About four weeks before we took Naiad out of the water, the Reolink GO PT camera stopped working. I had seen the battery percentage drop steadily for about two weeks before it was too low to run the camera any more and that suggested that either the internal batteries had failed or that the solar power and connector were not supplying power to recharge said batteries.

Once I had Naiad set up in the hard I took the camera and plugged it in to one of the myriad USB chargers I had in the house and it started to recharge immediately. Once the battery was fully charged, I disconnected it from the charger, turned the camera on and then watched the power drain for a few days. This steadily decreased but no faster than expected given the proximity to the mobile tower and I concluded that it was not the internal batteries at fault. This was good news since changing the batteries on this particular model is not an easy job.

So, I turned my attention to the solar panel. This did not seem to be in very good condition, it was yellowed from three years in the sun and I could see that some of the layers in the panel were delaminating, a sure sign that the panel was on its way out.

However, the first thing to check for a suspected failed solar panel, according to the research I did about the subject, is the connector. This model uses a micro B USB socket and these have proved to be less than reliable for extended exterior use especially in marine conditions. Indeed, newer models use USB C sockets. It is not at all easy to test a micro USB plug as it is so small and the recommended way is to cut it off entirely, replace it with a known good plug and see if that cures the problem.

So, I cut of the plug, took the cable that I had just used to recharge the batteries and spliced the two together and plugged it in.

Nothing.

Having cut the wire from the solar panel I could check the output from the panel with a multimeter.

Also nothing.

Well, not enough to recharge the batteries even in full sunlight. Admittedly, it is Winter, but even so, the panel should have enough output to charge the batteries.

Now, replacement solar panels for the GO PT are readily available, new ones from Reolink or equivalents from other suppliers at half the price and it was one of the latter that I decided to buy. It didn't take long to arrive, courtesy of Amazon Prime, and as soon as it did I plugged it in.

Nothing.

What !!

I found that if I wiggled the plug I could get the charging light on the GO PT to light up, but not in a way that worked even 1% pf the time. So I cut the plug off, soldered the wires to the plug from the charging cable not forgetting to put on the waterproof cover, covered the join in each wire with heat shrink tubing and then the entire join with two more pieces of heat shrink and plugged it in again. This time instant charging.

Here's the result. The battery charged up from 70% in less than a day. I think that this issue is now solved.

Now if I can only stop birds from leaving their droppings on the panel. Yes, that white splodge on the left side of the panel was left there by some bird or other.

Time for a cup of tea.

The weather forecast was good, the tide was even better and we made the decision that Naiad's haul out for 2025 was a go. High water was around 13:40 so we didn't have to leave early and were able to make the journey down to West Mersea in the daylight. On arrival we put the trailer on the hard, parked the car, retrieved the dinghy and rowed out to Naiad, finding her safe and sound on her mooring. There was a little water in the cockpit bilge, maybe a pint or so, which was quickly bailed out.

As for the trip to the hard, the less said the better. Honestly, I made such a pig's ear of it that you would have thought that I was a complete novice. I think I managed to do everything wrong. The only reason we didn't end up aground on the lee shore is that there is a back eddy behind the shingle beach on the Mersea side of the narrows that took us parallel to the shore long enough for me to get myself and Naiad sorted out and sailing. It was so bad that Tina has said that she won't come with me again for any more haul outs and I don't blame her.

All that aside, we did get to the hard about an hour before High Water. This is quite a high HW, 5.1 predicted height, so the road was blocked when we got there. I was able to get Naiad on the trailer fairly easily and with the aid of a rope and some willing bystanders, we hauled Naiad out of the water and put her on the roadside in front of the club.

Yes, I know, we parked her double yellow lines, but, as you can see from the photo, the rest of the road is flooded.

With Naiad firmly on land we made short shrift of getting her ready to travel.

There was one issue and that is my waders leaked and when we had Naiad parked, I took them off as the leak was making me feel like I had wet myself. Uncomfortable. I was wearing convertible trousers, so I took the legs off and my wet socks and walked around in bare feet and shorts.

We had Naiad ready to go much earlier than we had expected. If we had left her on the hard we should only have begun the derigging process by the same time, so we were about two hours ahead of where we expected to be.

Now came the acid trailer test. A brief shake showed that Naiad is much less rocky on the trailer than she had been the last time she was on it and I only had to drive a few metres to notice the difference. The ride was much smoother than before, partly due to Naiad being about 10cm back on the trailer resulting in much less tongue weight on the towing hitch, but mainly due to her not rocking up and down like a rocking horse and causing the trailer to jerk on the tow as it did so.

I did notice that 60mph, the legal limit for towing on dual carriageways and motorways in the UK, was the limit for the tow. Any faster than this, even slightly, and the trailer started to weave indicating that the tongue weight was probably a little light.

Now Naiad is back on our hard standing for the Winter. I've put the mast up and the spars on as some of the work I want to do need these in position.

The brightwork and paint is remarkably undamaged by the wonderful Summer we had this year but the cockpit cover has faded in the sunlight.

I did expect the hull to be covered in weed but there was surprisingly little when you consider that she has been on the mooring for eight months and not touched in that time. I need to buy some o-rings for our pressure washer, but once those arrive I'll give her bottom a good clean.

Time for a cup of tea.

The new u-bolts for the trailer arrived late yesterday afternoon, and since I have a day off today, it's time to get the trailer done as the weather is looking very good for a haul-out tomorrow.

The first order of business was to replace all the existing, damaged and missing u-bolts on the cross beams. The new u-bolts come with self-locking nuts which is an improvement since most of the old u-bolts used double nuts to lock.

