Come Sail with Me on Delta
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Come Sail with Me on Delta
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More comprehensive details can be found 
Owner Mike Flint 38 years experience. Raced dinghies and keelboats in many National Championships. Has Widely Cruised 2 Previous Boats.
Cruising Areas: Dependant upon weather forecasts and tidal conditions
2 Day Weekends - Lymington, Yarmouth, Keyhaven, Poole, Bembridge,
or Chichester.
Bank Holidays - Channel Isles, Lyme Regis (Jurassic coast
- see P.B.O. April '03) Weymouth, Poole Harbour or Wareham - Could be 5 to
8 days if you wish
longer trip to Normandy/St Malo.
Summer Cruise - Channel Isles, Normandy,
Nth. Brittany, Devon, Cornwall, Scilly Isles, Padstow (Rick Stein Country),
Lundy, Milford Haven, southern Eire or west Brittany (Those wishing to cruise
to Cape Town or round the Horn need not apply).
No Galley Slaves Required - Owner Enjoys Cooking (but any keen cook wishing to elbow him out of doing it - would find he offers only token resistance) Cook not allowed to wash up same meal.
There are three cabin areas - allocated to respect privacy, where possible.
No Hogging of Helm - Owner quite happy tweaking sails or doing maintenance - letting crew divide helm between themselves.
Fair Apportionment of Expenses - for consumables only incl. food, drinks, a bottle of wine at dinner, cooking Gaz, diesel for engine or central heating and any away from Cowes base mooring costs. Mike does shopping for weekends, takes it out to boat so crew get maximum time on board.
Mike himself contributes the same as each of the crew to the boat kitty. On longer trips he asks one of crew manage the boat kitty, to distance himself from the money.
The Boat: 37ft overall length incl. anchor bow sprit and rudder but is classed as a Freedom 33.
With two masts forward of the cockpit, each with a windsurfer type sail and wishbone boom, controlled from the cockpit. Draws 2.2m.(7ft) with centreboard fully down and 1.2m.(4ft) with centreboard fully raised, allowing access to quiet anchorages, using Yacht Legs when required. Fully equipped for serious cruising which means she has excellent storage for water, diesel (for engine and c/heating), a fridge that can make ice, and hot shower in the heads (w.c.) compartment. There is a good sized cockpit on the side of which, is an excellent, efficient barbecue for those lovely warm evenings.
Boat professionally built by Western Approaches, Penryn in 1988 but first launched in 1989.
Engine: 29hp Volvo model 2003 3 cyldr. diesel fully serviced each winter and with less than 1600 hrs. running time since 1989. Just about run in! (Skipper has RYA diesel engine course certificate).
Accommodation: Three independent cabin areas for privacy. Twin bunks in forward area with solid wood door for privacy. Central dinette bunk berth where skipper normally sleeps to be within reach of electrical control panel to switch on heating if necessary, switch off anchor light at dawn and switch on radio which would have been pre-set at a very low volume just so he can hear shipping forecast at 05.35hrs and switch it off and go back to sleep unless an early start was agreed the previous evening. Third cabin aft with double berth and own solid wood door. If a single lady came in a mixed sex crew we would most likely offer her this cabin. Sea toilet, w/basin and shower opposite chart table, with solid wood door, only mentioned to show that there are no canvas, zippered doors.
Galley:
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Sink, drainer 3 taps, one has carbon filtered drinking water, hand pump tap for kettle water and hot/cold mixer tap for washing up. Plastimo Atlantic oven with twin hob above & toast grill c/w fiddle. Fridge capable of setting low enough to make ice. Skipper happy to cook but anyone can offer! | |
| photo copyright Sailing Today Magazine |
Safety Equipment: 4 adult lifejackets c/w lifelines, two webbing jackstays along both full length side decks, plenty of flares, M.o.B. horseshoe with strobe light attached, FBA 4 man liferaft (new 2002), portable G.P.S. to take into liferaft, comprehensive First Aid box (Skipper has RYA First Aid certificate), VHF radio, radar reflector, Nokia Orange mobile phone with 12v. charger for it.
