It's been an up and down sort of day. First we got up, then we had breakfast. Then I lay down!
I'm perhaps not as back to nearly normal as I thought and I really needed more rest so I thought "why not? ". And back to my berth I went for an hour or three!
Eventually, I arose feeling somewhat better and we set about sorting out a few things such as rigging the bow fender, replacing some of the fender lines and making up a genoa securing line in preparation for changing over to the No. 2 jib.
In the course of using my hot knife I managed to scorch the paint on the starboard cockpit seat, the first of several frustrations the day was to bring
A trip to the chandlers,.inevitably, made light with the contents of my wallet. The main purchase was a new life jacket for Jane though. I've been on at her for a while that she too should have a jacket with integral spray hood and light and the realisation that we were short of a life jacket after one of the cheaper ones went off accidentally back in the autumn tipped the balance of the argument
Finally, we set out early in the afternoon on our intrepid adventure five miles back up the river! Waving to Karen, Patrick and the kids as we left, we headed out to find much what the forecast had predicted to wit 15 to 20 knots of stiff breeze from the East.
Setting the genoa, we stopped the engine and made steady if unspectacular progress against the ebb up river. Once clear of the moorings and buoys, we headed into the wind to hoist the main and made a right hash of it
Everything that could jam, tangle or otherwise go wrong did. And to my disgust I managed, whilst hauling on the main halyard, to put my knee against the speed instrument and push the glass in
Eventually, we sorted ourselves out and got on with some sailing. With a stiff easterly breeze we made excellent progress up river gybing occasionally and sometimes running wing on wing. Even with a foul tide our speed over the ground was three to four knots.
Arriving back at the moorings we discovered, as you do, just how stiff the breeze had become when we turned upwind to drop the main. That wasn't the clean and tidy operation it should be either!
We had a look for some space on the more sheltered inside of the pontoon but no joy so we tucked up behind the stern of a large motor yacht to benefit from the lee they'd give us. No sooner had we sorted out our lines and fenders, they fired up the engines and set off down downstream!
Never mind, the rocking from the wind driven waves was well within tolerable limits and the overnight forecast suggested the wind would die down.
I now set about repairing the speed instrument as the glass would now leak water into the guts of it and the needle was sticking too
It proved easy enough to remove and dismantle...
... it wasn't quite so easy to clean up the old glue and get the glass to bed down properly. A lot of scraping with a Stanley knife blade got it done in the end and it was secured back in place with epoxy glue.
Refitting it was no problem until I dropped one of the two knurled nuts and it neatly fell into a totally inaccessible void. There it will remain for the rest of time I suspect so I need to acquire a new one although it's secure enough for now with one fixing
Pulling the impeller out of the hull fitting, Mark span it by hand achieving a speed of nearly five and a half knots which was good given that it had been sticking at four.
Then it was off to the pub for food and drink and chat.
I'm perhaps not as back to nearly normal as I thought and I really needed more rest so I thought "why not? ". And back to my berth I went for an hour or three!
Eventually, I arose feeling somewhat better and we set about sorting out a few things such as rigging the bow fender, replacing some of the fender lines and making up a genoa securing line in preparation for changing over to the No. 2 jib.
In the course of using my hot knife I managed to scorch the paint on the starboard cockpit seat, the first of several frustrations the day was to bring
A trip to the chandlers,.inevitably, made light with the contents of my wallet. The main purchase was a new life jacket for Jane though. I've been on at her for a while that she too should have a jacket with integral spray hood and light and the realisation that we were short of a life jacket after one of the cheaper ones went off accidentally back in the autumn tipped the balance of the argument
Finally, we set out early in the afternoon on our intrepid adventure five miles back up the river! Waving to Karen, Patrick and the kids as we left, we headed out to find much what the forecast had predicted to wit 15 to 20 knots of stiff breeze from the East.
Setting the genoa, we stopped the engine and made steady if unspectacular progress against the ebb up river. Once clear of the moorings and buoys, we headed into the wind to hoist the main and made a right hash of it
Everything that could jam, tangle or otherwise go wrong did. And to my disgust I managed, whilst hauling on the main halyard, to put my knee against the speed instrument and push the glass in
Eventually, we sorted ourselves out and got on with some sailing. With a stiff easterly breeze we made excellent progress up river gybing occasionally and sometimes running wing on wing. Even with a foul tide our speed over the ground was three to four knots.
Arriving back at the moorings we discovered, as you do, just how stiff the breeze had become when we turned upwind to drop the main. That wasn't the clean and tidy operation it should be either!
We had a look for some space on the more sheltered inside of the pontoon but no joy so we tucked up behind the stern of a large motor yacht to benefit from the lee they'd give us. No sooner had we sorted out our lines and fenders, they fired up the engines and set off down downstream!
Never mind, the rocking from the wind driven waves was well within tolerable limits and the overnight forecast suggested the wind would die down.
I now set about repairing the speed instrument as the glass would now leak water into the guts of it and the needle was sticking too
It proved easy enough to remove and dismantle...
... it wasn't quite so easy to clean up the old glue and get the glass to bed down properly. A lot of scraping with a Stanley knife blade got it done in the end and it was secured back in place with epoxy glue.
Refitting it was no problem until I dropped one of the two knurled nuts and it neatly fell into a totally inaccessible void. There it will remain for the rest of time I suspect so I need to acquire a new one although it's secure enough for now with one fixing
Pulling the impeller out of the hull fitting, Mark span it by hand achieving a speed of nearly five and a half knots which was good given that it had been sticking at four.
Then it was off to the pub for food and drink and chat.
No comments:
Post a Comment