Mast down..

...it's always  bit of a lottery finding the time and people to get the mast down, but this time we also had to throw weather and tide into the equation... 

I thought I'd done it last week when we agreed on Wednesday (today as I write); four people and a tide that although a little early wasn't too early. Over the weekend the Autumn weather gods laughed in my face at my puny arrangements and scheduled in a bucket load of rain..  the weather I was hoping for had shifted to a day earlier.

With an hours earlier tide, and peoples availability still to decide, I threw the dice again, and this time we came up with three - which is just enough, if not optimal, for a mast drop on a 20 footer...😏

So it was that we made arrangements to meet at the tender pen at 0800, in order to make the most of an 08:54, 3.88m, tide...  I figured that would give us 3 hours, as this time we were going to do mast drops two boats. Mate Simon, of 'Marcy' (which is on the mooring next to mine), usually takes his boat into one of the local marinas to take the mast down with a derrick/crane, but I'd suggested we do it and save him the hundred spondoolicks - foolishly he agreed.. 😁

As is usual the night before a mast drop I didn't sleep well and I was there early as I wanted to get the boat ready before the others arrived - glorious morning, not a breath of wind - perfect!

Once the rest arrived, we had a quick conflab and Simon agreed we should do 'Sparrow' first as he'd not seen a mast drop using an A frame before (other than on YouTube), and it would give him an idea of what we were doing, how we did it, and what it looked like.. 

...just attached the A frame and mast crutch (at the back)..

Anyway - it was an absolutely quintessentially good mast drop (no point repeating it but here's what I do [clicky]), and pausing only for Dave and I to do a quick tidy, Simon went over to his boat to start getting ready. 

..all down safe and sound, and wonder of wonders the windex is still there! 😁

We then went over to 'Marcy' to have a play - guessing it was about HT at this point and fog was rolling in quicky (at one point we lost sight of Northney)

..Dave "blanket stitching" all the shrouds lines and furler to the mast...

The mast drop on Simon's boat was also good - some differences to 'Sparrow', as 'Marcy' has a hinged mast foot rather than a tabernacle but other than that, the mast sizes/connections are about the same. Simon made a very natty mast crutch that sits on a board that sits in the cockpit (liked that idea), and the A frame ('Mk1' he calls it)  was made from some poles left over from his daughters trampoline 😁.

It worked really well, but we agreed it needed a couple of feet extra length as it didn't reach beyond the furler, which meant supporting the furler as it came down was a little more awkward (as it's 'outside' of the frame)... but as a first go it was about as good as it gets!

With water now beginning to disappear it was back to the clubhouse for pork pies, pastries and tea..  cracking morning!

Notes: 

• one of the rowlock mounting blocks decided to disintegrate on the way back to shore (the other one had split last year so I was kind of expecting it)..  happily just a few feet from shore..😏 Need to make another ready for the weekend...
• new battery has arrived

....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