Facom visit

Thursday saw me planning a trip to Facom in France (I was going to the Beauleigh river??? ) I checked the tides, fuelled the boat up (ouch!) and a couple of friends decided to come with me.




We left Brighton on Friday in a smooth sea with light wind, from the NE and with the tide going the same way (more or less) We were at 90 degrees to the tide and wind, but both were slight and so off we went. All oils and levels had been checked and the engines ( "Agneta" port and "Frida" Starboard) were running like sewing machines. We cast of from the marina and out into the English channel on a course of around 165 degrees, I set the plotter and the auto pilot and duly went to bed (not really :o)) ) I plotted the course to Facom and also to Dieppe as a secondary destination, and filled in the log appropriately, adjusted the chart plotter, checked the auto pilot and had a very pleasant voyage, as far as the half way mark (grenwich light vessel) when the wind picked up and the tide change to flow the other way (to be expected as its a a natural occurance but the forcast stated that the wind would drop and of course it didn`t it increased (doesn`t it always) so we now had wind over tide at more wind than expected.




With the " beam sea " The boats, now "scewy" action caused one member of crew to take to their bunk but they weren`t actually sick, just terrified (their admittance) they had never been on a boat before (other than a cruise ship) and even though we tried to prepare them for the possible eventuality of some "rolly" weather, they didn`t expect to live through the experience (again, their admittance) :o))

We arrived at Facom three and a half hours after departing Brighton (A Sixty five Nautical Mile Voyage )so we had made good time. We moored up to the end of "E" pontoon, as instructed.

As always the marina staff were brilliant, I duly visited the "Captainarie" and paid for a couple of nights expecting to leave on Sunday some time.



Lining up on the harbour entrance



Closing the entrance



Slow Motion moored on E pontoon

A festival was due to take place at the weekend and in fact the monday was a Bank holiday too, so a public holiday it was then.



This boat was launched today and is for disabled sailors

We went out in the evening for a Tai meal (scrummy!) and sat chatting in the deck house until late.

On Saturday we checked the engines in preparation for the return trip on the Sunday (possible, as we had some flexibility built in, and the bank holiday celebrations looked too good to miss?) and spent the day looking around the myriad stalls selling brick-a-brac, antiques and all sort of things from food to sandalls to membership of the French lifeboat association.



I think the stilt walkers were Moroccan

There were many bands and shows going on all weekend including stilt walking bands, and Rock groups in the evenings. On Sunday we decided to leave and so cast off around mid day, having said our goodbyes, and out into the Channel we went , the wind was a little more than I would have liked at force 5 but acceptable as it was dropping (the forcast said? and a phone call to Brighton confirmed that it was flat calm with no wind there) so it was back on a course of around 355 degrees, auto pilot set ( and back to bed :O))) ). At around 10 Nautical Miles, the Starboard engine "Frida" began to loose power and I expected that the chop on the way over had stirred, any muck in the tanks up, making its way into the filters, which incedently, had only done about six hours since I replaced them.

Sure we could have made the whole journey in about eight hours on just the one engine, but I believe in being safe and we limped back to Facom with only one engine, to return to the same berth, We were by now loosing drive on the starboard engine slightly so I reduced speed to compensate and to keep it running, the Anchor was made ready in case it was needed, fortunately the wind had abated a little and we made Facom in two hours from the point we turned at, a bit different to the speed of the voyage across?

The engine room was opened up and the filters duly checked, sure enough the starboard engine "Frida", the one that had stopped wasn`t too bad but was much too mucky for just six hours of running. The port filter (on "Agneta" the engine that hadn`t fully stopped) was however blocked almost totally. When you think that I brought this boat down the channel on over a hundred mile journey in anything from a force five to a force eight, I had been lucky that this hadn`t happened before. So dirty fuel it was, either from Brighton Marina (unlikely as they turn over so much fuel daily) or it was released sediment from the tank walls? whatever! new pre-filters and engine filters were fitted (I always carry spares) and the engines run, and off we went again for a sea trial.

