Scorchio..!

With Jolly Boy Smiffy away the cats will play and so it was that the rump of the Jolly Boys decided on a mid week dash to Cowes in what has been the hottest week of the year so far in the UK..  mid twenties in April..  unheard of but hugely welcome..

The downside of this of course is that we're in a fairly chunky High so wind was never going to be in abundance (as I found on Monday), but also a brand new moon continues to provide a mahoosive tide (4.8mtrs yesterday), and the aforesaid tide times were not super helpful for the day we were proposing to go either..  

..however...  needs must and the Jolly Boys convened at Rods gaff at 9, and were on AmiLy by 10 - dead low water had been 3 hours before, and with the state of tide lots of mud was still visible, but as a fin keeler had gone just before us we took our time getting her ready and slipped about 20 past - with 0 mtrs under the keel we were away..

Main up as we went past the aircraft carrier (singular - "Prince of Wales" is off on duty) but it was pretty much just a case of showing willing as there was precious little breeze about. Enough water by now for the inner swashway as we exited the harbour but every time we dropped the engine revs the apparent wind also disappeared and left us rolling and in the end, with a fairly tight schedule and lunch beckoning we left the engine on and motored all the way..

Vickies gaff.. 😏

Lunch in the Lifeboat (again..  but we love the food and the moorings in East Cowes are very handy for it), and then a repeat motor home as although the wind had picked up, it was dead on the nose and against that same huge tide...

The sun shone, the Solent glittered, we may have seen our first dolphin (it may have been a seal), we were all burnt, salty round the edges, and what a cracking day..  

Log:

Distance: 23.74 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): SSE going SE ; F2 going F3
Sail Plan: Main/genoa (but mostly motor)
Speed (Max/average in knots): 7.8 / 3.9

Shakedown sail and first fish

Look at that little beauty..  juvenile bass, just a teenager but a bit of a fighter..  it went back to see it's brothers and sisters (but if the population of the harbour is anything to go by, to feed the seals probably! 😀)..  first fish on my new rod (the Frankenstein is no more) so doubly welcome..

..but I jump ahead of myself..  it was also another first, as in first sail of the year yesterday, and as is fairly usual, just a short one to make sure everything that should be working is working, stays/rigging is tight enough, sails hoist ok, genoa furls ok, etc etc..

Astonishingly beautiful day, but not a huge amount of wind to counter the quite astonishing amounts of water sloshing around on what must be the biggest tide since we launched..  looked like a couple of knots of adverse water as I headed east, and as you can see the tacks were flat in the main channel - just enough wind not to get swept sideways. Abandoned any hope of getting to Marker without a lot of engine noise so settled for sailing in Sweare Deep before heading back to the mooring - job done, mission accomplished..

Log:

Distance: 4.83 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Both ends F2 ; SExE going SW
Sail Plan: Full main and 90% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.5 / 2.4

Busy busy busy... and a bad taste... 😒

Time to catch up after a week which comprised 4 days on the water..  not a bad one then..  😏

On Tuesday it was time for the first trip of the year on Jolly Boy Smithy's pride and joy, the GP14 "Hanoly"..  I like going out on her a lot, as one, I'm not the skipper, but two, I just think you are closest to pure sailing on a dinghy than probably any other vehicle except maybe windsurfing (others may disagree😁).. 

Either way it was a lovely trip - not too windy, but the sun shone, we had a flask of coffee, and we ticked off a couple of our season goals (a moving target we make up as we go along 😁) in this case a north to south transit of the "North West passage" (a small channel running between one of the islands and the sea wall on the edge of the marsh, but with prevailing winds being what they are round here, it's usually a south to north transit), and we also got to see the site of the old Oyster House..

..the Oyster House (picture following) is long gone, but the foundations are still visible..  more on it here [clicky] if you're interested..

No sooner were we back and rested from that though, than it was then Wednesday and time to put the mast up on Sparrow.

Now the mast raising on Sparrow is a Jolly Boy Event (tm 😁), and I like to think is appreciated by all parties, we know what were doing now [clicky], but I think most would agree the best bit is the beer, pork pies, kettle crisps and pickled eggs afterwards. It was a relatively trouble free lift to be honest..  no snags or hitches, and all went as per the checklist in that link, the only downer was that when we got it up it was noticed that were missing the forks from two of the bottle screws.. 😒

Now one missing I could accept may have been an accident, but those forks take a lot of screwing in and two missing is theft, pure and simple..  no idea when it happened, either in the yard, or on the mooring, whoever it was left the bottle screw body, just took the forks...  it was a boater did that, and that leaves a nasty taste.. 💩

Happily, and in the best spirit of what the Jolly Boys are all about, Dave had a spare bottle screw sitting in the spares box on his boat, and wonder of wonders it fitted (and that is not a foregone conclusion as I found later) so one was done, which just left the other to source a replacement for.. I had a couple of old one's in the garage I was hopeful would do that job but it turns out they were M8, and mine are 5/16th's (and the rigging is swaged stud so I couldn't just swap out the whole bottle screw)

...so near yet so far...

Bit the bullet in the end and bought a whole new bottle screw,. There are sources online where you can buy just the fork, but 

1. you need to be sure you have the the right thread*, which was difficult to tell on the fitting I was using as a template, and 
2. required a wait for delivery, and 
3. was still £15

...I didn't want to faff around, as sailing awaits..

* (apologies if this is teaching grandma to suck eggs, but the following was new to me, so there may be others who it will help) One end of the bottle screw is a left handed thread, and the other end is right handed, this allows you to turn the bottle screw to engage the threads on both end fittings at the same time to tension or de-tension the screw

..yee gods imperial measurement bottle screws are a price...  I guess because they are not as commonly used as the metric ones..  (next time the standing rigging is done - which is soon - I'll ask for metric bottle screws, and not with a swaged stud, as an eye fitting would have let me swap out the entire bottle screw, so far more flexible)... anyway - just need to swap out the new fitting, and she's done, but the sails are now on, and the new UV strip on the genoa looks cracking...

...so with the lift out of the way that only left time for the Jolly Boys to get away on one of their "one day dashes".. 

The forecast for Thursday had been monumentally good; wall to wall sunshine, with a SE'ly in the morning, going westerly in the afternoon, which would theoretically give a broad reach in both directions if we timed it right..  tides were also optimal - the 'conveyor belt' running to the west in the morning and then turning east in the afternoon.. perfect...  what we actually got was the sun and the tide, but precious little of the wind, or indeed the direction... so a lot of the day was spent on the motor, but we did get a little sailing in, but most of the time it involved pointing in a non-optimal direction just to get some wind in the sails...

Leaving Portsmouth in the morning..  glorious day..

Lunch stop off was in East Cowes (£15 for a lunchtime stay compared with £10 last time - summer rates are in.. 😏) and absolutely fantastic .. "The Lifeboat" is very much recommended by all of us - food, service, and beer choice excellent..

Snooze in the cockpit followed, before dropping the mooring and heading for home about half 3'ish as the tide was turning in our favour..

..and that was largely it - stopped off for a quick refuel in Gosport, but I was home by half 7, slightly burnt round the edges, and a little salty, and that is what it's all about..  brilliant day.

Log:

Distance: 24.77 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): AM: F2 PM: F3 ; AM: E PM: SWxW

Sail Plan: Full main and jib
Speed (Max/average in knots):  7.5 / 2.5