Who'd have thunk it?

We finally bit the bullet and entered a regatta a few weeks ago.

Team: Katie (skipper), Tony Browne (tactician), Tim, Laura and Biba (willing crew).

Dogs: Louis, Mollie and Schoona.

Course: Tivat opposite sailing club - Verige channel - Perast islands - Verige channel - Zaliv Tivatska - Zaliv Hercegnovska - Igalo - Herceg Novi breakwater

I have always been somewhat reticent about entering a regatta due to our lack of tactical sailing experience and I didn't want us to look like total dicks. However, the addition of our tactician, Tony, and Laura (experienced crew) gave us the confidence to bite the bullet and enter the race.

Half an hour before the race, Tony was hoisting our spinnaker (which we'd never used before) and fashioned a quick bodge on our slightly broken spinnaker pole. The winds were light as we crossed the start line, but with our fab green spinnaker out front and the addition of 600 litres of water we'd just put in our tanks that very morning (always a race winning tactic, that one), we made good ground and were doing pretty well.

Once around the islands off Perast, we started the beat back up Verige channel and the weight of our boat compared to the (empty) plastic fantastics began to show. A heart-stopping near collision with Pedja, Tim's ex boss, added to the drama as we squeezed every inch out of every tack. Then into Tivat bay for several hours of floating about in dead air, time for a quick swim, some food and all the boats began to bunch up.

Tony's ever-ready, eager approach and constant monitoring with the binoculars gave us the edge for some of the time, finding the tiniest breaths of wind here and there but overall, it was a long slog up to Herceg Novi.

Then the nail-biting finale began, with us just ahead of the rest of the cruising yachts (the racing boats had come in ages before). A misunderstanding about the location of the finish line almost fooled us into thinking we had won - but upon realising we had to round another buoy, we gritted our teeth and with every single ounce of our psychic energy, we urged Monty B forward.

A last minute tactical and silent tack, fooled the boat nearest to us and we inched ahead towards the line, willing the boat to move faster, and as a beautiful breath of wind caught our sails, we crossed the line.

And won!

With legs like jelly, my hands still grasped around the wheel like they were frozen, I couldn't quite believe it. Cheers and clapping from all the other boats - all the local sailing guys, some of the first Montenegrins we had met back in 2007, the Yugoslavian army teams, all the blokes who reckoned that our boat was an "old timer's boat" or a "nostalgia boat" - we beat them all.

And me, a female skipper - a first in Montenegro, that is for sure. Plus the locals think we are utterly bonkers taking 3 dogs on the race too.

A brilliant job by the whole team but most of all to Tony for his brilliant tactical awareness and sail-trimming skill - we learnt so much that day and we all said that it was one of the best days we'd had in years.

And then I woke up and it was all a dream.

Working like billio

After several months of boat reconstructactivity, summer has hit like sticking your head in an oven and we are in the full swing of charter season. After getting down to our last 100 euros and being ever so slightly worried that the dream was exactly that (again), we picked up 6 charters in 2 weeks! Hooray! Bookings are coming in, the website seems to be getting some hits via search engines and everyone who comes out with us is having a gay old time. It is the best job either of us can imagine and yet again, we’ve made new friends in the process (which included being taken out for a civilised meal last night which somehow culminated in the demolishing of a litre of Black Label Smirnoff between four of us and getting in at 5am – rock n roll).

June is getting busy with visits from James and Lucie (our very first charterers and winter landlords) who we owe several days sailing, the Nurses paying their third visit and my mum and Richard, paying their third visit also. I’ve also had a random email from Sam Pink Hair, who reckons she’s en route to Monte on her bike. Crazy girl. I’ll eat my battered sunhat if she makes it. With chips.

Built a bed big enough to put a Tim in

Yes, finally, we’ve extended the bed. Or rather, Nathanial Xenon Comber extended our bed. Nat paid an eight day visit to re-gig our cabin and doubling the size of our bed. It is now bigger than king size and is absolutely wonderful. Marital bliss is resumed and Tim’s bruises have faded. Great to see Nat too and have our first proper boat guest staying on board.

