Well met at Wells next the Sea

Vagabond and I had just arrived at Wells next the Sea last night (Thurs 20/6) when a stranger walked up to me and said 'You  must be Rob, I'm Stuart, a reader of your blog and a potential BC 23 owner ". Wow, I now know I have at least four readers!

I'll tell you about the voyage to Wells and the meeting with a reader in the next edition of this blog for I must dash, I have a bus to catch. The forecast for the next couple of days is too rough for me (wimp, I hear you all saying) and I'm off home to see the Owners Agent and do the washing. It's amazing how it has mounted up in a week!

Technology and supermarkets = pictures

Isn't it amazing what you can buy in a supermarket these days. Having conditioned you all, my faithfull readers (I know there's at ;east two - see the next edition) I discovered in my current local supermarket a gizmo that enables me to plug my camera memory chip straight into Magrat (the rather venerable PC that accompanies Vagabond and I on these trips and named after a character in one of the Pratchet discworlds).

So here is a selection of the photos taken on the leg from Burnham to Harwich.





The revised instrument layout that should stop Vagabond filling with water if a wave decided to join me in the cockpit

Good bye to Burnham

Collision Course?Missed!

The downwind leg

After all this excitment, Vagabond and I stayed in Harwich for two nights. The mast came down, the radio aerial was refitted and a dry joint discovered in the antenna socket on the deck. It's handy carrying a soldering iron with you. I walked around the remains of HMS Ganges and wondered when the mast would fall down. There are acres of land and derilict buildings where the former RN training school stood.

Across the river at Felixstow, the nations trade deficiet was unloaded from these tower blocks of container ships (well, the ships look like skiffs, with tower blocks on top of them). Just think, if each container was converted into living accomodation (about the size of a post war prefab), the nations housing shortage would be solved at a stroke. I must remember to write to someone about it.

I then sat down to some serious nav stuff to work out the best time to leave Hawich the following day. Heaven forefend, it's 05:30 and the wind is "on the nose". Freddie will have his work cut out.

I am writing this from the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk yacht club bar, so you know we got here all right. I've just planned the journey to Wells Next The Sea for tomorrow - another 05:30 start so I'll have to tell you the gripping story of how we got here in the next edition of this blog!

At the Shipwreck

The bar in Harwich actually - the first port of call on this summer's voyage. We left Burnham this morning at 06:05 (five minutes late) to catch the tide and were swept down the Crouch as the tide receded. The wind was from the South West, almost dead astern at a fresh 18 kn. (Regular readers will realize the wind instrumentation has been restored to the mast head).  The main was reefed and we charged on a tide assisted 7.5 knots.  

Visibility was excellent - wind farms loomed on the horizon ahead.  I was counting the bouys and watching the . At last we reached the Spit buoy, it was time to turn north and feel our way across the sand bar between the Crouch and the Swillet. The water got resolutely shallower. 3.2, 3.0, 2.8, 2.8. It was a good thing we were running a bit ahead of our plan, it meant that the tide had not gone down quite so much. Without it, the centre board would now be in the sand. After several minutes, the depth increased and we   were through, able to turn NNE and then North towards Harwich.

We inadvertently joined the down wind leg of a Sunday race in the approaches to Harwich. Vagabond was still carrying the reef, and the fleet slowly went past us. I took copious photos for the blog, only to discover that I haven't the right bits of wire, so you'll have to wait for them.  

Looking aloft, I was horrified to see that the radio aerial was dangling by its wire. The mast will have to come down to fix it. And so we reached Harwich, found our way in to the Shotley marina, moored up and went to bed, at three thirty in the afternoon. There are real baths here, I must go and find them - I ache all over!

  Sorry about the photos.

Jean-Paul Sartre

It's not often that this blogger quotes philosophers.

The only quote I can remember of J-PS is  "L'enfer, c'est les autres," - it is usually translated as 'Hell is other people'' 
I think it needs a little updating.
"Hell is having to meet social commitments when the wind is in the right direction for other pursuits".

It's not as pithy as the original but sums up the current situation.

This morning, the wind has swung round to the SW, ideal for Vagabond and I to start sailing northwards from Burnham on Crouch. The various forecast models indicate that it's going to stay that way until Sunday and then revert to the northerly airstream that seems to have been locked over the East Coast for weeks. Guess when our social commitments allow me to sail?

