention and regular running it was inevitable it would rust up. He has an air cooled Lister to go in her. Trying to bend his arm to join us and to send pictures. I do know though the name of the boat is back to its original name when he sailed thousands of miles in her, 'Cedeihe'. I owned this boat for 10 years & sailed thousands of miles in her around the Med & the South coast, and was caught in a force 9 on a trip from Le Havre back to Rye where she behaved beautifully.

Heard from the owner of Jemima again, he has done a great job in restoring her, a Kylix 29. I will be adding pictures and the story to the Gallery shortly.

Nick with the GH has sold the Eventide 'Ashani' and the new owner has asked after us. Joining soon I hope. Another for John to add to the database.

And speaking of our Database manager he is at home convalescing after an op on his foot and settling down to catch up on all the database entries he has outstanding so we are right up to date! Mammoth job that has been ongoing for years! Get well soon John. Hope we soon have a working database of all our 1650 members!

Sent out a few reminders re the Annual meeting last weekend, and noticed immediately the owner of the smart Barbican 'Avalon' responded by signing up for the Forum!

All for now, weather getting warmer, but see snow forecast again for Saturday, not time to antifoul yet!

Just off to take my lady (a mum of course), out to lunch. Hope you are looking after yours if you are lucky to still have them around!

Heard from a lot of members re the forthcoming meeting... March 25th Bradwell. Sadly every one telling us they cannot attend for one reason or another and sending apologies! Could be a different sort of annual meeting if only 4 of us get there!

With that in mind and with all our 1650 members spread out, not just all over the UK, but all over the world, we have been toying with a different way of allowing all to get more involved. Early days as yet and we will have to alter the constitution in order to do it, but I thought an owners only page on the website, where the reports from the Annual meeting could be published and a comments section, so that enroled members could have a say. Then if we needed to vote on anything we could have say a 30 day voting period, where 'Full owning and voting members' can log in and say Yes or No!

Running this past the Steering Group at the moment and waiting on a feasibility response from the webmaster.

So it did not come back to one person, it was imagined that every member of the Steering Group would be in the loop, all the time, that way if I was away or unavailable, comments would still be heard....

Lots of ifs an buts to sort out but thought it may be a good way to make the EOG more available to far flung members...

I belong to a motorcycle owners club and only those who own can belong and make comments on their private pages. Heard of other boat owners groups who have similar password protected pages, so why not?? One suggestion from John Stevens was to reinstate the location map on these hidden pages, with some details of where a member was and what type of craft and a method of contacting them...

Only Three weeks till our Annual Meeting at Bradwell. Looking forward to seeing a few members there. Remember this is your chance to question the Steering Group, the Fund Manager, or the Database Manager or myself, and to put forward ideas for the future.

We have not as yet had any logs or seamanship stories in, remember we have a trophy to award.....

For the first 6 members or family groups of members that sign in on the afternoon, there will be a special prize.!!

Also as normal I will buy everyone that first drink, coffee, beer or what ever, no champagne though!

We are looking for a new Barbican or Atlantic Clipper rep and Steering Group member, fancy coming aboard?

No guest speaker this year, official business after we have lunched, at 1400, normally takes 45 minutes! Then a chance to chat again as the bar will remain open for us.

Just heard from a few of the Steering Group that they are willing to serve again, but if anyone else wishes to get involved, (Full Members!) please contact us. enquiries@eventides.org.uk

Eilard our Netherlands Rep has just sent in this picture of his boat, moored in the Netherlands!

Being mostly freshwater the inland waterways of the Netherlands are often ice bound!

Here the snow is beginning to melt. However tonight's frost will bring more chaos as the roads will be sheet ice... Hopefully back to the normal damp and dismal soon!

And still it snows! and to add to it freezing rain, nothing moving here, amazing how many slopes there are in our flat county of Essex, all with heaps of cars at the bottom! Hoping for a respite soon.