He did seem to think that our idea of a hard working day wasn’t that akin to his. He clearly works too hard.

Cheers Nat – you have made a big difference to life aboard Monty B.

Dog mungus

I’ve decided to get my arse into gear and write a blog entry every week as of today. When we are busy, and rain is rare, it is difficult to find the time to commit to something so sedentary as even our days off at the moment seem to involve constant activity. I’m not complaining; not for a moment. Things are GREAT.

I think I’ve found writing the blog difficult since John’s demise, knowing that one of these days I really should change the title of my blog and update the profile, so that John is no longer “current” – but every time I go to do it, it makes me so sad I find something else to do.

But we have so much to report and the summer is already zooming along without record, so I need to start writing more regularly.

And I guess the first and most important bit of news is that we have a new dog. She is a diminutive blonde with a naughty gleam in her eye. Part corgi, part ferret or something like that, she is one of a kind. Prior to living on our boat, her home was outside the Pantomarket in Tivat (a half-decent supermarket), where she had stared meaningfully into shoppers eyes in exchange for cheap food. We’ve named her Mollie.

She has adapted to boat life amazingly well, apart from the occasional break for freedom during week one (one of which involved her jumping off the boat and swimming across the harbour). I think after spending the first two years of her life doing exactly what she liked, it took a bit of adjustment to being told what to do (I can relate to that). But she quickly realised which side her bread was buttered and she is now utterly devoted (to everyone who comes on the boat).

Erm, lots more to tell. Another post.

A feat complete

The lack of posts is indicative of how busy we've been but against the odds, we managed to put the insides of Monty B back together, move out of one flat and spring clean it, redecorate the previous flat and squeeze our stuff (which has somehow expanded at an exponential rate over the winter) into a 30 square metre space in some kind of organised fashion. We've also managed to fit in a 3 day holiday in Croatia (mate Danny's birthday spent in luxury villa near Dubrovnik) and a weekend trip to take in silent, unspoilt beauty of Skadar Lake (hosted by our Skadar resident pals, Ben and Emma). More of in another post.

There is still shed-loads to do and this week's plans have just been scuppered by the arrival of a nasty low pressure system with accompanying rain and wind.

We are currently on anchor in Muo, opposite Kotor Old Town, swinging around like crazy and being buffeted by harsh, gusting SE winds. We've been on out on anchor for nearly two weeks and it has been pleasantly calm. I'd forgotten what this felt like (and so had Louis, who is quivering on our bed being comforted by a sick Tim - sick in that he has been stung by one of Montenegro's evil bees which floor you for a few days). All very refreshing and .... elemental.

Monty B's hull strengthening programme

A bit of background here: in February 2008 we noticed that our hull had an indentation on either side which had, most likely, resulted from our rig being over-tightened before we left Greece combined with the heavy weather that we experienced on our journey from Greece to Montenegro in December 2007 (see blog entries http://yachtmontyb.blogspot.com/2008/03/potential-nightmare-scenario-1.html and http://yachtmontyb.blogspot.com/2008/03/right-place-right-time-right-people.html)
We were extremely concerned when we noticed the damage and were initially told that we wouldn't be able to sail in anything other than light winds until the hull was strengthened. In the spring, a second authoritative opinion was that the problem was nothing like as bad as it appeared and it was merely one of the batons in the hull that had warped slightly. This turned out to be true in the end, but the indentation is not a good thing and we want the peace of mind that Monty B is a truly strong sea-boat that will last last many more years which is why we decided to go ahead with the work.

So we took it pretty easy over the summer, sailing in nothing over a F4, with the expectation that the help that was offered to us by the local boatyard back in Feb, would materialise in the autumn. It didn't. All very Montenegrin.

