Faced with a succession of low pressure systems featuring rain, wind, rain, storm Callum (must be bad if it got a name), plus a number of family drama's, and so it was that I arrived at the last weekend before lift out to be faced by a high pressure zone over the UK that was so high you'd need a Hubble space telegraph to see how big it was... beautiful warm sunny weather but not a breath of breeze....
So what does a man do when his boat is coming out of the water the next weekend for a long cold winter and there isn't enough wind to sail? He fires up the metal donkey, drops his mooring, goes in search of an empty mooring, and then starts frying bacon while he watches the world go by...
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| Bacon sizzling - my permanent mooring is in the far distance - look at that water, flat as a flat thing... |
Lovely day on the water, the bacon was good, the coffee was good, I got to watch the boats coming out of Northney, and I sat in the sun..
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| Bare feet in mid-October - unheard of.. |
Regrettably time and tide wait for no man so I motored back to the mooring and then stripped the sails, boom, and halyards - the jolly boys are coming on Friday to drop the mast, east pork pies, and drink beer... I have a work party Saturday (lift crew), Sparrow comes out on Sunday, and I have the Monday off to pressure wash and clean the hull...
Few more jobs added to the winter job list - first one, storm Callum did for my sail cover and the cheap and cheerful I bought way back in 2013 has finally given up the ghost, splitting along the top seam - long term exposure to UV had done for the stitching... I have a choice - repair it or buy a new one, but given the material is also now as thin as tissue I think a new one can be afforded - it cost me £50 five years ago.. tenner a year? Bargain... Second, I need to renew the whipping on the genoa/main/topping lift, eyes...
I can smell the bacon from here - was this just bacon and coffee or a full English breakfast?
ReplyDeleteHave you thought of getting a cover made of 'Sunbrella cloth' - the soft fabric that is used worldwide by sail makers to make spray dodgers etc - the fabric lasts for at least a decade or more.
Hi Alden - yes - but I reckon it would be 5 or 6 times the cost...?? At a tenner a year I kind of think of it as "rent".. and also I have an idea how to extend the life for the next one... :o))
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