Occasional ramblings from a Swan 43
I have sailed all my life and hold a range of RYA qualifications from a lapsed Yachtmaster Instructor, through a Dinghy Senior Instructor to Powerboat and Safety Boat Instructor. I’ve raced dinghies and dayboats, raced larger boats two handed coastally and offshore, and skippered fully crewed offshore racing boats for Fastnet campaigns and inshore regattas. I was part of the RNLI’s busiest lifeboat crew at Tower on the Thames from 2002 for 23 years. I’ve mainly cruised in the English channel, from Amsterdam to Trinite sur Mer and the Scillies, and a little in Mediterranean on charter boats . My partner and I have owned Trouper, a Ron Holland designed Swan 43 built in 1989 since late 2013.
You can find Trouper’s current location and passage information here.
Maintenance
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Last minute maintenance
Before we could get away for the late may Bank holiday there was a pile of work to be done: the usual spring clean below and cleaning all the upholstery. I was also able to finally fix the forward bunk hinges. One had failed on each side and Nautor had supplied some replacements over the…
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Over engineering a pig stick
I became a member of the Royal Cruising Club (RCC) this year. The club has been very welcoming and has a thriving online community, as well as regular events and meet ups. It is of course the home of the RCC Pilotage Foundation, the publishers of most of the pilot books I’ve depended upon for…
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Propeller Pain
One of the over winter projects was tackling the vibration we’d noticed from the propellor last summer. It had got bad enough that we’d had a diver check that it wasn’t fouled. We have a Max Prop. It’s a clever feathering prop design, where the pitch can be adjusted – and even be different ahead…
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Winter Upgrades
Trouper went into Nautor’s Hamble yard for a mini-refit in late October 2025. The main job was to remove the rig and renew the rather elderly rod rigging. There were a few jobs that it made sense otherwise do at the same time, such as replacing the radar, as it is only possible to re-run…
Trips
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Late May Bank Holiday
Once Trouper was back afloat with a working propeller I was keen to get her off the mooring and to actually start to make use of her this year. Before we could leave on the Saturday there was a chunk of last minute work to be done that I’ve described in Last minute maintenance and…
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Lessons learned and what to change
This post has taken a while to be published so describes the autumn 2025 position, on our return from the Brittany trip. This trip had a few purposes: So how’ve we done? The first two I think we’ve achieved. We’re still talking to each other, and talking about future trips, indeed we’re both very clear…
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And Trouper is back on her home berth.
We left Poole on Monday afternoon and headed for Lymington, where we arrived in time for some excellent fish and chips. We stayed in the Yacht Haven, rather than the Berthon, as they had room. My father used to keep a boat here in the late 90s that I used to sail regularly. The marina…
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Back in England
We left Treguier at about 0930 on Friday and, once clear of the river (and all its off-lying rocks), set a course for the Cap de la Hague, the South Western tip of the Cotenin peninsular. The straight line track takes you a bit close to some rocks half way to Guernsey and then straight…
Marine Electronics
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New Displays
I fitted a new larger computer display to support the new radar and because the new C-Map Reveal X charting in Expedition (which is excellent) now supports 4K monitors. Removing the old radar display had left a hole in the nav station bulkhead that I had to make and veneer a new panel to fill.…
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Instrument System Project
After I wrote the last post I spoke with a very helpful guy at B&G who explained a bit about the N2k/Fastnet bridge (H5000 Fastnet Interface). It would appear that it should be supplying more data to our N2K network than it is, which suggests our H2000 Performance processor isn’t correctly configured – which isn’t…
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Interlude on instruments, and a possible project.
Sadly my man in Lymington got back to be on the pilot remote control and said that whilst they’d have a look it wasn’t really their thing. They’ve given me the details of a guy in Croatia, so I’ll try him. But it’s got me thinking a bit about how to keep the boat’s instruments…
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Glenan and the Raz with company
Port Tudy drove home what I’d been noticing for some time: whilst Trouper is perhaps a little larger than average around the Solent but at 43′, she’s hardly large, and 50’+ boats are common; here we are definitely heading for outsize. When we had dinner with our friend’s brother in law, a lifelong sailor, the…