Ships Log - Yacht "Sparrow"

Sneaky afternoon off as the weather forecasts for this weekend are looking a mite ... errr...  equinoctial .. and I needed some boat time.. 


...this had all the hallmarks of being a classic season up until about 6 weeks ago, and then all of a sudden it just went to rat-sh*t weather'wise..  it was almost like someone flicked a switch, and from sunny and breezy, it went to grey and windy, with rain...  I'm kind of used to a hiatus about this time of the season - when I look at my old logs I've usually had a two or three week break by the time the Southampton Boat Show comes round - usually because of tides/holidays, but this time it was five weeks, and reasons were tides/weather/health (I had man-flu one weekend )

So it is that I find myself two weeks away from the mast drop weekend with not enough miles for my liking in the log, where up to the end of August it was looking to be a bumper year... OK so it's not just about the miles, or a tick on a list, but lack of mile…

Let joy be unconfined - it's that time of the year again, and I love the Southampton Boat Show... ..clearly someone else does as well as we were also blessed with unseasonal warmth, good breezes, and the rain when it finally arrived was after we'd left..  good result! My sis and I attended this year...

This is the three master Kaskelot [clicky], which despite her aged appearance was only built in 1948 - she's Danish and one of the largest wooden three masters still afloat.. somewhat surprisingly she's also privately owned (not a charity), and she isn't a sail training vessel..  used mostly for private charter and film work... and beautiful - major refit in 2014 and it shows..  clean and shiny as a new penny...



....those of you who check my other blog will know I have an interest in things historical and military so straight from Kaskelot to this one which was moored just behind and caught my eye...  I originally thought this was WWII era, but it's actually Co…

...  so with a free day before I went back to work after a few days away (Paris) I was idly checking the weather forecast on my phone on the train when I happened to note that after a long period of grey and wet, the next day - my free day - was looking very pleasant..  force 2's were forecast, some cloud but mostly sunshine...  aha, I thought 

With a mid-day high tide it began to look even better, and so it was that when I got up in the morning I was more than chuffed to see that the sunshine was there as promised - but unfortunately the wind wasn't... 'go to the boat anyway', said the current Mrs Steve-the-Wargamer, "you can sit and have a coffee'..  job done...

On the way I picked up 5 litres of fresh fuel as one of the jobs I had in mind was to change the outboard fuel (which had been in the tank at least two months)..   my outboard engineer - who I trust implicitly (30+ years in the business, and regularly consulted by the UK agents for the main brands o…

... go????

You could be forgiven for thinking that all was dead and moribund here, and you'd mostly be right - no sailing now since the 13th August, and with the Atlantic lows rolling in, and weekend commitments, seemingly (in both cases!) one after another, I don't see it changing for a while...

It's been a succession of no tide/not feeling well/no wind, weekends - I did manage to get out to Sparrow the Saturday before last but it was as flat as a flat thing - not a breath - and the next day, Sunday, was howling ('natch), weekend before that I wasn't feeling well (man flu ) and the weekend before that the tides had been wrong...  ah well..  I managed to get some paint on the washboards while sitting in the sun on the flat day, and on one of the other days I managed to get some paint on the cockpit locker lids, so all has not been totally wasted... she's also in urgent need of some bottom scrubbing, no movement equals ideal growing conditions....

This weekend…