Heard nothing back from Craig Ackerman so we assume it was a phoney application. Amazing how many duff ones we get! Craig if you are out there and reading this happy to enrol you once we get more info, maybe have a chat on the phone?

Had a nice mail in today from the builder of the fin keel Eventide 26, 'Sarane'. Brian is hoping she is still about... We we know she was in 2011 as she was seen in the channel islands, but where is she now?

We have just had a mail in to remind us that we have to renew domain names we own. As we do not use these other than to have a link to our main site we will have to consider if we still want to pay for them. Interestingly we were just offered 'Eventideownersassociation.org', No, that is nothing to do with us, it was them and now they are dead and gone!

Sorting out buying some ink for the database Manager, John so he can print out and sort all the outstanding entries on the database. Hopefully he will be home later after a visit to hospital and can convalesce doing the updates, nothing too strenuous though John!

Hoping this white stuff gently disappears now, it was fun for a bit, getting bored now! Wrong sort of snow to make snowmen from too!

We are officially snowed in! Not only has our road a 2ft snow drift across it that we have managed to clear, but there is a 5ft one a mile or so away that no one is getting past for now. Warned you about checking those covers! Wind blown snow....

All our Daffs for St. David's Day are buried here and only just in bud when they were last visible! Cold easterlies delay spring flowers here and last night it was minus 6! Gale 8 winds caused all the drifting! Been snowing on and off since 0800 again today and adding to the 5 or 6 inches on the ground. Though the weather people call it the first day of spring I prefer to wait till the equinox! All this snow should have long gone by then.

Just seen the local farmer go past with a 'mini snow plough' like plate fixed on the front of his tractor, that may clear at least our road...

Another two new enrolments. Martin Dooley with the Eventide 26, 'Tao', has joined us and today we also welcome Craig from Chichester, as a friend or 'Associate' member. Not sure if he is contemplating buying or what, I will hope to find out...

Enrolments are still coming in fast, we have to be doing something right... If you agree or disagree Sunday March 25th, be at Bradwell marina bar at 1230 lunch time to have your say. Remember only 'Full' members have a vote, (after 1 year of membership), but comments from associate members always welcome!

John Stevens and myself have corrected and re corrected a very long log for inclusion on the logs page of our site. Great reading! Sadly the cruise took place a while ago.. What we need before the 25th is a recent log or two or a story of a feat of seamanship for the trophies... Have you a story to tell?

Had a power cut a few minutes ago. Happens a lot here, but the EOG has a backup power pack to protect this computer! Clever stuff. Means I can keep working and nothing at risk.

Three inches of the white stuff here overnight, with more promised for the next few days, will get thicker before it melts away.

Had a mail from the owner of one of the Eventides on the Gallery, 'Tao'. Martin has it in his boatyard in Lancashire. See his website. http://www.characterboats.co.uk/

He specialises in gaff rig day boats and is thinking of converting 'Toa' to gaff. Will be an interesting rig change. We do of course have the gaff rig on one of the drawings in our CD of all the Eventide drawings on the CD, available at cost to members.... hoping to get a completed enrolment from from him shortly!

Wonder how many know that Calor gas hoses and regulators have a 5 year life? They are actually dated. In use the interior 'rubber' parts rot, even when not in actual use. Can you risk a leak?

Tomorrows meal is cancelled, the temperature has not risen beyond zero today and spent a lot of time at minus 2! Better safe.. We will meet another night.

Or not, as the Annual meeting is less than 4 weeks away, so we may just skip this one. See you all at Bradwell on the 25th March.... As ever, I buy everyone attending their first drink!

As I type there is a blizzard outside, for a moment the horizontal driving snow left visibility down to 100 yards, but a moment later the sun is out! Forecast for today is showers, but for the next couple of days heavy and continuous. Prediction is a foot of the white stuff! Just along the coast here. That will be fun. Most of the family have never driven in real heavy sow and don't want to, years ago we had to and it was fun, once mastered. today, even if you have a 4x4 most have the wrong tyres and great fat wheels not best for snow. Remembering letting the air out of tyres and then having snow chains, back in 1973!

