Editorial
Chairman’s Notes
Owners’ Letters
A Christmas Delivery Trip
Chairman: Harry Faulkner
Secretary/Treasurer/Editor: Rony and Elise Buque
Your new Editor/Secretary/Treasurer would like to apologise for the delay in the distribution of this Newsletter, but hope they may be forgiven - the handover of the job, the commissioning of their new COMANCHE and the running of their sailing school throughout the season (to say nothing of the fact that they both have fairly demanding jobs) have caused the delay. However, the pen is now fairly in their hands, and they hope to give a better service in the future!
The organisation of the 1978 Annual General Meeting was in the very capable hands of Harry Faulkner, and it was an extremely successful meet, in the lecture hall and coffee lounge of the Chelsea College Centre for Science Education in Fulham. Approximately 70 members and the Sail Craft contingent partook of a wine and cheese party, before moving upstairs to the lecture hall, where the serious business took place.
As forewarned in the Autumn 1978 Newsletter, both our then Chairman, Reg Crampton, and Secretary/Treasurer/Editor, Harry Faulkner, resigned their office. Their resignations were accepted with very real regret, and they were given a sincere vote of thanks for all their help and hard work in past years. All members of the Association hope that they will continue to give future assistance and advice to Iroquois owners everywhere, and continue to contribute to the Newsletter.
It was proposed, seconded and unanimously voted that Harry Faulkner should be appointed our new Chairman, to which he kindly agreed, much to the delight of all present. In the absence of any other volunteers, and very much to their amazement, Rony and Elise Buque were proposed, seconded and voted in to the posts of joint Secretary/Treasurer/Editor, and how hope to continue these services on your behalf.
The get-together ended with a lecture by Charles Dennis of "Snoopy" on the loss of his craft in the Red Sea, with slides, and it was an interesting description of a disaster which other members hope will never happen to them. Our renewed condolences go to Susan and Charles.
The hiatus caused by the changeover of secretaries has resulted in possibly fewer new members than usual, and a dearth of correspondence and contributions. It is to be hoped that these will now start to flow in. We have done the best we can in the circumstances, and have "rushed" this Late Summer Newsletter into print to advise members of the continuance of the Association!
A Winter 1979 Newsletter is being planned, which will give details of the January 1980 AGM. Please send in all your news and photographs by the end of October, so we can produce a bumper issue. Also, Reg White has indicated that Friday 4th January 1980 would be a better date for him for the AGM, any later and he would probably be out of the country, so please book this date provisionally for our annual get-together.
Full details, booking form, etc. will come in the Winter 1979 Newsletter, also our request for your subscriptions! Some members have suggested the venue might be the Cruising Association Library, at St. Katharine’s Dock, but maybe somewhere closer to Earls Court would be preferable for most members? Send us in your views. Oh, and a quick telephone call to the Editor of the MOCRA Newsletter has established that the MOCRA AGM will not clash with that of our Association - we will all be able to attend both!
As you may have gathered, your Iroquois Newsletter is being edited by the owners of a Comanche, but all is well, she does come from the same builder, and who knows, we could soon have other Comanche owners joining the Association (how about a change?). It has been a very mixed season, with hardly any spring, a late and not particularly hot summer with plenty of fog and strong winds, and those who cruised during the time of the Fastnet gale probably spent far too much time in ports of refuge.....
The Fastnet has overshadowed everything which went before, but our condolences go out to the owner of "Catcracker" which capsized in the Solent this summer and one person drowned. Reg White tells us that it was in a very lumpy sea with a force 6 blowing. The boat was flying a hull and in a very stripped-out condition, with no masthead buoyancy. No advocates of masthead buoyancy on an Iroquois ourselves, this may have been a boat that should have had one; but owner-skippers should continue to be allowed the option, and this is Reg’s unchanged policy.
After all, the ability to capsize is just about the multihull’s only drawback, and it is up to us all to sail our craft within the safety limits imposed by this one factor - we will still continue to enjoy more comfortable and exhilarating sailing than most of our friends who only own "half a boat"!