The new u-bolts are a bit longer than the old ones, however, I'm not going to cut these down as I may add an additional locking nut if it looks as though the self-locking nuts work loose. They should not do this, but tests have shown that after much vibration, they can still come loose.

Next up was to fit the new, additional centre bar under the existing one. I had some old plates that were just wide enough to use and I cut some spacers to go between the old and new centre beams to act as spacers as the new bar doesn't fit snug against the old bar, but rests on the existing u-bolts.

I had to fabricate a new fixing assembly to attach the new centre bar to the axle bars. This has to be fairly sturdy and I think I achieved that.

Finally, the trailer was hitched up to the minibus, the guides and trailer board put in place and the lights checked ready for the off tomorrow.

Definitely time for a cup of tea.

This year, 2025, has been the worst year for sailing so far. Naiad was out on the mooring early enough in the year, but with Tina away for so many weekends during the season I could not sail on those weekends, and the weekends that she was not away, either the weather was not conducive to sailing or I was confined to the house. Early in July I had minor surgery on both feet that had the effect of my not being able to wear shoes and for the first two months after the surgery I was not able to walk properly, just hobble.

I will be glad to finally retire in 500 days, not that I am counting, as that will mean that I will be able to go sailing during the week when the weather allows as most of Tina's events are on weekends. So roll on 2027 !!

I was finally able to wear shoes, although not without some discomfort, in mid-September and since then I've not had a weekend free to sail, despite wanting to.

Of course there are two problems with sailing right now. The first is that the hull will need to be scrubbed as I have no doubt that she is fairly fouled, so I'll either need two weekends to get that sorted out or two consecutive good days. The second is that I still have two strained tendons in both elbows caused by lifting the very heavy dinghy into the racks at the sailing club. These are slowly getting better but, I either have to get someone to help me with getting the dinghy back into the racks, or I need a much lighter dinghy.

The upshot of all this is that I probably will not be able to sail until I build a new, lighter dinghy, so I have decided that Naiad should be taken out of the water and returned home for the Winter.

And that means fixing the travelling trailer.

The trailer is not of a welded construction but bolted and this allows movement in the frame which, in turn, allows Naiad to rock about the axle and her bows smash against the front support. When we took Naiad down earlier in the year this caused some damage to the bows. Fortunately I noticed before it got too bad and wrapped a towel around the offending support and tied it on tight with rope.

To fix the problem I am going to mount a second longitudinal member from the hitch all the way back to the axle. This will be fitted under the existing member which stops well short of the axle. To do this, various cross beams will need to be removed from their position under the side beams and placed on top of the beam.

This is the trailer before modification. There are two cross beams under the centre and side beams. These are the two that need to be repositioned.

I had been spraying the nuts on the u-bolts with penetrating oil for about a week and most of the nuts came loose without too much effort. One refused to come off and I had to resort to cutting the u-bolt. The nut just became rounded which stopped the spanner from being able to grip.

Two of the other u-bolts had the threads stripped partially as you can see here. The upper part of the bolt has no thread. So I need to replace one of the four narrower u-bolts and one of the three wider ones. Since I had to order the replacement u-bolts anyway, I elected to buy enough to replace them all. There's no point in being stingy with something like this, better safe than sorry, as the saying goes.

I also have to make a number of backing plates like the one you can see in the above photo for the u-bolts on the new centre beam.

In one of those inexplicable turns of the weather, unlike last year when I was unable to get to Naiad due to unfavourable weather conditions, this year I have already been to Naiad thrice !

Okay, so one of those was to launch her, but even so.

I think I managed to get onto Naiad 6 times last year and this year so far has been an entirely different story. Launched on 11th April, visit to compete the rigging on Easter Monday (21st April) and another visit this weekend.

This last visit was either to be a trip to Tollesbury and a night on board or just a night on board. Which of the two depended mainly on the weather. But I've never been to Tollesbury so I don't know what it is like and I felt that it would be a good idea to pay a visit by land first as 'case the joint' as the saying goes. That mean leaving quite early in the morning so that I was at the water's edge at low water but that made for a very easy drive down. Virtually no traffic despite being a Friday morning. 

I had used the InterWeb to find photos and maps and reviews of Tollesbury and from those I had identified a few places that I might be able to beach Naiad since there was little or no chance of easily getting Naiad into the marina and out again.

This is the second spot, the first can be seen about 100m away where the blue-hulled boat is on the mud and you can see that it is quite steep there. This spot is a possibility although getting ashore might be difficult as the metal pole in the bank to which the rope is tied has come loose and any pull from the seaward side would pull it out completely.

Just to the right of that spot is another candidate. I looks like someone has been out there judging by the footprints in the mud.

Here's another view and you can see that the mud is fairly flat and the rope, although covered in weed, is intact and well secured. So this was going to be the spot where I would try to beach, assuming that I could get round here of course.

This is part of the hard at Tollesbury and the post in the mud painted green at the top marks one end of the concrete sill that prevents the water from completely flowing out of the marina.

Here's a closer look at the sill and it's not something that I would like to hit. I did find a photo on the InterWeb of a small boat stranded on the sill. Presumably they had hit the sill on a falling tide and got stuck.

This is the view up the creek towards the River Blackwater. My beach candidate is just the other side of the first boat you can just see to the right of the centre of the photo.

As it happened I was not able to get around to Tollesbury, there was too little wind and too much tide. By the time the onshore breeze had filled in it was nearly High Water and if I had set of then I would have been facing an ebb tide out of the creek to Tollesbury, so I stayed on board and had a restful day and a good night's sleep instead.

The photo above shows the tide rushing past Naiad on her mooring that day and here is a short video of the same thing.