Hope those covers are tight, snow is terrible for getting under covers and blowing into boats. The snow today is so dry and it is so cold outside it is not melting but blowing about like dust. If it gets under covers, then thaws and freezes it will lift paint and varnish!.

At the moment we have blue sky and sunshine, but big black clouds scudding across the horizon dumping more white stuff 10 miles away to the north!

John Stevens had his op cancelled, so common in today's N.H.S., but with any luck this morning they will have done the op and his toe will be repaired. Hopping he will be home soon!

And it is due to snow heavily here in the east, for a week at least, so be prepared.

John has been assisting me correct a lengthy manuscript that will be appearing shortly on the logs page, amazing how many times both of us have read and re read it through and are still finding errors! Its a 2,000 mile epic!

Sunday 25th March at Bradwell Marina bar!! Be there to be part of this group. Your chance to have a say... Remember only 'Full ' Members can vote though. Input from 'Associate' members always welcomed.

Last night was a cold one, pond frozen solid, that has been rare this winter.. Got down to my boat yesterday and managed to load back onboard all the 'gear' I had brought off 3 weeks back, will be totting up the weight shortly. At least I can now get my old van in the garage out of the cold! At 50 years young this year she needs her creature comforts!

Heard from Eilard our Netherlands rep, he tracked down the son of the chap who used to build Wild Ducks out there, in steel of course. Sadly all the old drawings have long gone, but it was a valiant effort, well done! If anyone has any info about the 23ft version in steel of our 19ft WildDuck we would love to follow it up.

I have moved on to plan 'J' now re my 'Fiddling Around' trip. I have been thrown a lifeline so I may be able to do the dream trip through the Falkirk wheel yet! See the preparation page.

Lastly a warm welcome to Tim Lipington who has just joined us. Tim is interested in the WW CD. Interestingly he was a member of the now defunct eoa.

Heard from another organisation last week promising to promote the EOG, nice of them... The Cruising Association!

So just time to make sure those covers are snow tight if your boat is in Kent, Essex, Suffolk or maybe Norfolk...

Oh dear, 1000hrs, poor old John's op was cancelled just as he was to be wheeled in the theatre, an emergency. Trouble is because of the emergency there was then infection so the lot closed down! So he is on hold again... Time to put the feet up for a few days shipmate.

Good wishes to our Database Manager, in hospital today having his foot fixed! After a nasty accident with a car being chased by police, culprit apprehended! Won't be able to call him 'hopalong' shortly.

Members have seen that the chap with an old set of paper Eventide plans, torn and tattered, is still trying to sell them on EBay. I am loath to inform him they are not good to build from! Only the ones we advertise are corrected, tried and tested!!

Since the news of the demise of the old eoa, it is interesting to see the interest in the EOG from the yachting press and other clubs and organisations. It is as if they were just sitting back waiting for them to fail. All who have contacted me have said the same, 'what were they thinking of, allowing non owners to run it'. One club told me they hurriedly altered their constitution in 2003, so that non owners did not have the power to do what the old eoa committee and their hastily elected cronies, did to us!

May have told the tale before, but when news of the nasty AGM leaked out, and none were more alarmed than the CA staff who hosted it and listened to the shenanigans... We subsequently heard from them of two clubs that suffered a similar fate. One was at Gt. Yarmouth where non owners voted the owners out of their own moorings! The sailing side of the club were forced to move away, leaving it as a drinking club for locals!

The other was a small but enthusiastic dinghy sailing club, deep in the Fens. All they had was a port a cabin and a dinghy park and slip. They allowed immigrant workers from nearby farms to join as social members (thinking their spending would boost the coffers!) and at the next AGM the farm workers closed the sailing side down and now the club is a working mans club!

We are waiting to see if the eoa do the morally right thing with the regalia they hold, all freely donated to them by individuals for the benefit of owners, some even by me! Will be a lasting blot on them if these items do not somehow find their way back to the real owners.