The editorial description of last January’s interesting, pleasant and very well-attended (in spite of atrocious weather) AGM explains why I’m writing under a different heading in this issue of the Newsletter.
Reg Crampton felt that, after three years as Chairman of the Association, it was time for a change, and tendered his resignation. This obviously leaves a huge gap to be filled. Reg has been a member of the Association, and a regular and perceptive contributor to the Newsletter since its inception. A seaman of great experience, formerly owner of a Mk I Iroquois and currently a Mk II, he has been able to contribute sound, well-thought-out ideas and advice both to the running of the Association and to practical issues of sailing and maintaining the Iroquois. I know that every single member will join me in thanking Reg for all he has done for the Association and look forward to more of his practical commonsense from time to time in the Newsletter.
Rony and Elise Buque, who have been elected to the office of Newsletter Editor and Secretary of the Association, are also seafarers of vast experience. They are contributors to yachting magazines and journals and run their own sailing school. We are fortunate indeed to be able to call upon people with their knowledge and experience to help to run the Association and to produce the Newsletter. My own contribution can only be to ask you to give them your fullest support in ensuring that the Association and the Newsletter continue to flourish.
Their greatest problem, if past experience is any guide, will be in getting members to write about their experiences, and every single one of you can make their task that little bit easier by writing something. Every one of you must have some experience or idea worth passing on, or some problem worth raising which can be thrashed out through the Newsletter; and remember that it only needs one item per member to ensure that the Newsletter continues for the next few years. The responsibility for this is yours.
Lastly, but by no means least, I should like to thank Charles Dennis most warmly for coming along to the annual meeting to talk about his (very nearly) round-the-world voyaging in "Snoopy", and her subsequent unfortunate loss. After a fascinating talk supported by his own slides Charles patiently answered a barrage of questions from the seventy-odd members, families and friends present. A most enjoyable evening - many thanks Charles.
Harry Faulkner
In July 1978 whilst looking at Westerly Pentlands and similar craft which would dry out with good manners and provide a sensible, roomy family cruiser, my wife and I were invited aboard David Smith’s Chiquita V at Brighton. We immediately decided to buy an Iroquois. With that fortune that sometimes favours the innocent and with assistance from Camper & Nicholson we bought Antares of Ashton, then based in the Isle of Man.
Antares is an unstable binary star, a red giant with a green companion, in Scorpio, and as we were shown a photo of our boat lying on its side with its mast head float resting in the water off the Isle of Man it seems a suitable and salutary name.
I understand that the boat is unique as it has Mark IIA hulls with spadee rudders hung on skegs but with tiller steering and the standard outboard mounting. I doubled the area of the rudder blades and adjusted the tillers to give a proper Ackerman steering effect and the result is a most effective, robust and simple steering mechanism. I recommend it to all prospective owners and commend Sail Craft and Antares’ first owners on a very satisfactory modification. There is also a teak platform between the hulls around the outboard and behind the cockpit which will carry the liferaft and provide a splendid working and playing platform. As I said, beginner’s buyers luck, which then deserted us for a while.
Being busy and far from the Isle of Man we decided to have the boat brought south by road. The erstwhile owner sportingly agreed to deliver it to the mainland and left it at Lytham Marine in Lytham St. Annes. This is a yard on a very muddy creek populated with very cheery boat people but with a narrow access to the road. I went up to Lytham with my 12 year old son and between us we lowered the mast, constructed trestles and carefully lashed the mast down.
The yard manager wasn’t available all weekend but over the ‘phone was confident that the boat would go down his alley. We left him with the position of the bearers as culled from the Autumn 1976 Newsletter, and he undertook to ensure that the boat was loaded correctly.
After reading the ads. in the yachting press and checking their prices, we chose a local husband and wife firm of transporters, the wife being splendidly competent on the phone and having all the technical details at her fingertips.