But we struck lucky once again when a good friend of ours, Tony, who is a master of all things maritime and a trained chippy, offered in his rare moments of spare time to help us do it ourselves. We had consulted many casual experts on a way forward with this and Tony's plan, to create two new wooden ribs and a stringer made a lot of sense to us novices and looked achievable. Little did we know how much work would be involved at that point. Tony spent his precious days off his stressful day-job, working his chippy and boat-building magic.

So the work began in February.

We started by stripping out the entire saloon. The moulded seating had to be cut out, all the wooden supports and panelling and ceiling panels were removed which was no mean feat. Then the beginning of the truly messy tasks began with sanding down the fibreglass in the areas of the hull where our new ribs were going to be fitted. This took in the region of 8 person days and resulted in the first picture below. The supports you can see are steel ribs which are chainplates for the shrouds and you can also see the glassed-in steel batons that support the hull. It was the lower baton that had warped slightly causing the hull indentation.

The second stage involved cutting some difficult to track down marine ply for the ribs and stringer. This alone took two weekends. The result is the second picture below. This shows our port side with the newly built wooden ribs (the verticals) and new stringer (the horizontal) which provide exceptional strength to the hull. The new ribs were glued in using West System epoxy (another 10 extremely dull pages could be written on the trials and tribulations of getting our hands on that stuff, here in Monte).


The next stage was to glass in the entire structure then fair the visible parts of the rib. This is the part of the tale where we learnt how bloody noxious epoxy can be as during day 5 of exposure, I was dizzy and sick. Burping epoxy is never a good sign. Unfortunately, it had pissed it down most days whilst we were working so it was hard to ventilate the area. I stupidly only used a ventilator on day 5 after discussing how I was burping up epoxy with an Aussie superyacht skipper a few nights previously in the pub (I am nothing but a classy chick). Ironically, this is when I got sick.

Anyway, a week later this was all done and we vowed never to do fibreglass work for more than two days at a time, ever again.

Then, it took six days for Tim to reconstruct the saloon while I sorted out the rest of the boat, ready for moving back in. I have to hand it to the lad: he takes perseverance to a whole new level. Almost every single element of the saloon had to be recut to take account of the new ribs and stringer - and the most hair-tearing out moment came when the fibreglass seat mouldings touched the stringer itself - so some of the new stringer had to be planed back. Aghhhhh! (It was at this point that I got told not to come back to the boat until I calmed down).

The pics below show the saloon put back together. The only visible part of the new structural support are the painted white ribs, running parallel with the steel ribs, which actually look quite good in the flesh.

The final pics are our beloved Monty B back to being our home again.

So, that was that. It was a huge job but the end result is that we now have an immensely strong sailing boat that we now have supreme confidence in. We are utterly indebted to Tony for his guidance, hard work, easy manner and giving up his precious free time to help us give Monty B a many more years of a happy life. Also many thanks to Laura, his fiancee, for giving up her man on so many weekends.

For us, the experience has been irreplaceable. We have learnt loads of new skills, it has built our confidence in many quarters and we now know a hell of a lot more about our boat. Seeing her stripped down to the barebones shows you what yachts are all about. Though I have to say, we are very, very glad to have finished.

Day 7063

It feels like I have spent the last 7062 days working, dawn till dusk, beneath the decks of Monty B. I haven't, of course, but after finally getting the boat onto her cradle (the boatyard kept her on a buoy for 7 days until I went mad in Serbian), we have worked our pale, winter asses off.

Monty spent 8 days in total in the yard and we achieved almost everything that we had wanted to get sorted out of the water. Which isn't bad going considering that were planning on having her out for 3 months. However, in lieu of time has been a large amount of money. We ended up paying men to do jobs that we would have done ourselves, had we had time. But I, for one, am quite pleased that I didn't have to spend the winter inhaling old antifouling and breaking my back holding an electric sander above my head for hours on end. Terrible admission, I know, but as I have now certainly lost my "inhalation of highly toxic chemicals" virginity, I am glad that I have paid some old guy to get the cancer rather than me. Particularly as they are happy to use the age-old health and safety technique of holding a cigarette in the mouth, puffing on it continuously whilst dry-sanding years of old antifouling paint. I couldn't do that, you see. I've given up smoking and respirators just don't cut it (for a claustrophobic).