Hoping to be able to add some pages to the builders and restores pages soon, the weather is improving and heard from at least one builder who is itching to get going. (new build!!).

Looking forward to checking in on 'Blackwater Witch', ex 'Dougaljo' soon too. Repairs soon to be started!

'Moondancer' in Africa is still sailing and Ed believes the damage he sustained was no more than a scratch along the hull maybe. He is to haul out soon to repair her, but says epoxy is difficult to get hold of in Africa??

'I have cruised 150 miles up the river Gambia and will soon return to the coast. The journey was through beautiful Mangroves, palms and jungle with monkeys, chimps, crocodiles and hippos which was very special.

My plan is to sail north to Dakar in the next few weeks where I plan to get Moondancer hauled onto the beach where we can do a proper repair. It looked to me as if it was just the sheathing and not the wood that is damaged but I will sand it back and take a proper look when high and dry with the wood time to dry out before we cover it.'

Do hope you will be looking after the other love in your life today, as well as checking the covers on your boat!

T'was a year today that my love and I stepped out on a great adventure. Today, a year on we have trees! Will be a while before we can harvest enough to build a boat though! One day someone may, for chances are we will have run out of oil and plastics and will be back to timber boats in 100 years!!

So busy has it been for the last week or two I forgot to wish the Eventide Owners Group a happy anniversary! We formed on the 9th of February 2003, so we are now 15! In our 16th successful year!

Sadly we have now had it confirmed that the former eoa has folded. We heard first from Yachting Monthly, then from another owners group and it has now been confirmed. Sad they did not make it to the 55th anniversary. We were approached a couple of years back and asked if we would like to BUY their assets! We declined, as these were donated to the owners and if we paid the old assoc. for them, we had grave doubts as to who would pocket the proceeds. We did offer for them to join us and share our success, sadly they chose not to respond. We said it was only a matter of time. If the people running a group are not committed enough to actually own the boats, it was just bound to happen.

We are now welcoming our 1650th member, or there abouts, John S. has the exact figures, but Welcome to Mustafa in Turkey who is very interested in having a large steel or Ferro MG built!

We are investigating the Wild Duck that was built at Kesteloo, the 23ft version. You may recall we took photos of one we met in Goes in the Netherlands. Chances are the drawings may be lost, like so many, but it was felt it was worth a try so Eilard the Netherlands rep and Chris the ex rep may get together to see what can be found out... We will let you know.

With temperatures down to freezing again and snow yet again in the forecast, winter has not let go as yet.

But hope is on the horizon, tomorrow is traditionally the day when the birds start looking for nest sites and we have just found that the first of the 500 woodland daffs are showing their noses in our new spinney.

Roll on spring and summer! Soon be time to roll back those covers and get back aboard. I am one of the few fortunate ones in the UK, who has a barn to winter in. In the Netherlands it is really common practice and that seems to be how they can all be ready to launch early on as they have been beavering away in the warm and dry!

Had an enquiry in from Turkey today, for a steel Wild Duck?? Of course they were made in steel in the Netherlands, but only by one company who converted the drawings for their own use. We have seen stretched versions of the WD in steel. Sadly we, nor anyone else, has the drawings for these now.

We heard from the Trident Owners Association today, they are celebrating their 50th anniversary. They have kept going all these years because they stayed as an 'owners association' and did not water their constitution down to allow non owners to run the group. Well done them! Had the old eao done the same they today may have been as successful as the TOA or ourselves....

Weather has been cold enough to freeze the gold fish pond for a few days, makes a change... But today was bright and sunny so I was off to the boat barn to start loading the kit back aboard...

Had a mail from a member to inform me about 'Shiply', for getting F.G. back from Scotland this season. Yes I know this website and there is already a link to it on our links page. but thanks for the thought! I found last time that you needed about a week to 10 days advance notice to be able to book anything, return loads work up to 3 months in advance sometimes... Cannot afford the marina fees in Scotland waiting for that amount of time! I was lucky last time 5 years back, I waited less than a week, just slotted in beautifully with 'Galt Transports' plans!

