Snow Goose - The Boat

Snow Goose is a  fine example of a Series 1 Macwester 27 built in 1973 at Littlehampton.  She is certainly not a ‘project boat’ - I bought her specifically because she was in such good condition and for and old boat relatively ready to use.  However, as we all know there is always something and there have been plenty of things to improve or fix on Snow Goose. When I bought her there was no question that she was better set up below decks than above. An excellent interior fit out and relatively new engine are strengths that will I am sure be of lasting pleasure and value. Sails and rigging needed more attention and still do although what I have done so far has made big differences in sailing performance.  It is encouraging to know there is more to do, and of course that there is a lot more for the sailor to learn.

My preferred cruising, at the moment, is relatively local coastal sailing and the huge pleasures of exploring the Thames Estuary and the East Coast.  Whether I go further afield in future and whether that will be on this boat remains to be seen but I doubt Snow Goose will be the limiting factor. So what are the things that have preoccupied a typical small cruiser owner in the last 12 months? A lot of learning, a number of improvements and a few seemingly intractable problems, the solution to which still elude me. Sound familiar?

Engine

Having done the RYA diesel course and learnt what a brilliant invention the diesel engine is, (pity about the fuel source and the carbon), and having explored my engine over the last year or so I have learned a lot.  I have serviced it myself in order to learn and the few times it has caused any trouble I have found logical solutions, none of which were the fault of the engine itself.

This is a 25 HP 3 cylinder marinised Perkins industrial engine.  Built in 2004 and installed in 2009 it has done little mileage and is in good condition. It has started to overheat twice in the last year or so due to blockages in the cooling water inlet. I have learned to inspect this regularly and keep it clear.  Neither occasion was major for the engine but the first time had me hurriedly finding a mooring buoy in the Thames at Gravesend and desperately trying to work out what the matter was. This was before I knew there was an easily accessible strainer in the cooling water inlet.

Although the engine is oversized for the boat I like it. It runs most comfortably at about 1200 rpm and sounds good.  I will be fitting sound-proofing to the engine compartment at some point.

Sails

Wilkinson Sails in Faversham washed and inspected the sails last winter and declared them good enough for cruising for the next 5 years.  Main and Genoa don’t match, and of the two the main is the lesser quality, although newer.  With new tell tails and better set up and trimming my sailing has improved a lot.  The main improvement being the re arrangement of the genoa sheets which were wrongly set up when I got the boat for this large genoa, causing it to have far to much belly and to back the main. After some research I found that these boats were originally rigged with smaller genoas and sheets ran through fixed points on the deck. With a sail of this size the sheets need to go further back to short tracks aft of the winches.  I have now replaced the old tracks and this arrangement combined with Barber Haulers, also possibly there previously, does work much better. The boat points higher and the better shaped slot gives her faster speed up wind. The new addition of a spinnaker and cruising chute complete the sail wardrobe. So far the cruising chute has been a huge success adding up to a knot broad reaching and running, poled out spinnaker-wise. Snow Goose is never going to be fast, especially in light wind but she is already faster than I thought she would be, and I have a lot more to learn.

Winches

Snow Goose has original Gibb winches with fixed handles.  These were seized when I got the boat and only after a lot of heaving and grunting over a vice did I free them and reassemble them in reasonable shape.  They are not particularly effective and I am now considering replacing them with modern two speed self tailing winches, but only when I can afford it! We will see whether the desire for original authenticity is outweighed by the wish for quicker tacks and less hard work for a short handed sailor.

Gooseneck

A curious set up, fabricated for the previous owner, had been worrying me for a while and this summer grew distorted and eventually cracked at the weld. This finally gave up, possibly with increased application of kicking strap. Happily it has now been repaired and modified with a shorter cantilever from the mast track. So far so good but in order not to overload the fitting the kicking strap mounting point on the boom needs moving further aft.

before

after

Electrics

Battery management is something to learn and I am getting there. It may be that a proper battery monitor would be a wise purchase. As it is after a number of experiments as to how to share the load between the two batteries, which invariably have taxed one more than the other, I have settled for the regime of starting on both and switching to one or the other on alternate days for instruments, lighting etc. The main thing of course being to keep at least one of them well charged at all times.

When I got the boat many of the power connections, at bulbs etc, were functioning poorly and needed cleaning.  I have also replaced navigation light bulbs with LEDs.  Of the instruments the wind instrument has misbehaved pretty much constantly despite what I do to it.  I have now soldered all the connections in the wiring and the display is still intermittent. Time for a replacement perhaps.