After the shenanigans of the RTIR last weekend, it was time for a down weekend to get some basic maintenance done. Belts needed tightening, the rig needed checking, the autopilot and chartplotter needed further configuring, and the Mikuni and Dickinson needed a run. The weather wasn't all that bad either.

Annoyingly, we continue to have problems with the Dickinson. After 45mins of good running, it starts to dump diesel in and the flame turns from a lovely yellow & blue, to yellow, to yellow & orange, to black smoke everywhere. Ugh. I've emailed Dickinson and the local supplier to see whether they can have someone come out and have a look at it.

Once all that fun was had, and since the weather was so nice, it was time to get the dinghy on the foredeck and give it an initial coat of paint. One thing I've found is that the dinghy's too big to live there long term, so we will be sailing with it on the davits.

The weekend also gave me a chance to test the ol' spinnaker pole & pulley kayak recovery system. It works a treat and isn't too much of a faff.

So that was about it for this weekend. I've ordered another 100W solar panel, the watermaker / SSB / mast steps are all being ordered today and we've started planning for our Channel Islands trip at the start of August. Excellent.

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So the past weekend was the 2014 Round the Island Race, and we were booked to crew a mate's boat. Thursday was spent with an engineer in Calypso's engine bay, looking into the smoky starboard engine (turns out it's a bad injector on cylinder #1) then it was off to Cowes early Friday morning. The race boat - Arrow - was going early to get through the lock at our destination marina, whereas we were heading out sailing for the day to get some testing in.

Conditions were very light and we had a good tide, so just after West Pole off went the engines and up went the sails. Brilliant. The in-boom furlers are working *much* better, the steering is very reasonable under sail alone, and the boat tracked nicely. In 5-6kts of breeze, we saw about 2kts of boat speed. Alright for a displacement cruiser.

After heading out towards the NAB tower, we thought it might be best to start heading towards Cowes so as not to get too far downstream with the tide. Equally, with all the boats heading to Cowes for RTIR (approx. 1,600), we were keen to get in before they all pitched up.

Of course to add to the chaos, our good friend the hovercraft ferry was zipping back & forth. Credit to the commercial crews for avoiding all the yachts this past weekend.

This is Cowes on RTIR weekend btw.... a tad busy.

We arrived at Island Harbour marina and after a bit of faffing with the lock (waiting in the channel with *just* enough depth and wind / tide against each other is not the easiest), in we went before heading off to dinner at the Folly Inn. 

Race Day
06:30 - time to drop lines, leave the marina via the now free-flowing lock, and head into the chaos. Honestly, it really is chaos - 1,600 boats, most of which are crewed by weekend sailors, all in a tidal / small area. Anyways, we weren't on Calypso so the blood pressure didn't take a proper beating.

Out to the Needles, we were doing well. Well, better than the two boats we saw collide mid-tack, or the five boats that collided right-on-the-start-line, or the guy who ran aground on a very clearly marked (and visible) sand bank. Conditions were still very light but we made some good progress.

 
At the Needles, things were still looking good (and somewhat tight)....

But.... then it all became a bit pedestrian really. 5kts of breeze, 2kts of boat speed and not going anywhere all that quickly.

 

A rather long time after that last photo, we were still plodding on towards St. Catherine's Point (the halfway mark).

 

 

Still, who's going to complain? Had we not been racing, it would've been a cracking day. Lovely sunshine,a good sense of humour by a lot of the crews (comparing notes on opposite tacks as we crawled past each other, fishing, etc) and everyone in the same proverbial boat..

At St. Cat's, we decided it'd taken us 7.5hrs to cover almost to halfway and sailing the last 20nm would make us miss our dinner reservation, so on went the engine and 3hrs later we motoring back down the Medina.

As it turned out, a lot of other boats (over half) had made the same decision. The full link is here - http://www.pbo.co.uk/news/536777/longest-day-longest-round-the-island-race-ever.