In black today, as yesterday my plan to sail the Scottish canals all the way to Edinburgh via the Falkirk Wheel was shot down in flames! We took the boat to the weighbridge and I quickly realised it was not going to be OK to tow her home to Bradwell from Scotland. Full story on my preparation page....

Yesterday we had one of our members ask after the CD of Senior drawings, preparing a CD now ready to post!

Heard from another member who told me what the all up weight of his 28ft Eventide was, his is stretched to 28ft, just slightly longer than mine...

Should have realised then that mine was going to be heavier than I anticipated, his is 5000Kg.

Another mail commented on the fact that the Bawley and the Eventide 24 on EBay have not shifted as yet. Suspect the prices will have to come down to get a bite... but then strange thing about selling boats, is you can never tell.

Recalled the story of a guy I met on the London River back in the 1970's. He had an old Thames sailing barge, no rig, it was fitted out as a diving boat. He took her round the coast in the summer and hired her out. Lived aboard. He had decided to move on and wrote out an advert for that famous paper that we all used then, the Exchange and Mart. The advert was supposed to end with an £8k price tag, somehow it was printed with an extra zero. When I met him a day or two later he was very cross and waiting to put the advert in again. A day later he was elated, someone had made him an offer close to the 'wrong' price.

Heard from Ed in Africa with the GH Moondancer. He had suffered some damage to a bilge keel and we have been able to give him some advice. We are hoping it is not as serious as the damage that sunk the GH at Tollesbury. It may be just sheathing damage... He has also sent a nice pic of her .

Barrie, with a Springtide, in Southampton Water. This 26ft GRP boat built by Kenneth Evans and 'Partners' has a lot of MG about it, we have included the Springtide owners as 'friends', awaiting the day we can prove MG was that partner!

Welcome too to Bob Shaw, looking to buy a Senior. Suspect we will soon be changing Bob's membership status from 'Friend' to 'Full' shortly! Bob hails from Wembury in Devon, beautiful area.

George in South Africa sent in another nice pic of his Eventide 'Valerie'. She is a heavyweight stretched Eventide, coming out at 28ft and 5000Kg Same size almost as the first GH's.

This morning we had snow, just a dusting, but with temperatures just hovering above freezing the forecasters have indicated we may have more tonight. Hope we do not get a lot as we are planning to roll Fiddler's Green out of her snug secure barn on Thursday and take her to be weighed, can do without a layer of snow on top! Bets on how much she weighs in at??

A small but select group met at Boreham on Wednesday and enjoyed a jovial evening. Looking forward to the next get together at the end of this month.

I have been somewhat distracted over the last week with the fate of a group of wooden, classic craft... The situation with these is so similar to that of our old classic wooden boats, If they fall into disrepair their value plummets and like out boats they are often scrapped, consigned to the bonfire. I have been fighting to preserve about a dozen of these grand craft and with the assistance of the internet I am hoping to have found a solution to the problem of their future, time will tell. What are they? Gliders!!!

I wish it was as easy with old Eventides... often we find out too late to be able to get the rescue off the ground... With the gliders I was involved early....

Maybe one day I may get a short flight in one? would have loved to have done it 30 years ago, but alas no money nor opportunity. Am I too old at 70 to try?

Learnt that our Database Manager had a glider pilots licence for some time! Man of many talents!

Still chilly here but dry, heard snow in the forecast again, but heck it is only early February.

The Essex group will be meeting in Boreham on Wednesday, 1900hrs at 'The Grange' for a meal. If you wish to join us please ring 01621 778859 so we can get a larger table!

We have the grandson staying with us for a few days, strapping 17yr old! Has been a real asset unloading kit from the boat, see preparation log, as well as assisting me clear fallen dead elms from the edge of the new wood. Not our trees, but neighbours, some that should have been cut down 40 odd years ago when they succumbed to 'Dutch Elm' disease.

