Mast to See You !

My skipper had sent a message to the riggers to say that as far as he could tell, the weather was not looking good for the planned Friday and that should it be delayed till the following week !  No came back the answer all will be fine.

So my skipper had arranged his time such that he was around on Friday, however on arrival at Yacht Haven he had the sense to ring round.  The office at the riggers said all was ok and everything was set to go ahead, so he rung the river taxi and the marine electrician.  His first mate was sent to the marina office, to ask where they wanted me only to be told that the riggers had called it off !

Sure enough my skippers phone rang, and the voice was from the guy who was to put me together again, my skipper was right it was too windy.  However rather than let the taxi go he came over to me and run my engine for a while and checked everything over.  All was good and he left me with a promise that I'd be back together again the following week.

Sure enough with a keen eye on the weather Wednesday was chosen and his decision wasn't wrong, a beautiful calm day and a spring tide saw me enter the marina and head for the holding pontoon, or would've done if a rib hadn't decided to tie up there.  I was swung round on to a clear pontoon and waited for the rib to move, along with a motor cruiser that happen to want to do a few manoeuvres.

I was eventually tied up and left for the riggers to get on with it while my skipper went to the mainland.

On his return, he set up both of my oil filled radiators and dehumidifier and reset my warps, then left for home. My crew returned on Thursday afternoon to find that the riggers hadn't quite finished, in fact there was a 56' yacht having her mast removed and causing logistical issues as she wouldn't fit in the pen (bit too much round the middle !).  My skipper remained on board and worked in the saloon, whilst his mate returned an hour or so later.  Eventually the mast of the 56' was off and being stored so the riggers came back to complete the outstanding bits.

Due to the low spring tide, the plan to moor me port side was omitted so I went my usual starboard side to, the fact that my depth transducer may be dirty and probably giving false readings didn't help the cause.  But I'm back now all together again just need to have my cleaned jib back and that I think is it.

Frost

Well its been nearly two months since I've been out of the water to have my hull Coppercoated, but also two months since I parted company with my mast.  I understand that the issue with the spreader has now been sorted, although the French company Sparcraft washed their hands of it, since they changed their design some four years ago !  So this Friday I shall return to the Cowes Yacht Haven and be re-acquainted with it and have all the standing rigging tensioned up and feel whole again.

Hopefully my jib will have come back from being laundered with an all new UV strip and I shall once again be ready to take my crew out should a crisp winters weekend look promising.  There's all sort of engine spares in my saloon, so assume my skipper is looking to give my engine a complete service some time soon. That will be good it has been quite a few years since I've had one of those.  If only he could shift the air lock in the heating systems fuel line then both he and I will be cosy whilst he works on it, or more importantly if we go out for a weekend.

Frost has fallen a couple of times during the clear nights, but no way is it like it used to be in Inverkip, Scotland, snow now is a distant memory, lets hope it stays that way !