Because it was a wide load the boat needed a police escort all the way. I caught a quick glimpse of the lorry, apparently being chased by its police escort down the London Road just outside Brighton. It passed far too quickly to take any photographs and I chased the lorry back to Brighton Marina. Fortunately I had arranged for a friend to be there, a professional photographer, waiting to take photos of the historic moment when our first boat met the water.
The boat was still on the lorry but gone were the trestles, thrown to one side with the padding. The mast now rested on the coach roof, luckily on a 6 inch dunlopillo car cushion, loosely lashed down at each end, in the bows to the pulpit top rail which the bouncing had broken. Worse, the bearers were in the wrong place and were merely pieces of 4in. by 3 in. softwood not even laid parallel. The juddering of the lorry had forced the after bearer up into the hulls; no packing pad or bearing boards at all - the forward bearer was placed with precision exactly under the log paddlewheel! As there was a ragged tear in the starboard bow rubbing strake, it was evident that there had not been enough room to get the boat down the Lytham Marine alley.
We took many photographs as evidence of damage, and I had taken out a fully comprehensive and notably uncomplicated insurance on the boat from the moment it became my property with a fairly recently formed company. I must say that once the repairs were done and I had paid for them they reimbursed me within a couple of weeks but oh, the confusion and hassle leading up to being allowed to carry out the work. This stemmed, I now believe, from a wholely laudable zeal on the insurance company’s part, to save my excess charge.
Eventually the work was done, according to a surveyor’s requirements. It was a relatively simple job involving removing and replacing the cracked gel coat over a small area of the bottom and grinding away and replacing the rovings over a much larger area inside the hulls and all is now better than new.
During the time we were on the blocks I stripped the antifouling to the fibreglass and repainted with new antifoul and enlarged and adjusted the rudders. However it was a glorious August and September when it would have been far more enjoyable to be sailing, and that sort of loss is impossible to value.
The lessons learnt are:-
I should be most interested to hear how much anyone unfortunate enough to be in a similar situation gets. Luckily it was a very mild winter up to mid-December or so and we had some charming sailing during the autumn.
S. D. Fisher
"Antares of Ashton", Sail No. 132
I received my first Association Newsletter in mid January and must say I am very pleased with it. It is very informative both from a technical as well as a social point of view.
We have been in possession of our Iroquois Mk. IIA since last June when it arrived in Vancouver BC aboard a container vessel ($8,000 for TRANSPORT) in perfect condition. Not a scratch and clean as a whistle. We commissioned it and had it in the water within two weeks. As there were no rigging instructions we switched the main and jib halyards so had to stand on the pulpit bar to hank on the jib peak for the first month or two. This was corrected after consultation with Sail Craft.
We named the boat Skana Sting (which is Haida Indian for "Killer Whale II") and held a christening party at Eagle Harbour Yacht Club, where she is moored, for 120 guests. Her first sail was with 11 celebrants aboard and was a great success, although one guest did go overboard while bagging the jib (he claims he was pushed).
We had a two week family cruise on her in July in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. We beached most days on the shoaling sand beach of Tribune Bay and used her stern teak slat platform as a scuba base very successfully on several dives for rock scallops and abalone. On the second week we got a break in the weather and in the ensuing rain we discovered most of the fittings around the cockpit leaked. We ended up sleeping amongst a host of pots and pans until we got to port where we could reseal the offending fittings.
We had many a good weekend sail on her last fall and although the "speedo" is very erratic we have had one trip which averaged 8 knots over a 24 mile trip whilst sailing, and 8.5 knots whilst powered with a 40 hp outboard. We had Thanksgiving aboard and we managed to do up a 10 lb turkey in the oven. Needless to say we are delighted with her performance in every way. Our 5 and 6 year old sons have taken over the two bow hatches as their own and use them as space ship cockpits, fighter planes, kayak seats or machine gun nests as the spirit moves them.
PS: In all accounts of "Snoopy’s" accident, yours was the first to say Dennis had replaced his centreboards with stronger ones.