Navigation Equipment:
| Foruno Radar, Garmin 230 chart plotter GPS, portable Garmin 48 GPS, Foruno digital Navtex, all necessary charts, pilot books, current year nautical almanac. |  |
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| photo copyright Sailing Today Magazine |
What To Bring: Sleeping bag, pillow case (I provide pillows). Your personal luggage in a soft bag. Wet weather clothing, this does not need to be expensive or state of the art but you need a hood on jacket and chest high trousers with braces. Mail Order and camping shops are generally less costly than shore side marine outlets. Warm clothing, 2 or 3prs. wool or thick cotton ankle socks, wool hat and/or waterproof hat with straps to prevent it being blown away. Moccasin footwear with non slip soles. Waterproof ski gloves if you have them. Sprayhood at the front of cockpit provides good shelter, takes most of any spray. Bath towel, sun glasses, sun blocker and cream, your single favourite C.D. to play on our C.D. player.
Cost: This usually works out at £50 per day excl. eating ashore but it obviously varies according to the way the crew wish to spend their time. Marine diesel only costs 85p. per litre, at higher revs our engine only uses 2Ltrs per hour and half that at economical cruising speed. Whilst deciding to go into marinas at night costs £12 to £20 per night shared amongst the crew. If the weather is pleasant, I like to find a quiet, sheltered anchorage at little or no cost, as that is what cruising is all about. Most of daily cost is food & beverages because we do tend to eat rather well. Cost of travel to and from the boat is down to you. I pick crew up from various I.o.W. terminals and take them to, and from the boat.
Summer Cruise: I like to take Delta away for 6 or 7 weeks in late July thro' August incl. the first week of Sept. I fully accept that not many crew could opt to come for the entire holiday so most crews would come for a week or two but anyone wishing to come for longer is welcome. I have to make a pre-planned rendezvous along the route, to pick up crew. Where a firm booking is being made, I must ask you for a deposit, to be agreed, as like any other other holiday booking. This is because I have been badly let down in the past. Promises made and then crew did not turn up. Even if a crew phones me to say they cannot come at short notice because of illness, I still have to move the boat onto the next crew collection point. I would then be obliged to pay fares for other crew coming out at short notice to do it.
Health and Passports: On Bank Holidays and the Summer Cruise you are advised to bring both your passport and Form E111 which entitles you to certain free health treatment in the E.U. (it excludes dentistry in some countries). You need to check with your bank that you can easily use your credit card in countries we may visit. Ask what they charge because this determines how much to withdraw each time as some credit cards make a flat charge however much, or little money you withdraw.
Hot Water Provision:
Running the engine provides our hot water through a calorifier (heat exchanger),
so we tend to motor into an anchorage or marina, running the engine for 30
minutes to give us a reasonable amount of hot water we need. In marinas we
use their showers and wash any clothes in their machines.
Communications on Board: I carry my mobile phone so dialling from U.K. to anywhere I am dial 0044 7966 523 919 for crew coming out and people who need to, can phone the boat. I have a cigar lighter Nokia 12v. charging adaptor to recharge unit. Anyone with a different make of mobile phone should bring the correct charging unit to fit a 12v. car type, cigar lighter socket above our chart table.
A Few Golden Rules:
* Delta is a strictly no smoking zone.
* We do not discuss politics or religion.
* The day to day itinerary is decided jointly by the whole crew. I will only
over rule the crew on safety.
* I ask everyone to treat the boat as if it were
their own pride and joy. The boat is fully insured with £2m
third party cover, there will be no come back on the crew, but I do ask for consideration
and that the whole boat is tidied and cleaned, with water and diesel tanks refilled, and sail covers securely fitted on each boom to protect the sails, before
crew depart.
* I would ask you please, not to play with electronic equipment or central
heating controls without specific reference to me. In particular nobody except
me is to load waypoints into the GPS because there are too few characters
in the software to identify the loaded waypoint in it's index. I'll explain
to you on board. You may use the GPS
. Just don't load new waypoints into it please.
* We do not waste water, particularly hot water. Delta, like all boats has
only a finite amount of water storage capacity in her 2 tanks, 52 gallons which
is not a lot with four crew on board, i.e. The shower has a press trigger on
showerhead so if shampooing your hair please let go lever to stop water, and
depress lever when ready to rinse. We have a limited amount of hot water so
to let hot water flow down the drain virtually unused means the next person
wanting a shower may not have enough or there will too little for the next
washing up.
To ensure we have a reserve, we carry six 15Ltr. portable containers which we store around the boat. They are useful to fill the solar shower bag which we leave out on the deck in the sun to use as a warm shower after swimming.
Comments from Sailing Today magazine April test report by Duncan Kent :
Efficient sailplan.......easy to cope with shorthanded;
The sail tacking sails & light wishbone booms, make self tacking a doddle;
Great nav. station....plenty of room for charts and instruments;
Delta's ingenious cockpit table enabled us to enjoy Mike's delightful barbeque.
More comprehensive details can be found