Well here we are at last, all ready to go, complete with lucky penny, Hag stone and black cat(not real). Having told you all I thought the boat was ready. It’s come back and kicked me in the shins. I have discovered a small oil leak from a rubber seal linking the propeller drive leg to the boat. This will need replacing before long, and that will involve either lifting the boat out or beaching her somewhere. its a relatively simple job but you can’t really do it afloat. It’s a busy time of year for boatyards, so haul out would lose us too much time. A tempory fix will be applied before we set off and constantly monitor until we are confident that we can continue with our journey and apply the repair later in the trip.

So to passage no 1

Route, weather and tide are as follows, (pictures paint a thousand words, click to enlarge.) I won’t bore you with too many details each post.

So it looks like we will be motoring a lot, but it’s a sunny day. We plan to leave at 11.00 to catch the tide at Wareham. We be at Poole Entrance around 12.30. but then we are have a foul tide the rest of the way.

Thank for all your best wishes on facebook and Instagram.

Well we left on time, having done the temporary repair to the oil seal. Glorious sunshine but cold wind to Poole entrance, and off down the fairway. Wellwishers on the beach waving enthusiastically, Mark, Desney and Wendy making our exit feel special.

Just to keep us on our toes, the forecast NE wind was actually coming from the south West. So it was slow going all the way to the Needles channel where it finally died. It was 5pm we had been sailing 6 hours and over the transom I could still see home.

10 minutes later at Hurst Castle the gentle NE wind finally made an appearance, at 25kts. I always used to swear by Windfinder but couldn’t have got it more wrong today.

Finally anchored up at 7pm in Newtown Creek.

Trip 28 miles

No mystery really, we all saw it and experienced it. Orange rain, Orange sunsets, everywhere has got an orange tinge to it thanks to a saharan duststorm. We were lucky in some ways in that it decided to rain, all that falling water washing the air clean. Otherwise it would have hung around for ages gently reapplying an orange hue to everything. It’s good news for the nations window cleaners and car wash outlets though.

Back to the boat, Despite the addition of “wash down topsides “, to the To.Do. list, the three pages have shrunk to about one, which is good. Louise has started spring cleaning the interior, and the soft furnishings are going back in. It’s starting to look habitable…..almost.

As I hoped, this week the weather was kind, almost, with dry and sometimes sunny conditions for a few days. It allowed me to wax and polish the hulls and apply the antifoul. (that’s the stuff on the bottom of the boat that prevents barnacles and weed attaching itself to the hull).

There is something very gratifying about finishing the antifouling. It’s much like when you paint a room in your house and everything looks fresh and clean. The boat feels finished and raring to go.

However the truth is, inside is a mess, there are no seats, no bedding, no curtains. There are tools and spare parts everywhere, panels are off, odd wires hanging down. On the chart table sits a small grey notebook entitled Watanga Snagging. Inside there is a 3 page list of things to that are left to do.

No, it’s not finished, but it looks “Good”

The Bad News was an email from the sailmakers stating that for a variety of reasons, some orders may be delayed, not that they actually commit to a written delivery date, more of a verbal assurance that all will be well. The good news is my Main sail has almost been finished and the Genoa sail has been started, and the panels are cut and ready to be assembled. (I have a friend who works there, so get up to date progress reports).

Fingers crossed!

We now have a launch date! Watanga will be in the water on 1st April, just 3weeks away. There is still a long list of things left to do and suddenly so little time left to do them, and of course, have I forgotten anything?

The next couple of weeks, I must now concentrate on items only achievable on the hard. A spell of dry weather next week looks promising to give the hull a polish and get the antifoul applied. Always a messy job. Once that is complete the stickers can be applied and I can stop worrying as all other jobs can be done afloat or ashore.

That said, getting all the soft furnishing aboard is a whole lot easier if the boat is on the hard.

#Gettingexcited

It took a while but I’ve managed to untangle the mass of wires at the back of the instrument panel It’s now looking a lot neater. In the process, I’ve sorted a couple of wiring problems, cleaned up or replaced several corroded connectors and labelled everything.

There’s something satisfying about making neat wiring looms, it’s a bit like completing a jigsaw puzzle.