So, we had donkey's years of old antifouling removed, two coats of epoxy primer and two coats of antifoul added, a new dark red boot stripe and Monty's bottom was reborn. She looked like an Orca with her slinky, black below-waterline hull and fin keel. Gorgeous girl.

The second good decision made was to employ a very un-Montenegrin Montengrin, Miko, to repair our stern. Half hippy, half Francophile, Miko showed us how fibreglass work can be treated as an artform and taught me the value of patience. After many days of his detailed, deliberate, painstaking brushwork, we now have a beautifully rebuilt stern. And he has become a new friend.

While all of this was going on, we were sweating it out below decks (summer has arrived). Seacocks replaced, plumbing all checked, continuation of hull-strengthening involving daily epoxy poisoning and cleaned out fuel-tanks. God, was that it? Surely we did more than that..... oh yes, lots of chemical cleaning of the hull (which we've decided needs repainting in full next winter).

As agreed with boatyard (for once, as it was in their favour, they did what they said they would, when they said it), we were plonked back in the water on April Fools Day (30 minutes after midday so all the seacocks worked).

The difference in handling was unbelievable! The photos show how many tons of mussels we had clinging to the bottom (though the cold water of winter had done for most of the barnacles). But it was still slowing us down and affecting handling much more than we ever realised. It was like driving a new boat!

Plus having seen Monty stripped down to her bare bones, inspected every inch of her and cleaned and serviced all the motorised parts, we are now fully confident in her ability to do her job.

Now we just need the sails back on.

Back in Kotor harbour, after a day off nursing celebratory hangovers, we've been working full on days ever since in a race to finish the re-structuring work so we can put her back together and move back in. It has just taken us three days to do what we wanted to do in one.

We have about five days of work left to make the boat fit for living on and only two days to do it. Bugger.

So tired. Body threatening illness at the beginning and end of every day. Next day off in 4 days time and even then I'm meant to be DJing. So tired, so tired........................ keeps me out of trouble though. And it is all GREAT! No horrible surprises, everything went astoundingly well in boatyard, such a relief!

What they give with one hand

So, we get up bright and early, full of enthusiasm for our first day of work on the boat now she is out of the water.

For starters, I'd left my car in Dobrota a few days before so off we trekked - to find it with a flat battery. Grrr. Friends came to help and we were back on the road within the hour but it wasn't a great portent for the day ahead. A lurking feeling started in my stomach.

We arrived at the boatyard, excitedly trying to spot Monty B on her new cradle. But she was nowhere to be found......or was she? Wasn't that a North Wind ketch, swinging from a mooring buoy near the boat yard.

Yes! Of course it bloody was.

After all that, crew and all, a seemless entry into the dock and problem-free lift, they had decided to put her back in the water while they "made some space" in the boatyard.

We left them to their own devices with a promise that they would take her out later that day.

We rang them this morning. Monty B is still on the mooring buoy.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Hold on to your bar stools Part II

WE HAVE FINALLY GOT MONTY B OUT OF THE WATER!!!

Unbelievable but true. And despite the ton or so of mussels growing on her bottom, she is looking pretty good.

But we are avoiding the boatyard today as we left Monty hanging in the sling yesterday as the cradle she is meant to be going on, has been taken by a salvaged yacht that was washed up in Budva last week ,after sailing itself back from the Italian coast in a storm.

They grunted something about swapping our boat with another blah blah, quite how they are going to do it with only one travel lift and no spare cradle I don't know. So instead of bearing witness to their Balkan shennanigans, we are staying at home, nursing our hangovers and hoping that by tomorrow, Monty B will miraculously be sitting pretty on a cradle.

We are being charitable at this hungover moment in time.

We are still in shock that SOMETHING has actually happened. Are we really still in Montenegro? Or is this just some strange dream?

It all went like clockwork too and we had great crew: Laura, Ben and Emma. Cheers all.