O. Strom,
(Commodore, Eagle Harbour Yacht Club)
"Skana Sting", Sail No. 290
The current weather (February 1979) and the forecast are cold. Since after ten years Chinchilla requires some minimal repair and maintenance we are now doing these - in a nice warm basement. These repairs include:
Here are further details of the engine:-
The Farymann engine and the hydro-marine hydraulic generator were purchased as an assembled unit. This assembly is mounted on a welded-up steel base plate and brackets which accept the three shock mounts provided on the motor-generator combination. This sub-plate is bolted onto a ¾in. piece of plywood which is, again, bolted through the cockpit floor by 4 large bolts. The motor enclosure is made of marine grade plywood with aluminium corners and other brazing.
The complete unit, including the engine, the hydraulic generator, the two hydraulic motors, the two propellors and the two control valves were all purchased from Marine Service and Machine Company, Inc., who are now located in New Jersey, USA.
The propellors run at half engine speed. I usually run the engine at about 1800 rpm, giving me about 7.5 knots. The propellors are 14 in pitch by 12 in. diameter, left-hand drive. Cooling is by salt water and the exhaust is water cooled. The gas tank, holding 25 gallons, is in the port lazaret. The total installation, including gas (petrol) tank, weighs approximately 250 kilo. I did not find it necessary to put in any reinforcements other than some wooden backup plates with the pillow blocks on which the struts swivel go through into the beam.
I had visits from owners in Washington D.C. and Canada and enquiries from England and Germany on this installation. There are at least four Iroquois located on Long Island Sound and two more on Cape Cod.
Ellery P. Snyder,
"Chinchilla", Sail No. 79
Autohelm Nautech : to further explain his article in Autumn 1978 issue:-
Bo Henricsson,
"Dahinda", Sail No. 136
After four happy years spent on board our Iroquois Mk II Fortunella, we took the plunge and acquired Sail Craft’s first Comanche, their demonstration model, and as a result spent more time at Brightlingsea from October 1978 onwards than in our home waters at Emsworth, Chichester Harbour.
We are glad to note, incidentally, that even though our Iroquois is sold, we can continue as members of the Iroquois Owners’ Association - even to the extent of becoming serving officers on the Association! Maybe before very long some others amongst you will also decide on a Comanche?!?
The logistics of planning even a shortish trip for four people over the Christmas period are complicated: transport can be sparse, shops closed, sufficient Christmas fare plus jollity had to be available, and the weather was likely to be absolutely freezing. Add to that a completely new (in both senses of the word) boat, and you can see we embarked upon the project with a certain amount of trepidation.
We were lucky in that, after three trips with our car loaded to the gunwales with gear to be put on board EL BUQUE V, our last trip up to Brightlingsea the Friday before Christmas was in the form of a lift from a kind person who happened to be going there anyway, so our own car did not have to be used. We arrived to find that Sail Craft had kindly, as they had promised, moored her on the piles close to the hard, and there was only a short dinghy trip out for the four of us.
Also we could move off at any time of tide we wished the following morning - and move off we did, into a dead calm, thick, black as night (it still was) fog, at 0715 hours in the morning, with the whole of the Thames Estuary to negotiate that day, in the hope of reaching Ramsgate.
It was as well we had sailed in and out of Brightlingsea on several occasions, because however accurate a chart, it always helps to envisage the actual place in one’s minds eye. With not a breath of wind, Rony steered on minimum revs, while Roy called the course as he worked over the charts, and Val and I stood on each side of the pulpit, peering through the gloom hoping for the sight of a buoy.
Our navigation worked. The echo sounder was invaluable, as we could see when we were actually over one of the shoals, or in a deep water channel. The compass courses I so painstakingly plotted and accurately steered brought us in sight of a sufficient number of buoys - the next one up or down than the one expected from time to time - but once pinpointed, we could move off again in the right direction, always allowing for tidal set according to the timetable, of course. Needless to say, we were glad that the float on top of the Comanche’s mast is an efficient radar reflector, although there was not much evidence of a great number of ships passing up and down the Thames that cold December day.
