Alistair Tyrrell

23 June 2019 I completed my purchase of Bay Leaf on 11 June. She is a Westerly Centaur with a bronze green hull, Watermota 4 cyl diesel engine and red sail covers and dodgers. I have often admired her on the moorings at the club so when the owners, who now mostly live in Spain, advertised her for sale I was quick to make an offer. Eric and Angie didn't sail her much the last few years but he has rebuilt the engine and rewired the electrics, and I took advice from other Westerly owners on how to check the keel stubs and bolts. Knowing the hull and engine were good I decided to just go ahead and buy her knowing there might be more work to do on the sails and rig. Eric and Angie spent the best part of an evening showing me all the various bits and demonstrating how to run the engine and they handed me a whole load of paperwork going right back to her original build in 1976. There's also some useful equipment aboard including a new tillerpilot and boxes of engine spares. Lo...

No longer for sale – ELSA – Seal 22 NOW SOLD in September 2019 Seal 22 mk.II lifting keel cruiser built in the mid 1970s, GRP, white with blue deck, sloop rigged with new outboard engine fed by external tank. 4 berths. Small bottled gas camping style cooker. Plumbed in flushing sea toilet. Littlehampton Harbour dues paid to March 2020. Ready to sail. This boat won the Pennant Rose Bowl trophy in 2015 and won the Owers Race in 2017! Fun and easy to sail, uncomplicated, no inboard engine, no electrics, an ideal first cruiser for a sailor used to a dinghy and wishing to go larger. Use your own handheld VHF and GPS. 350kg iron keel lifts into the saloon table via a manual winding mechanism. With the keel raised she can take the ground and sit on her keel stub. She also has beaching legs. Keel last painted Spring 2015. Hull last jet washed and antifouled spring 2018. Mainsail by Hyde Sails new in 2017. Older mainsail age unknown but serviceable as a spare. Roller furling genoa unknow...

7th April 2019 I left Elsa in the water over the winter and took the engine home, and painted the rudder blade. In March I put her back together and Georgia helped me put the sails back on. I knew she was pretty much ready to sail so I went along ready for the first race of the season. Sunday was quite sunny and bright but the forecast was for light and variable winds backing from E round to S at about F2. After I got the boat ready, and being on my own, I hung around the clubhouse and found a couple of guys keen to go sailing. Steve I know slightly and Jonathan was there for his first time. I was not going to stay out for long and Steve had put his dog in his car so the plan was to do the race start then retire and come back in.  With three of us aboard we set off about 1145 and motored out into the sunshine with the main up. There was a big ship due out later and we listened to the radio as the race officer deliberated on where to set the start line, away from the harbour, an...

15 Sept 2018 James was over from South Africa and happily that coincided with the annual Barts Bash combined dinghy / cruiser race. After a light lunch at home we went to the club just after 1pm to get ready and so I could help a little with the organising team. Wind was a steady F3-4 from the West and the sun was shining. The race was at 3pm but with a strong incoming tide there was no point in leaving too early as my outboard would struggle to push us out. After a few minutes reminding James how a sailing boat works we backed out into the river around 2.20 and idled around in the harbour getting head to wind so we could get the main up and set properly, James at the mast doing all the work with me calling out confusing instructions. Then it was full blast on the engine and down the river against the tide till we were out to sea. Once we were past the harbour wall the main filled with the westerly wind and picked us up nicely so we were able to shut the engine up and sail over to ...

27 Aug 2018 Out for a cruiser race today on August bank holiday with my friend Nick R as crew for the first time. He's an experienced sailor and club instructor so I was confident despite the conditions being a bit brisk. Force 4 from the West on a cool day with grey sky and a bit of swell running. Maybe gusting towards F5. We nearly set the reef in the main but in the end we went with full main and just unrolled 3/4 of the genoa. Seven boats were out for the race on a 1200 start time. We got a good clean start second over the line ahead of most of the fleet. Unusually instead of a hard beat to the first mark the race officer had set a course such that we were able to lay the first mark on one tack on a fine reach, and we remained ahead of the group for an enjoyable few minutes until they began to catch us up. We were clocking up to 7 knots. My friend Jonathan in his boat Reef Knot towards the back of the pack took this photo as we approached the first mark: From left to r...

5th July 2018 Glorious summer weather the last few weeks though I have not been out in Elsa since end of May. It's the annual round the island race this weekend and although I'm not taking part this year I took the opportunity to help my friend Phil get his boat to Gosport a couple of days before the race. Sooper Trooper is a well known boat at the club though only owned by Phil for the last year or so. Often my rival in the club racing though usually a long way ahead, I've never sailed her before. She's a real sailor's boat, a Sea Wolf 26 with a fin keel and hardly any creature comforts, just loads of sailing gear. No roller genoa. Andy was with us, and after lunch we got busy loading up with stores for the weekend and hanking on the genoa ready to hoist. Sooper Trooper has very posh laminated sails almost golden in colour, a very distinctive look. Other boats from Arun were making the same passage though with their shallower draught they were able to get goi...

28 May 2018 Bank holiday Monday and a cruiser race was due to start at 1030. After hanging around the clubhouse I found a couple of new members Viktor and Barbara keen to have a go, so off we went. It was a bright sunny day with a nice wind in the river from the North and we set out in good spirits expecting some decent sailing conditions. Race officer Nick had set a start line just outside the river entrance and there were about six yachts milling around waiting for the start. The wind was dropping away all the time. For the first time we saw an actual seal swimming along behind my Seal 22 which was quite exciting. We positioned ourselves up-tide of the start line with two minutes to go just as the wind dropped to zero, so the tide carried us through the line for what turned out to be quite a decent start as half the fleet were becalmed well out of position! Turning to port we aimed the boat at the South mark just as the wind switched to a SWly and we picked up a bit of spe...