A change is as good as a rest

Snowy scenes - the Bura blows, the snow falls, Monty B becomes Snowy b and the view from the Prcanj apartment.

After avoiding even glancing at our blog for weeks on end, I thought it was about time that I moved it on and put something a little more joyous on view.

Before I start, we'd both like to say a big thank you to everyone who sent us words of consolation about our John. We were really touched and it helped a lot to know that there were people out there who understood what we had lost. For such a small creature, he has left a huge hole.

Anyhow, enough.

Progress - there has been some:

1) Our mate Tony, who spent all of his twenties sailing the seven seas and is now a desk monkey (well, an important part of the soon to be Porto Montenegro marina), has spent the last three of his hard-earned Saturdays aboard Monty B. After Tim spent days stripping down the saloon to the fibreglass, the past three weekends have involved building the new wooden ribs that are providing one hell of a solid support for many years to come. Monty B is going to a beast! Tony expertise has been invaluable. As well as his years of working and living on boats, he is also a chippy by trade so we definitely found the right man for the job.

The ribs are now in but not glued. And we have decided to ditch using cheap polyester resin and go for West System epoxy on Tony's advice. If you're going to do a job, do it properly - and it will be a good pro job which is far more than we could ever have hoped for. Of course, we are now back in the "how the fk do we get WS epoxy in Montenegro?" and the answer is "you can't". For lots of reasons getting this stuff from anywhere to here is also a major headache - but we are getting there.

2) The best bit of news we've had for a long while is that A Day out on Monty B is now official! We are now part of Avel Yachting and have full public liability insurance so all we need now is a boat. Our new website is at http://www.montenegro4sail.com/ if you want to take a peek.

3) Windshield, ahh, the windshield. Well, almost got all the years/layers of silaflex off the GRP. Our current plan, supported by some and poo pooed by others, is to use 8mm plexiglass and a heat gun. And somehow, miraculously, a windshield will appear. I think it is time to invest in a camcorder.

4)After resigning ourselves to the fact that the boat wasn't going to come out of the water at all this winter (except for a 24 hour clean down and antifoul), a friendly Russian called Yuri has offered us his boat cradle for all of March. Of course we found this out just after I'd booked my flight back to the UK for a week so we hope to come out for the last two weeks and get the bare essentials done. Better late than never, as they say. Or, I'll believe it when I see it, as I say.

Of course it is impossible for the boatyard to book us in or even consider scribbling it in a diary - we have to "ring them a few days before". Ok....

5) It snowed, a lot. Monty B was covered in snow which was quite a sight. Most of the month has been clear, cold and snowy - exceptionally beautiful.

6) I haven't had a proper drink for a month then made the classic mistake of mixing vranac (local red) with Nik Gold (local strong piss) on Friday night in quite significant quantities. This is why you shouldn't have time off booze, your hangovers are definitely worse; I felt DIABOLICAL on Saturday. There seems to be an unhealthy chemical reaction between said tipples which combine to create the most hardcore of hangovers. I actually uttered the words "this is the last hangover I ever have" and meant it (at the time).

7) Oh, and we've moved house. Not wishing to outstay our welcome in the lovely Harvey apartment, we are now living in a gorgeous stone building in Kotor Old Town, right on the back walls. It is a stunning place, all very country-cottage inside but top floor apartment so great views of the walls and battlements. Tim is in his element, I can tell ya. We traded a month's accommodation for 2 cruises on Monty B - a great deal for all of us.

8) I'm flying home for a week on Friday. This is the first time I've gone back to the UK since August 2007 so it is all rather weird.

WE HAVE FOUR WEEKS TILL WE HAVE TO MOVE BACK ON THE BOAT. FOUR WEEKS. FOUR WEEKS. FOUR WEEKS. Lots of jobs are started, none, I repeat none, are finished. We have no saloon, no windshield and still don't have a bed big enough to fit a Tim in.

The countdown begins...........

Winter 2008/09 photos are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/beormakate/Winter200809