We were at the boat again today and loaded another full load into my little Morris minor Van. Off to te weighbridge next week we hope.

Do you know how much your boat weighs in at? We have been amazed at the quantity and weight of the kit that is never normally removed. Recall the weight of an early E24 was supposed to be 30cwt! (old money!).

When I weighed my old Eventide 24 'Bluenose', many moons ago, she came in at just over 2 tons and add the trailer nearer 2.75... Was a bit of a shock at the time as the trailer was only good for 2 tons max! We rebuilt the trailer with beefier 1.5 tonne units! Total all up weight limit 3 ton. Well inside trailer limit.

Later we had to add another axle when we converted a similar trailer, built for the fund Managers E24 and later sold to me for use under my E26 and a bit.. (actually 27'3"!). Having shocked ourselves by weighing the boat and trailer...... We had to beef that trailer up so the suspension could take 4.5 tons, we did it by adding an extra axle, to make 3 and each pair of units was upgraded to 1.5 tonnes (new money) per axle.

After we launch the boat this spring, we will return to the weighbridge and weigh the trailer, to see exactly how much a modern Eventide 26 weighs in at!

Mailstore Maldon are having a sale! 15% off till Jan 31st! Not to be sniffed at! Do take advantage, just add JAN18 in the offer box, when prompted. If you order more than £75's worth then post is free too!

Mailstore already undercut every internet shop I have ever found, support our local chandlery! Friendly Folk!

I have, see my Preparation log. Just bought the last bits I was having to buy for my trip!

Talking of Jan 31st.... The Essex area group meal night. We are going to be in Boreham Essex, just north of Chelmsford. Call me on 01621 778859 if you would like me to add you to the table reservation!

I spent a happy couple of hours editing the site last night. We have had that many new pictures of different boats send in or found. There is a new addition on the Friends page of the Gallery, a 'Springtide', dare you to tell me MG had nothing to do with this one!

A new boat a Barrier Reef, found in Walton by John Hopthrow this winter, just added to the 'Other MG designs' page of the Gallery. Do not as yet know the owner of this beauty.

Also added to this page a Thames Bawley 'Kittiwake' found for sale on EBay, though oddly advertised as a 'Thomas' Bawley! We have been in touch with the seller! She deserves a new caring owner.

I managed to lay out, measure and mark the new anchor chain, the skinflints sent it short by half a metre!. Not going back though and now all marked every 5 metres. Another job ticked off the list on my 'Preparation' page.

Hoping to get my boat to a nearby public weighbridge shortly, be interesting to see how much the boat and trailer weighs in at! Read the preparation page to see why I am bothering!

With temperatures suddenly in double figures one could be excused for thinking we are over the coldest bit, but it is just a blip, so keep those covers on for a bit yet!

Cold wet and 'orrid here! Sleet and rain with occasional snow flakes, just 3 degrees... Still I did get to my boat yesterday to check the barn still had a roof after the last blow and bring a few bits home. See my 'preparation log'. Planning is getting serious now!

Took a run down the road to look over the river the other day , no one out there and white tops as far as the eye could see. Not inviting! Heard from one of our members, Bede, that he had a sail round the Isle of Wight last weekend, cold and a little breezy at times but on a well found 33ft boat, a good trip. Think Bede is made of 'strong' stuff! Looking at it out there I think I will wait till it warms up!

Only two months till our next Annual meeting, 25th March. Hope it will be a little warmer by then so as many members as possible can turn out. Good to get feedback from the membership. We hope we are doing what you would like us to but without your input we are just guessing.

Bede told me about an App and a chart pack available through www.visitmyharbour.com Worth having a look.

If you get an android tablet and the charts and app you can carry the lot in the cockpit (in a waterproof case) or wherever, with AIS on it as well, very clever. Sadly does not work on an iphone or I may be tempted, for less than £35.00!!

Hope your winter work is progressing well and your boats are safe, roll on the season!