You've got it - Sunday.

Perhaps the 5 day forecasts are wrong........

Crouched and ready to go

Burnham on Crouch, that is.

On Wednesday, Vagabond waved goodbye to the harbourmaster and the cows at Kings Ash Farm and, on the trailer and under tow, was taken back to the sea at Burnham on Crouch. The journey round the M25 was without incident, although the NE F4 wind made it a little slower than usual, so we were a little late in arriving at the Burnham Marina. 

Lift

 I was directed to park under the watchful eyes of the residents of the Balcony Bar, who raised an ironic cheer when I eventually raised the mast. Then (having taken the easy way out) up came the boat lift to pick up Vagabond and drop her (gently, I hoped) into the sea.










and drop

Then off to berth B2, where I realised that I had reeved hauling line for the lazy jacks   incorrectly.

The step ladder was retrieved from the car and sited on the cockpit roof. (Don't so this at sea, children). Then, with the boat hook at full stretch, I caught the offending line and led it through the right bits and pieces.

Whilst aloft on the step ladder I discovered how dirty the decks were. The stains from the coffee that I had spilt in the cockpit whilst at Rutland were very pronounced, as was the accumulated grime from the winter in the barn.

As the Purser drily observed, I am not normally the polishing type, but even so, I thought that something must be done.

So I washed the decks and polished bits of the hull before checking that the instruments worked in their new configuration and generally fidddling about for the rest of the day, before returning to the Owners Agent the next morning. Then off to meet with the Purser and the skipper to discuss the first steps. Sailing date looks like being 19th June. I bet the northerly is still blowing.

Coffee and sail trim

At last, I have a picture of Vagabond under sail.  It was taken at Rutland Water, at the beginning of May and shows the Pursur at the helm with me grinning inanely. OK, there's a bit of string (technical term) hanging out of the hawse hole in the bow.

But she looks pretty.

Under way on Rutland Water

At a local coffee house the other day, I proudly showed it to "the skipper".

He pulled a face.

 

'What's wrong with the rig?', I asked as I recognised the look.

'It's the jib', he replied, 'It shouldn't crease like that, there's something wrong with the way it's set up."

We then had technical discussion about the sail. The skipper phoned the admiral for confirmation.

 

'The sail is too tight on the wire that runs up the leading edge", he said.

 

(Well, not exactly as he used a lot of jargon terms for the wire and the parts of the sail which I can't remember as I'm afraid that stuff tends to pass in one ear and out of the other but I at least retain the gist of what was said).

 

'You should be able to loosen the top of the sail and slacken it off on the wire' he said.

 

Work in progress........

A sailing date and an artefact

Whilst I was out for a walk a few evenings ago, mulling over tide times and social commitments and generally putting off the decisions I need to make about the resumption of our wanderings, my eye was caught by a flat piece of flint, lying on the track in front of me.

I stopped and picked it up: it showed the tell tale marks of having been knapped into shape.






It lay in the palm of my hand, with a large, flat, knapped surface uppermose and a knapped edge towards my finger tips.





 



It seemed to me to be asking to be balanced on my index finger and gripped by my thumb.



I think I had found a stone age tool, a scraper of some sort, perhaps (as my vague recollections of history lessons suggested) used for scraping the back of a hide before treating it.



OK, so the tool (if it is one) was made getting on for four thousand years ago and the edge was blunted.

But it fitted my hand is if it had been made for it yesterday.



I strode home with a new clarity of thought.


Vagabond will be back in the water at Burnham on Crouch sometime during the week commencing 3rd June and we'll be setting sail a week or so later.

The first port of call will be somewhere on the River Deben. Then on to Felixstow and a long slog to Wells Next the Sea. After that it the future becomes a bit more murky - do we head for Saltfleet (described to me by someone as 'a miserable little creek' ) or further on to Grimsby. Here, the name is enough to put one off!

Then north, to hide behind a headland or two before reaching Whitby, and then harbour hopping up to Holy Island.

After that, it all depends. There is one fixed date in July for which I need to be at home so will have to find somewhere to abandon Vagabond for a few days. I'll keep you posted.