For the last few weeks my owners have turned up, pumped out my bilges and gone again. More recently they've been bringing a few bits & pieces back on board and spending a bit more time before leaving. The other day my skipper even turned up and spent all afternoon doing various bits to me, whilst working remotely on his lap top. There seemed to be an issue with my GPS system and armed with the correct flash card - the last was a micro chip - far too small for my E series Raymarine, however, the unit still refused to read the information. A phone call later to Navionics and the decision was that the software on the unit needed upgrading to enable the material on the flash card to be read and so, yet another chip was to be in the post.
With the plotter upgraded, the next issue was the repeater in the cockpit, it refused to work with the plotter down stairs. It was also becoming obvious to me, that there was a reason that all what was going on. Despite the cold weather something had been planned and I was about to head out for the first time this year. It was early on the Thursday morning my crew arrived and I was moved over to Shepard's marina, but another problem became apparent, the shore power kept tripping out ! That was the whole thinking of moving me off the remote pontoon, to enable the 240v heaters and dehumidifier to run and make me all toasty for the night and with a scheduled early start of 0600, I was to be taken to Honfleur, France.
An electrician arrived during the day and put the repeater in step with the plotter, but as for the shore power, well the battery charger had developed a fault and so it was isolated from the system. My skipper was quite pleased it was nothing more sinister, my batteries are well looked after by the alternator or the wind generator, so a third system was not necessary for now at least.
Honfleur, is on the southern banks of the River Seine, apparently my skipper doesn't like Le Harvre to the north, a destination he's raced to several times. It was to be an early start on Good Friday and arrival would be around 2130, tides appeared favourable, and the lock would open for inward bound traffic every hour, which meant only 30 minutes of hanging around if all went to plan and this too gave me more water to get over the mud at the entrance to the lock.
As dawn broke, it revealed a crisp clear sunny morning with gentle winds, but the forecast was to be Force 4 or 5, easterly, may be with a touch of north in it. My lines were slipped and we headed out to the Solent. There was a third person on board, whom I've seen once before, a former racing colleague from the '09 Fastnet campaign, Jeff. Turning east in to the wind, my main was raised leaving a single reef in it, just in case things were slightly different once round Bembridge and out into the Channel. It was good to have the wind blow over the sails once again but it was certainly cold, my jib was gleaming white since being laundered and with a few minor repairs in including new leech lines, it made my main look a little tired if nothing else.
Tacking back and forth down the Solent, the temperature from the bright sunshine failed to make less headway to the temperature, in fact a weather front could clearly be seen about to cover the wispy sun completely. My skipper watched it carefully, as he felt it may contain gusts and even snow. By the time we'd reached Ryde pier, the cold was bitter, a quick check on the phone revealed a figure from the internet of -8C including wind chill. Despite many cups of tea, the thoughts of my crew appeared unanimous. The skipper, thinking about the other end of the journey, was wondering how his crew would fare when they arrived in the dark, to a place they've never been before, having spent 15.5 hrs sitting in these freezing conditions. So a decision was made to turn round and head for Yarmouth instead the western end of the island and re-think their weekend.
On arrival I was directed to G5 a remote pontoon alas with out power, so no electric heaters and as the Webasto diesel unit was not working, my lot were in for a cold night. At least a sensible decision to go out first, then have dinner on board, which meant that the cooker had been on, heating my insides before they retired. The marina was filling with loads of huge motor cruisers, Gin Palaces, I think I heard my crew mutter. It was possible I would be heading to Studland or Swanage the following day but it was dependant on the what the weather was going to do. The weather didn't change one iota, which meant that it could possibly be a cracking sail west, but then a long cold slog back and a repeat of the previous day which they didn't fancy. Whilst Yarmouth is a quaint little town, you've seen most of it in one evening apparently. So they set off for a wander and my skipper came back with 3 charts for Northern Brittany, a hand pump and a length of pipe. The fuel pump of the Webasto heater was by-passed and the guys tried to fire up the heater and run it by hand. More use of the internet and a pdf of the instruction manual, more thorough than the one on board, soon established that two flashes on the controls meant that it was failing to light. Think they'd already worked that one out.
The following morning and a decision had been made to head straight over the Solent to Lymington, the wind still strong and gusty, we set off. All was ok, reversing off and down to the end of the pontoon till forward was selected, a gust of wind hit my sides and stopped me dead. Then blew me towards the fuel pontoon. With full power forward to try to gain steerage, I started to move forward at speed, but the wind had won the day and my bow still faced the wrong way. There was nothing for it but to go hard in reverse try to pull me away but my momentum pushed my bow into the ladder at the end of the pontoon. Now my skipper raced to the helm as I was now heading in reverse at speed at one of these huge £5M Gin Palaces. At least crews of other boats had woken up to the fact there was a problem and I've never seen such smartly dressed crew scramble on deck with huge bulbous fenders. By now I was being blown sideways between them all and the room to manoeuvre was diminishing fast.
My skipper was working hard with the helm and the throttle and eventually managed to get my nose turned and head were he wanted me to go, but only after my nose clouted the pontoon once more. I'm not sure if this was to ensure that maximum room was fully utilised or to temporary stop the bow allowing the stern to overtake it assisting in the turn. Either way, he had control and I hadn't hit any of the multi-million pound boats, no body was hurt and I had an embarrassing scuff on the nose but no real damage.
The wind didn't let up all the way across the Solent until I was heading up the river to Lymington. E10 was my berth for the night, before the fuel pontoon and close to the car park, my skipper brought me in, as Jeff leaped off the side and secure me on. We had shore power at last, so heaters, dehumidifier, everything was plugged in.
My skipper and Jeff set too and soon had the Webasto diesel oil fired heater out of my stern locker and had it stripped down to its bear elements. Once each element had been meticulously cleaned, whether in petrol or just by hand, it was re-assembled, the electric pump once reconnected started working again and so, fingers crossed the system was primed once more and fired up. The pump ticked away, the fan whirred and the whole process increased in tension as their speeds increased as if take off was imminent. Hot air started to ooze from the vents once more and this time, no lights flashed, no pumped stopped, no fan died. My heater was back in action.
It was also noticed previously that a wind vane had gone missing at the top of the mast, this was an integral unit with the VHF aerial, had this not been replaced or had it been broken during the re-stepping of the mast ? Either way it wasn't there and more importantly, my VHF radio aerial which is part of it was missing too. Just as well they didn't attempt crossing the Channel ! My skipper popped into the local chandlery and soon he was up the mast again securing a new aerial and wind vane where the old one once was. However the reception on the VHF still didn't improve, so more work needed there. I was enjoying this, apart from a bloody nose, I was having more attention spent on me than I had in a long time.
I was now the warmest I have ever been in a long while and my crew, despite losing an hour due to BST, had the warmest night of the weekend. My lines were cast at just passed 1100 and I took my crew down the river back to the Solent and with the single reef still in my main, we headed back to Cowes with the last two hours of tide. The sea had a slight chop to it but I was loving it, powering my way through it at nothing less than 6 knots. We arrived at my berth at around 1300, no room at the Inn at Shepard's so hopefully the Webasto would keep me warm inside, through another bitter night.
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