This past weekend presented us with a bank holiday (3 day weekend) plus the last time a crew member would be able to join us, so it was off to Cowes, Isle of Wight.
Tides were looking good for Sunday / Monday so Friday and Saturday were spent working on boat jobs. Numero uno - get the starboard engine fixed. The engineer arrived at 06:30, spent a couple of hours aboard tightening bolts and cleaning up the pressure relief valve, then to much delight, fired up the [.....]
Two posts in one day - I know, I should be doing work - but I feel this deserves a mention.
The news here has run stories in the past couple of weeks regarding yachts running into difficulties:
- a delivery crew who've potentially had to abandon ship mid-Atlantic after being caught in "50kt winds and 20ft seas" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27465639)
- a couple who required a tow into Falmouth having hit severe weather on a trip from Spain to the UK.
- a boat running into troubles 8 miles offshore in "near gale-force winds" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-27362385)
For some, this will raise the question of safety with sailing offshore (particularly the Atlantic crossing) but I have to ask, [.....]
Another Monday, another weekend of boat work put behind us. And what a weekend it was.
As you'll remember from last week, we were due to have an engineer out on Friday to inspect that faulty starboard engine... well, he couldn't make it due to an over-running job, so we brought forward drying out the boat by a day. I wanted to dry out the boat to a.) check the anodes, b.) have a look at the rudder as it's still heavy to port and c.) check [.....]
Another weekend closer to our departure (59 weeks and counting) and a number of smaller jobs needed ticking off.
First up was the water filtration system. No longer living aboard full time means the water in the tanks (especially in warmer weather) can start to age quite quickly, so some sort of filter was needed. Having looked at the "marine grade" systems (£400 plus), I did some research and went with a standard 10" home system (about £69). This also includes the benefit of using standard 10" [.....]
Quite an apt post title, given the events of the past 24 hours. You see, after a long 24 hours of sailing, my brain is absolutely dead.
I digress. Bank holiday weekend here in the UK (we get Monday off) and whilst these are normally known for a lack of sunshine and mass amounts of rain, sunshine was predicted instead. We picked up the afternoon tide yesterday (Saturday), left Chichester Harbour and made our way over to the Hamble, via Southampton Water. Now, this whole shebang almost [.....]
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