....and just like that...

..it's all over for another season..  wasn't for the want of looking but I just couldn't get another sail in, sunny days and no wind, sunny days with wind but no tide, and increasing numbers of "blechhh" days where the wind and tide was good but the weather was the aforesaid... Sparrow's out on the 12th, and a number of things have to happen before then... but yet again I've gotten ahead of myself, because of course there's always more than one boat involved in the life of a Jolly Boy™

We'd also been trying to get a trip out on the Jolly Boy flagship, AmiLy, and were hoping that a two day'er was on the cards when, firstly the weather gods intervened and one of the two days was cancelled, and then on the surviving day, with tides not optimal (so meaning not enough time to get to Cowes or anywhere else for lunch 😁) we were met by a F5 gusting 6! With the best will in the world, just 2 or 3 hours sailing and all the faff that entails, in boisterous conditions (as we had to be back by a certain time because of tide) were not 'floating the boat' so in the end it was sausage baps, tea, talking 'bolleaux', and then we took the opportunity to get all the sails off her ready for her lift next week.. oh, and there may have been omelettes involved too..

Going to miss that view over the next 6 months..

Which was pretty much what I had to do as well (albeit absent the sausage baps and omelettes regrettably), and so it was that with another big Spring tide (is it me or are they always big Spring tides!) I found myself on Sparrow for the annual end of season tear down..

Beautiful day but again it was blowing old boots - not optimal for taking sails off, but I'm running out of time so needs must...

First order of the day was the main which on Sparrow comes home still attached to the boom - mainsheet, topping lift and kicker detached, remove the clip from the mast track to allow the slides to come out at the gate, then it's simply a matter of undoing the nut that holds the boom to the gooseneck and wrapping the sail cover round the front before dropping the whole lot into the dinghy ready for the pull home.

All looked in pretty good condition but I noticed the topping lift was looking a bit frayed - I'd guess it had been rubbing against the triangle on the back stay.. 

..did that whipping/rope replacement back in May '23 [clicky] so it's not done too badly,
but either way, a new job for the list... 😏

Next was the genoa.. the furler has never failed to absolutely delight this season, a complete game changer and one of those things (like the tiller pilot) that make you wonder why you hadn't done it years earlier, and so it was with the removal of the genoa - detached the sheets while it was still rolled and then it was just a simple matter of rolling it out from the foredeck by hand while controlling how quickly it unrolled with the furler line... it slid out of the track much more easily than it went in! 😏

Bundled it up (there's no way you can fold it on a 20 foot boat, in a F5, and on your own 😁) and that joined the boom/main in the tender ready for proper folding at home..

Much quicker than I expected so I decided I might do that topping lift there and then - it was sunny, warm, and good to be on the water, so checked the battery charge as ususal - all good with the battery showing just over 15v (which is pretty typical given it hadn't been switched on for a while, and was getting charge from the solar panel) but when I turned the VHF on (just for something to listen to while I was repairing the topping lift), about 10 minutes later I was getting a low battery alarm on the VHF display, and the battery monitor was showing it down to < 10v..  buggeration..  switched everything off and the voltage climbed, only for it to drop like a stone when something was turned on..  battery's knackered...   not holding a charge. 

So I swapped the battery last time in May '22, which means that little lump of lead and acid has been doing it's job for four and a half years, bless it..  👍 Not bad at all, very happy with that and better still, when I checked, they still sell them, and it's still the same price! Bargain - will order one next week and add the job to the winter maintenance list..

Oh, and the topping lift? Done..  chopped off to just after worn, with a new thimble as well - sewed and wrapped..  proper job..

Pausing only to leave my phone in the cockpit I wended my way home... 😬

...and yes, an hour later, and on the last legs of the tide I was back to collect the phone.. 😏

Poking the nose into Emsworth

I'm now in weather sniping mode - the weather and the seasons are rolling on and you have to grab an opportunity when it presents itself.. so just a short trip on an otherwise late'ish tide..

HT was 15:44 and a spring'ish 4.39 mtrs, also the westerly's remain with us and just for once the forecast was almost entirely correct. F4 gusting F4 (so both ends) but the forecast was saying westerly, and what we actually got had some north in it.. a slightly awkward direction - it makes the Emsworth channel a beat on the return, and it makes getting to the Emsworth channel a dead down wind run...  

So... on the boat by half 12 quarter to 1'ish, got everything set, had the "should I, shouldn't I" internal discussion about reefing, as the gusts were a little spicy, but I took the call not to* - dropped the mooring, circled and put the main up while head to wind and then headed down the ditch...