Another dinner on the Saturday night then it was time for an early start for Lauren & I in order to get back to our marina. For us, this is the biggest irritation at the moment - always having to rush to make tidal locks or HW to get back on our berth. I can't wait to be back moving from anchorage to anchorage, coming & going as we please.

Anyway, we left Island Harbour on the free flow - it's a great marina with excellent staff and if you can gloss over the busy-body motorboat owners who just loooooove to watch everything you do (and I mean everything), it's a great place to visit.

A rather nice Cat accompanied us down the Medina.

After leaving Cowes we had 10hrs to kill before we could get on our berth, so a quick trip over to Osborne Bay finished with the anchor being dropped and lunch plans being discussed.

Mid-afternoon, anchor up and time to motor back to Chichester.

Where we arrived 2hrs early, so out came the anchor again.....

Before arriving back at the marina for another cracking BBQ....

And sorting the boat out, ready for our next trip....

So, all in all, a great weekend of many firsts:
- First trip out for the both of us without crew
- First sail
- First locking-in at a marina

- First time squeezing into a finger berth that wasn't a hammerhead (ie. we had to slide in next to another boat ever-so-slowly as the meerkats were all watching what we were up to)
- First time anchoring at new non-local anchorage

Our comfort levels with the boat are increasing, minor niggles are getting sorted out and we're cracking on towards out departure date in 45 weeks. Brighton is our next trip planned for early July, then it's off to the Channel Islands at the start of August....

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After attending the Bluewater Boat Seminar last weekend, we were left with a feeling that our in-boom furling was a disastrous situation and the sooner we ditched it, the better. All our previous experiences with it had left us with poor sail shape and much swearing when attempting to furl the sails (in fairness, we'd not actually spent much time tweaking the setup). I spent the week researching lazy jacks (lines that allow us to drop the sails without them going everywhere) to see if we could just setup a standard system instead, but then an email to the in-boom supplier gave a glimmer of hope.

Ten minutes with an allen key later, below are the results. A much better sail shape and once the battens are reinstalled, we should be golden. A big thank you to Chris @ Jeckells Sails for his assistance and saving us from a potential nightmare....

Anyway, after a long evening tweaking sails and furling lines, it was nice to have another bbq and a quiet evening.

Friday morning dawned and we needed to move our boat to the next berth over so they could dredge our slip (the joys of a half-tide berth). Anyway, both engines started fine but once engaged in reverse, our old friend - the starboard engine - began to puff out white smoke. Ugh. I'll admit it did sound like it was bit off and slightly down on power, so after re-berthing we ran a few tests and this was the smoke level at 1700rpm. Not brilliant. I've got hold of the mechanic and he feels it could be a slightly blocked injector but that'll be yet another visit out. All the while, the port engine happily ticked along without a care in the world.

After that round of fun, I spent the remainder of the day up the masts, fitting the two new deck lights. That was another interesting project - the wire looked a bit corroded so after testing, snipping, re-connecting, and re-running wiring, in utter exasperation I checked the main switch and it transpired I'd connected the aft deck light, but not the forward light. Ugh. A quick crimp later, we were up & running.

Another job for this weekend was making our lives a bit easier. The genoa furler line had turned out not to be long enough, so we changed it's colour and colour matched it with the clutch labels, just to improve our chances of not releasing the wrong line.....

Saturday morning dawned after a night of dredging and it transpired they'd taken 1/2ft off the top in one evening. Once finished, it'll mean we can get out on lower tides and not have to constantly pull our keel through the mud.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Next weekend we're off to Cowes for the 2014 Round the Island Race. We're taking Calypso over as the trip will be a good full day test, then it's a mate's boat for the race itself, before having another test day on the Sunday on the return trip.

46 weeks to go.... (46?!?!??!? You say? But that's 6 weeks less than in the last blog update?!?! Well, yes. In short, we decided there's no point rushing our departure next year to make the Biscay crossing, so we're off a bit earlier to get a few decent hops in (Channel Islands, south coast UK and northern France) before making the trip down to the Canaries via Portugal).

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