Alistair Tyrrell

21 March 2015 I put new lettering on the back of the boat last week - she used to have Poole, now she has Arun Y C. A day before crane-in I'd taken the rudder and the engine down to the boat and re-fitted them to the stern. Quite heavy items so I was keen to avoid carrying them down to the water and hanging them on the back whilst afloat. So Elsa was all ready and looking smart with a newly painted bottom.  Crane-in day on Saturday started early. The cranes were already in place when I arrived at 0800 and the drivers were being fed their usual hearty breakfast while we waited for the tide to come in. Then about 0930 it all kicked off and it's quite a rush to get all the boats in before the tide turns. Mine was one of the last to go in so I spent all morning helping the others - when a boat descends from the sky into the river it takes 3 or 4 blokes to catch the lines, swing the boat round to the correct alignment, hold it away from the pontoon while the lifting st

5th March 2015 Some pictures of Elsa's iron keel in various stages of preparation and painting. Firstly, how it looked when she was lifted out late last year - pale blue remnants of old antifouling paint, some rusty patches (not surprising after over 40 years in the sea). Secondly, after a scrub and a few weeks to dry out and then going over with a stiff wire brush to remove as much flaky stuff as I could. Two coats of underwater primer and then two coats of new dark blue antifouling paint: I am pleased with this even though it's completely invisible when she's afloat!

1 March 2015 Elsa is ashore and scrubbed ready for antifouling. She seems to have been fine over the winter, on five props and a metal bandstand with the keel lowered and resting on a wooden pallet to reduce the load on the hull. Sprayhood off, sails gone for servicing, engine in the shed at home.  I'll do a summary of maintenance activities later in the month before crane-in on 21st. I took a moment to review the logbook for 2014 to see what we did. The log shows I left the berth 14 times during the year, half of the trips were races, half were pottering around. Adding up the GPS trip records it shows 100.7 NM total travelled. I did a further 32 NM on Johanna when we did the Owers Race. Plus of course countless times sat on the boat doing nothing!