"Papillon" is a Robert Tucker designed 'Fantasie 19' and my first boat.. I've been sailing since the age of 15 (when I did my RYA Part 1 and 2 at Emsworth Sailing School) so I've been on the water (but more in it) for going on 30+ years now... this blog is about our adventures together - they may be small one's (because despite the years I have little experience in boats - I was mostly windsurfing!), but they are adventures none the less..

Sunday 19 April 2009

.. oh dear...

... "oh dear"??

...well on Friday I went down to check the boat was OK and found it was not on the mooring and had been moved to another one.. no idea why... quite worrying...

..the tides being what they were the first opportunity I had to get down and check the boat was Saturday morning so after a 5:30 start (ouch!!) I found myself on the boat and holding the frayed end of the old mooring.. looks like it had frayed and broken at the point where it is secured to the big concrete block on the harbour bottom. She must have gone adrift, but some kind soul had rescued her and moored her safely - no idea who, but I owe them a beer as the boat seems undamaged in all respects! Whew..... now all I need to do is go mud wading to find the concrete block and repair the old mooring!

So - "oh dear" (and I can promise you what I actually said was slightly pithier that that..) but all's well that ends well - I have this Wednesday off and am planning my first solo voyage; fishing rod has been found, reel unearthed from the back of the attic (neither used for at least 20 years!) - should be fun..



Oh, and family had the first sailing trip last Monday - we hit nothing, broke nothing, no-one was seasick, the sun shone, the wind was ideal and they want to go again.. job done!

Distance: 3.5 miles (8.5 miles year to date)
Wind: light

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Launch day...

As promised, and requested (well one of you did!), just a few pictures of the boat post clean up and preparation...

These were taken on launch day...

..which was just about perfect in terms of sun, but we could probably have done with a little more wind (ie. there wasn't any until we got to almost our destination).

Backing up a trailer with a considerable amount of boat behind the car was an interesting experience - not trailed before anyway, and I couldn't quite get to grips with having to turn the wheel one way to make the boat turn the other!

Finally in the water, and tied up...

..beautiful day - see following - notice complete lack of movement on the water! Almost windless....



...followed by a gentle putter up the harbour to the permanent mooring. No breeze to talk of until we got to almost the end when we had a few puffs that got us moving (5.5 knots at one point!)...

All things considered a very successful first voyage at about 5 miles - couple of interesting incidents and lessons learned... first the lesson; stay inside the channel markers at the top of the harbour (where the water tends to be shallower) - my boat only draws a couple of feet, but we still managed to sit on the mud for a while!

Second the incident - biggest little'un took this for us..



...the rescue services were out and all people taken off safely - cycling to work later in the week I went past and the owner was there stripping out anything usable that was left - it had burned to the waterline. Happily the insurance are paying, but he advised me that this was caused by an engine fire.. very sobering end to a lovely day...

Distance: 5 miles
Wind: light to none