Kings Ransom delivery..

Just back from a stupendous day on the water delivering Kings Ransom (t'other Dave's ride) from the sailing club to Port Solent..

Dave is in the same sailing club as me, and over winter keeps her ashore there (as do I), but during the season, as mentioned, he keep her on a rented mooring in Port Solent. He was late going in for the start of this season  as he was replacing rubbing strakes and he needed it a bit warmer than May usually provides for glues to go off, etcetc. so had opted for the second, later, lift, which was this week..

As the rest of the Jolly Boys™ (😁) were otherwise engaged and elsewhere it turned out to be just the two of us, but Lord above what a glorious day on the water...

Met up at Port Solent to leave one of the cars there, and hot footed it off to the club arriving just in time. The lift in comprised 5 boats in total, and all being bilge keel'ers they were all dropped onto the mud to await the tide...

HT was 12:45 (an hour earlier at Portsmouth) and was a big'gy at 4.9 mtrs. Having had a cup of tea and a chat with other club members while we waited, we were on board by 11:00'ish, and my track starts at 11:30 so she floated fairly quickly. 

A lovely run down the harbour on engine, and we were at the harbour entrance about 20 minutes before HT so the transit through the harbour entrance was trouble free, but once outside we took full benefit of the west going tide, which to be frank provided most of the motive power on the day - wind was light, and we had a halyard wrap issue on the genoa so couldn't deploy it..

https://www.pnbpropertytrust.org/historic-boats/boatdetails/motor-gun-boat-81/68/ [clicky]

We took the outer submarine barrier channel and ate lunch as we drifted more or less in the right direction, just a puff of wind keeping us on track, enjoying the sites on shore and on the water, and in no more than an hour we were off Pompey heading to the small boat channel..  historic MGB #81 (pic above) passing us outbound as we were going in - lovely to hear those engines - the guns are replica's..  😀

One of the nicest harbour entrances visually there is I reckon...  😊

Similar trouble free entry to Portsmouth as well - must have almost been dead water and we were expecting it to be troublesome, but timed it just right before dropping main just about where we do when we're on "AmiLy" and heading up the channel for Port Solent, and a trouble free locking and (more importantly) berthing...

Thirty minutes then ensued sorting out the halyard wrap issue, which turned out to be caused by the (new this winter) run of the halyard missing a diverter at the mast head.. 😁 Wanting to avoid a trip to the mast head, and I could see Dave would have done it but wasn't keen as it is a faff, I had another idea...  We unwrapped the genoa (manually), and then unshackled the foot from the roller drum, which allowed us to hoist the genoa another 6-8" up the foil, and so the top swivel that much closer to the halyard exit point, we used a strop to reattach the now raised foot back to the drum, and fingers crossed we went for a roll in - it worked! Fingers and toes crossed we then rolled it out...  double success!! Good result, a mast head climb saved, and a fine end to the day..

Log:

 

Distance: 14.47 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top) 
Wind (Speed; Direction):  F2 gusting 3; SSE
Sail Plan: Full main
Speed (Max/average in knots): 9.4 / 3.9