* What a mistake'a to make'a - they do say that if you have to think about reefing, just do it, the brain has already made the right call, and so it was here..  we were careering down the ditch doing 3.5 knots under just main, downwind, and against a 1.5 knot tide before I knew it..  so at the end of the ditch, I turned and rolled in a slide's worth of reef .. like I should have done in the first place, and everything calmed down.

Loooooong glorious goosewing run down to the Beacon, and then I could bear away to make the angle of dangle to bring the wind back over the quarter and get the genoa pulling on the same tack - nice run down to Marker but I had a yen to try something different and with this wind direction it might just work. 

Tacked at Marker and headed for Fisherman's - been a while - it was time to go up to the top of the channel to Emsworth itself - first though a couple of fun facts... 

One, the county border line runs up the center of the channel, so I think I went up via West Sussex, and came back via Hampshire.. 😁

Second fun fact is to do with the island you see in the main plot below - that's Fowley Island, and back in the early 70's the location of my capsize drill as part of the RYA Dinghy Part 1 course I was on... all I remember was it was chuffing freezing, and that a Wayfarer is a big old boat to get upright...😏

This is it..

..it was used for temporary oyster storage back in the day - the ponds are man made and date from the mid 19th Century, but in latter days were the site of my RYA dinghy capsize drill.. 😏

In fact there were a couple of dinghies in there today as I came back...  that brought back memories.. 

...couple of small dinghy's taking advantage of the high tide to sail into the centre of Fowley ..

Brilliant to see... anyway, tacked just past Fisherman's, as the wind was proving elusive and I didn't fancy having to start tacking as there was a fair amount of boat movement, and then ran back to the bottom of the upper channel before tacking twice from the Beacon back towards the moorings and then putting the engine on for the return to the mooring..

Nice to see Jolly Boy Dave out!

More reading on Fowley (if you're interested), here:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20170824220839/https://www.emsworthonline.co.uk/Emsworth%20Oyster%20Trail%20Leaflet.pdf
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowley_Island

Log:

Distance: 7.51 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Both ends of a F4 ; WNW
Sail Plan: Full/reefed main and 90% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 4.4 / 2.9

Hard work

MASSIVE tide for this one at 4.96mtrs, which, if my tide tables don't lie, is one of the two biggest tides of the year (the other one is in April) - the forecast though was showing sun and a solid F3 and who was I to pass up the opportunity of a mid week sail at this stage of the season - winter is a long time going.. 😏

We'd also had notice that this was going to be a busy old weekend in my part of the harbour - a regatta at Emsworth, and also the round Hayling race, so best get my sail in before the crowd turn up for what many will be seeing as the last weekend of the summer..

With a 13:45 HT, I was on the boat for 10:00, very little water about (the low water level on a Spring that big is something to behold) but we managed. At least when the tide turns, it comes in quick - but I still much prefer a neap..  

Having seen the weed at the waterline the last time I went out, I'd brought the broom with me this time for my usual scrub round the waterline, the rudder in particular was looking a bit 'Brian Blessed', and as usual I notice the port side was worse than the starboard (I reckon that side is more shaded as when she's floating the tide flow in the pool will generally have her nose pointing east?), but with no concrete evidence to prove it yet (we'll see in four weeks when she's lifted) I think the barnacles are less this year?

All sail covers off, sails made ready, engine warming up, and I dropped the mooring at just after 10:30 ; heading for the bridge I put the main up, and then gybed for the ditch. Wind was dead westerly, so dead downwind, not much of it (low end F3) and no help from the genoa (covered by the main). I estimate there was an adverse 2 knot tide so the engine stayed on even after I got enough angle of dangle to deploy the full genoa at Sweare. 

Motor sailed to about the midway point between the Beacon and Marker, hugging the west side of the channel to stay out of the deep water flow, before eventually switching it off mainly for some relief from the noise...  progress was then being made, but not much more than a knot SOG.

The wind throughout all of this had been no more than a low F3, but as we passed through the Marker bottleneck, heading for Verner, the wind began to perk up a bit, and the sun came out...  happy days..

Reaching Verner after almost two hours (!) of sailing I was clearly on no 'speed run', so with the wind continuing to build I turned and headed back. It was a close reach so I rolled away 10% of the genoa as she goes up wind better with that.

Lovely sail to Beacon and I toyed with the idea of going back down, but some ominous grey clouds were building to the west, and I had somewhere I needed to be, so engine went on at Beacon, and I tidied up as I headed for home..

Turned out to be a good one...

Log:

Distance: 7.05 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Both ends of a F3, gusting F4 later ; W
Sail Plan: Full main and full/90% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 4.0 / 2.3