By early afternoon conditions had changed completely. We were beating hard along the Edinburgh Channel in better visibility, but the wind steadily increased to a SE 7. We were pushed over towards Margate, and had to tack, making our way slowly past North Foreland in very bouncy conditions, and on down the coast towards Ramsgate. We were exceedingly glad to be able to put the engine on and take down the main outside Ramsgate at 1700 hours, and swish through the entrance at almost high tide, because we were able to go straight through into the inner harbour and tie up alongside another boat against the pontoons.
So far so good. The 0625 forecast the following morning came after the steam whistle had blown notifying the fact that the inner gates were about to be closed. It was still pitch dark, the rain was streaming down outside, and there was a SW gale warning for the entire south coast. So that was that, we still had 8 of our 10 days in hand, and the long estuary trip had already been accomplished.
Five days later we were still in Ramsgate. In hindsight, if we had moved out very early on Christmas Day itself, and if we had set out in spite of a gale warning which did not materialise, we could have reached Dover or Folkestone easily, but we were on our own, and our 2nd reserve crew could not arrive until late Boxing Day. Such is cruising life. We walked, we chatted with the friendly gate keepers, we mooched around a thoroughly closed town, and we went to the pictures. We listened to new gale warnings, we went for another long walk, we finished up the Christmas duck, and we listened to another pessimistic forecast.
Eventually we took advantage of a kind police launch and moved out of the marina into the outer harbour - he police launch made a good buffer for us against the harbour wall, and we would be able to start our next lap without bothering about being locked in. But it was still a long five days
Friday 29th December and there were still gale warnings from Dover westwards, but they were expected to veer from SW to NW and decrease - with our experienced crew member on board we set off, determined to make as much further progress westwards as possible. From 7.30 to 2.30 we sailed, beating hard against wind and tide both, and we were by then sick and tired of the same cliffs of St. Margarets Bay greeting us at the end of a double tack. And the wind had decreased dramatically.
Eventually we motorsailed past Dover and Folkestone, in wet, grey conditions, with a large and lumpy residual swell making a chore of it, to say nothing of a large plastic bag wrapping itself round the engine propellor! Rounding Dungeness took for ever, but all things eventually come to an end, and by 10 p.m. we had identified Rye entrance (no easy thing in the dark) and were making our way up the long, narrow cut. It was high tide, and unwittingly we had held up a small coaster from leaving, as we were informed by the harbour master! He eventually allowed us to tie against another boat alongside the piles, as we explained we wanted to leave early the following morning.
The following day was the bright spot of the entire trip (up to tea-time that is!) The forecast was actually for a northerly wind, force 4/5, and it was sunny. Our crew had had to leave, so it was only the two of us who were able to enjoy a spanking broad reach, all the way from Rye entrance to Beachy Head, and how our new acquisition loved it! It was very cold, but so exhilarating it didn’t matter, and we surfed up to 12 knots for a while in the increasing wind, until prudence took over and the genoa came down before we reached the rough waters off Beachy Head.
We could have gone on towards Littlehampton instead of going into Brighton Marina at the early hour of 2pm, but the wind was steadily increasing, and we would have got there at low water anyway. Brighton Marina it was. By 10 pm that evening the blizzard had struck, and the marina was a wilderness of horizontal snow howling off the cliffs, icy drifts, and pontoons one had almost to crawl along in order not to skid off into the black water...
It was the following Friday we had to drag ourselves away early from the Association’s AGM to return to Brighton. After chipping away the frozen snow in the cockpit and thawing out ropes, loo and water pumps, we managed to complete the trip round to Emsworth in Chichester Harbour, in almost windless conditions and in the glow of a low, red sun. You can doubtless imagine the relief with which we tied up against our own pontoon: home at last! Not really an experience to be repeated if one can help it.
Rony and Elise Buque
EL BUQUE V, Comanche No.1