First sail of 2016
31 March 2016 Elsa has sat in the river on her own since October. I’ve had the engine off and serviced, and I took the sails and the rudder off to protect them from the storms, but put it all back together during March. I went around the boat with a pressure washer as she sat in the mud with the tide out, but there weren’t that many barnacles to blow off. Today gave us a nice bit of sunshine and a northerly breeze so I decided it was a good day to go out and check everything out. Others had the same idea as four our five other boats were doing likewise. With high tide about 5pm I started her up and backed out into the river around 3.30 and motored up and down a couple of times, and then put out to sea. Northerly winds give us a flat sea with little swell. I had the mainsail rigged and ready to use but I still haven’t quite sorted out a way of hoisting and dropping it from the cockpit so I unrolled the full genoa and shut the engine off to see what she did. The wind was a bit