We got to the same spot in the channel approximately and it all started to repeat itself with the exception that the port engine "Agneta" was unafected and ran well, until we got to our berth when it cut out and I had to try to start "frida" which actually fired up and by nursing her we managed to get back onto the berth, the wind, as helpful as ever, was "pushing us off" :o((.

Monday being a Bank holiday I had absolutly no chance of obtaining more filters, or anything to modify the fuel delivery pipe system (as we were sure that there was now a clot in the starboard fuel delivery pipe, because when we ran Frida slowly it would have run all day, but when we opened up she died, so the clot was making its way to the first elbow in her fuel system? and fully blocking the flow as intimated by the vacuum now to be found in the "Separ" Pre-filter (also proven later when we blasted the pipe clear with a compressor, and again it blocked)




We went off to the benedictine monastery to tour their distillery and to see their modern art exhibition in which you are not allowed to take photos,



This "art" was titled Orbespecial
How they got something so ugly
to pose I dont know


Ah well! and we had a further look around the stalls, once again we listened to a few bands, watched some entertainers, and I chatted to an artist who used to play rugby for Henly Bulls in Berkshire, Bouy is my French bad!!! I`m so ashamed:o((



lovely old building with lots of detail and stained glass



Great stained glass and statues of the
Past Abbots around the walls of this room


Coffee was duly taken in a Tobac, the owner of which was asked if the fisherman used his facilities, as he had some photos of large fishing boats on the wall (which his family turned out to own) and if so did he know of an engineer that might have access to some more filters and some bits and pieces that we needed. He made a phone call and said that a guy would turn up at 11-00 and sure enough, duly did. We discussed our requirements and gave him one of my remaining two spare pre-filters and he said he would have a look, duly taking away our sample and returned (at the time he said he would to the minute) with two further filters, Wow! how lucky was that? He is a marine engineer and lives on his own boat in Facom and offered to come down to the boat and give us an opinion, which he duly did.

He agreed with what whe thought we would try to do and off he went to get some tube to link the filters to one tank(the presumed uncontaminated one) for the journey home, he came back and actually carried out the work for us. We paid him for the bits and pieces and somewhat reluctantly he accepted payment for his time (what a nice genuine guy) the engines worked great and off we went again, it was now Monday!

We duly got to the previous turning point but decided to return, not because the same thing happened again, but because the maximun revs the engines would run at, with both running (which they now were,) was 1200 revs, so one supply wasn`t big enough to run both Agneta and Frida ( we had suspected that this might be the case in the first place but thought it was well worth a try). So back to Facom again, and on to the same mooring. A quick call to the engineer on the way in had him there like a shot from a gun.

neither he nor us could think straight by now, and so as the engineer wasn`t available on Tuesday, he had a day out with his son`s school (he did however offer to come back in the evening if we were still there and that he would have a look to see if we were anyway) again what a great guy! On Tuesday morning we were up early and went in search of some plumbing fittings and more pipe, (to create a balance pipe, between the two engines) and fittings to connect both Agnetta and Frida to the bottom of both tanks, which we successfully found, and so we linked the tanks with a slightly smaller balance pipe as that was the only size fittings we could get. We actually took a feed off the bottom tank drain-off point or exit pipe of both tanks and with a vertically placed Tee we inserted a direct fuel line to both pre filters. We fired the girls up and armed with a further couple of spare pre-filters in stock we left, we did however only just "crack" open the starboard tank enough to balance the Port tank, as the fuel was consumed, I felt that it may just stop any large pieces of crud crossing to the "uncontaminated" port tank?.

The girls ran like swiss watches all the way, and in three and a half hours, again we were in Brighton. I rang the engineer to prevent him visiting "to see if we were still there" and contacted the marina to apologise for non payment of my last nights stay, as the Captanierie was closed mid day when we left (I had hardly expected, after various aborted attemps to leave, to actually complete my voyage back)



One of the few ships that we saw whilst
crossing the shipping lanes


The journey was good the sea state flat calm with no wind all the way.

An interesting time was had by all. My crew said that they enjoyed it, but I think they were being kind :o(( they have however, asked if they could come again so perhaps it wasn`t that bad for them.