Easter Monday with Charlie and Barney

17 April 2017

My niece Charlie and her husband Barney came to see us and to go sailing today. There was a cruiser race going on but we'd decided beforehand that we were just going to go out for a bit to potter around. The clubhouse was fairly quiet so we left Catherine with a cup of tea and got the boat ready.

Charlie and Barney live aboard a narrowboat near Oxford so I knew they'd be OK with tiller steering. Leaving Barney on the helm I went forward to hoist the main, and got it good and tight this time, Very light winds in the river so plenty of time to get it right before we motored out to sea. Charlie particularly enjoyed waving at the people along the harbour wall.

We could see the cruiser race fleet in the distance but there was hardly any wind. We got the genoa unrolled and had a quiet and pleasant sail up and down near the harbour entrance, Barney on the helm. We tacked around a couple of times looking for wind but in the end we just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We could hear the sounds of Littlehampton and the waves on the pebbles. A couple of motor boats passed nearby. The mainsail seemed to set well though without wind it was hard to tell!






After about 45 mins it was time to go back and we had a slow motor up and down the river looking at the boats, then I went to the mast and we dropped and flaked the main away before I drove us back into the berth. Catherine was waiting patiently in the clubhouse and Charlie had brought a big rhubarb crumble cake which was just the job!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Re-powering project Spring 2023

Image
24 June 2023 Following difficulty with the gearbox last year (it wouldn't select easily into forward, and then only turned slowly) a quick look in the box showed little oil and evidence of loose filings. Not good. My friend Spencer at the club offered to slip the gearbox out over winter while she was ashore and have a look. In order to do that, he had to get the engine out and into the cabin. Spares for that gearbox are not available. A reconditioned replacement gearbox would be £600 + vat. The old Sea Panther engine, which has a history of being difficult to start, was already out. So after a bit of thought I decided not to put the old engine back in and instead to source a new engine + gearbox. Spencer has re-powered a few boats at the club and was kind enough to find time for this project.  Marine Enterprises are very helpful on the phone but items on their web site bear no relation to what they actually have available. So there was no Beta engine around. But there was a Perkins
Read more

New rudder

7th Sept 2013 Keen to put the repaired rudder to the test in the cruiser race today, I met Sarah at the club at 11. Lots of kids were sailing in the river today with many of the Arun grown-ups teaching them. For this and other reasons, many regular cruiser race teams were not around. We need 3 boats as a minimum for a race and by 1115 it was decided that we did indeed have 3, so we set off for a race start at 1200. As an experiment, we hoisted the main in the shelter of the harbour and motor-sailed out through the turbulence of the entrance. I was worried about keeping control with the main up but it was fine. Once outside we shut off the motor, unrolled the genoa and assessed the conditions. As we emerged from the river it was a sunny day with about F3 winds, that'll be fine we thought. After 15 mins or so, and well outside the harbour into the sea, the swell was huge. Must have been 5 or 6 foot high, and the wind suddenly built up to F4 or even F5. Elsa was plunging up a
Read more

Cowes weekend 2023

Image
 4 July 2023 With Bay Leaf's new engine running well we set off for the weekend in Cowes for Round the Island. About 12 boats from the club were going this year. Sue was with me and we both had a space arranged on our friend Stuart's boat Moontide for the race, but travelling to and from the island in Bay Leaf. 29 June - Littlehampton to Gosport We met at the boat around 0800 Thursday and loaded all the clobber. High water at 0811 gave us a departure time around 0900. Starting the engine on battery 2 I noticed the red light stayed on, indicating lack of charging, which was a small worry but we had battery 1 if we needed it. Setting that thought aside, leaving harbour at 0905 we set full sail on a starboard beam reach, heading 240 degrees.  On the GPS it looks like there's a direct line to Boulder / Street but Selsey rocks are in the way, and sure enough the Mixon pole came into sight around 1040. Passing it on our starboard side abeam at 1110 we turned east towards the Looe
Read more