We have had a succession of grey winter days here, and today is another. Certainly not conducive to work outside! (Not that my nurse will let me out into the cold yet, after the bug I had!!). So I have been downloading chart corrections for the 20 odd charts I have here as part of my folio for the second part of my round England, Wales and part of Scotland, hopefully taking in a visit to Ireland along the way! Some have Three A4 pages of corrections, that will keep me busy though the next month or so!

I have updated the 'Preparation Log' pages as well, I have been busy on our EBay page again!. Scroll to the bottom to get the latest. This morning I downloaded the directions for navigating and obtaining licences etc. for the Forth and Clyde Canal! More reading material.

Had a request in from a new member, welcome to Tom, with a Golden Hind in Wales. He would like to get in touch with other GH owners. Contact us to be put in touch. He has GH 63 a sheathed ply version from 1968. Formerly known as 'Blyth Andora' now renamed 'Catrin Glyndwr' Any relation to the other 'MG', the Welsh one I wonder??

Michael with 'Mystique' was in touch last week and has sent a load of interior shots of his boat, interesting decor! Also a couple of pics of her without the junk rig as a motor cruiser. Looks good.

Hope the armchair sailing is going well, I have worked my way along most of the south coast already this week!

Popped into the marina bar last night for a meal, we were the only ones there! Arranged our Annual Meeting date. 25th March at 1400, bar meal beforehand, 1230. We have the exclusive use of the marina bar dining area, lets fill it!

Storm Eleanor wreaked a little damage here last week, several very old dead elm trees came down near our boundary falling in among our newly planted trees, but thankfully missing them all, though a few bits of fence suffered. The dead elms were 'Cornish lock elms' a variety planted widely in the area as hedging, not the enormous English elms! At just 15ft tall and no more than 5 inches diameter, they are easily removed! Firewood!!

(I am protecting a few elms of this variety in our hedge. By keeping them trimmed back the elm beetle cannot get access and therefore not spread the virus that decimated the other native elms here...)

We had an interesting enquiry from France yesterday, asking about our drawings and seemingly wanting to use some of our drawings to experiment on re stability curves? Interesting.

I had the stability curve and the rating for my Eventide worked out by my surveyor 27 years or so ago, was an interesting exercise. Proved that MG knew what he was about, my Eventide is supposedly suitable for offshore use, what a surprise!

Keeping warm here, as I am still recovering from a nasty bug that left me squeaking like Pinky and Perky, so chilly outside, wind chill temperature is minus 2!

Start the year with the news that at least one other boat is to join 'Fiddler's Green' next summer, at least to see us as far as the Swin! 'Wedjit'! Do hope we can kindle a bit of interest with others to get them to sail further.

We are hoping to spend 2 months approx sailing the 800 miles or so up to Troon, to complete the second half of our trip. When we get back to Scotland we then have a few options, sail on, through the Clyde and Forth eastwards to Edinburgh, then south, or trail back with our own trailer or piggy back home on an artic. Others, if they join, may decide to peel off and go further north, to Skye and the outer Hebrides maybe. Perhaps retracing our route through the Crinan and the Caledonian canals...

We met others last time who loved it so much in Scotland's waters they arranged moorings up there and went back the next summer! I really can see why!

Heard from John Hopthrow, he has found a MG Barrier Reef in Walton, in lovely order too. Pics to be added to the gallery. Hope to find out more about her....

Not the boat I thought it may be, Crystal Voyager, different number of wheelhouse windows!

The Eric Manners mention in December has brought a couple more comments. The late Gerry Loveridge's family, Wendie and Sally have sent more info, they knew Eric! And Chris in the Netherlands has turned up more, he designed big cats and tri's too! Also a story of shipwreck I am going to bend his am to write up! (in an Eric Manners cat!)... I will be passing all on to the enquirer. So good the network of Eventiders stretches so far.

Had a nice note in from Peter North's daughter Val, after we sent a card. Peter sadly has severe memory problems and cannot remember a thing, a nautical card every now and again is the least I can do for all the assistance he gave me 40 years back!