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

Last jobs, and splashed..

...and not so much with a bang but a triumphant shout..  we're in..  but not before a whole of other nonsense was/had to be done first..

On the Thursday of last week we had been aiming to go for a little jaunt on "Hanoly" - Smithy's GP14 - but when we got down there, one the wind was non-existent, and two, the boys had started to lift boats in early - they're nothing if not a little claustrophobic after a long winter, so I subpoenaed Smithy into giving me a hand on a task I had been wanting to complete for an age..  last year (it may have been the year before) I did a GPS survey of the club mooring buoys on my side of the bridge, and was then approached by one of the committee guys to confirm it was very useful and would I do the same for the Langstone side of the bridge..  so a couple of hours, and 2.5 miles, later it was done...

😂😂😂

Back on land it was then time to start thinking about getting ready for my lift in which was a mere few days away..  first order of the day was getting the top tackle on to the mooring ready to tie up to. The next day we borrowed the workboat and Jolly Boy Dave, mate Simon, and I killed multiple birds with a single stone by doing five moorings in one go..

...this turned out to be not as simple as we had envisaged, as the mooring team had been round the buoys over the winter putting new shackles on, and removing anything extraneous, which included Simon's swivel...  then Dave noticed he was missing additional shackles, so we had to hot foot it back to the pontoon to go rooting around the maintenance shed for replacements - all eventually done, and it was good to be out on the water..

...and so it was finally the day before lift - I decided to bite the bullet this year, and rather than get up at oh crack sparrow fart on launch day to put the engine on before it got busy, I would do it the evening before. Since the last but one got nicked I've been a bit wary of taking any risk, but with the outboard lock, and taking the cowl home, I figured it was as safe in the yard as it was on the mooring - probably safer, as a number of the guys are sleeping down there in their camper vans at the moment getting the last bits done on their boats..

Engine on it was then time to put the cockpit hatches back on - pleased to say the temporary one's did a good job, then re-attached the wind vane, and finally give her a damn good wash to get rid of a winters worth of green slime and dirt..  she looks a million dollars OK.. 😏

So nice and early next day (clocks changed to, so it was even earlier..  really...😬) it was time for the traditional final job of the lay over..

...before making my presence known to the moorings team to let them know I and the boat were ready for lift in when they were...

Usually the boats going round the island (Hayling Bridge sits between our two mooring area's) get priority and so it was today, but they'd made such good progress over the previous couple of days there were only nine boats to go in today, so I got a quick lift, and they dropped me so far down the slipway that even four hours before the HT was due I was already seeing water round the keels

So many expectations at the start of .. etcetcetc.😏

Time then to get on board sharp'ish... enjoy the view..

...and wait for the tide to do the job.. first the boat started rocking, time to get the engine going.. fuel was already attached, choke on, gear in neutral check, pulled her over and she started first time..  left her in tick over and put her in reverse..

...and bugger me if less than five mutes later we weren't off and moving (according to the club webcam at about 10:26)

10 minutes later I was on the mooring having transited under the bridge..

Super easy, non-stressful launch - my thanks as usual to the guys in the club who sorted this for me and the others as they do every year..  was also a glorious day..

Next jobs - get the tender ready, then arrange a mast raising party..

First sail of the season and more jobs done..

The Jolly Boys have had their first sail of the new season, but before I get to that, first off news of further work completed..

It wasn't on the list but at the end of last season I had noticed that the boom/sail cover needed a little attention - I bought this in 2019, and compared with the one it replaced (which died after 6 years) it's in far better condition. This one is 6 years old this year, albeit we had a year of Covid where it didn't get a lot of UV - the material is OK'ish - just a little fragile on the fold lines, so I took the opportunity to reinforce the back of those with some sail repair tape. She's good for another year..

Which brings me to the Jolly Boys first sail of the year - which was.... utterly Baltic..! 🥶

Head gear de rigeur for the day.. 😏

Lovely sail over to Cowes though, including flying the asymmetric, but we were a boat on a mission for this first sail as tide times meant we couldn't hang around coming back.. we sailed almost all the way there, but then cracked and put the engine on for the last dash into Cowes where we got a fantastic berth in East Cowes (and only a tenner for a lunch stop as they're still on winter rates!)

...that was where we wuz.. 😁

Absolutely fantastic lunch in the Lifeboat, but with the wind dead on the nose, we motored for home..  we had to be back on the mooring by 5'ish or have to sit round waiting due to tides..  happily we did it, but yee gods it was cold on the way back, an easterly head wind is no fun in March..

Log:

Distance: 28.0 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F3 very occasionally bottom F4 ; SExE going SE
Sail Plan: Full main/genoa; and we flew the blue meany/asymmetric
Speed (Max/average in knots): 7.6 / 4.1