..he's back...

...just back from a few weeks in the sun, certainly put the British "summer" in contrast - sunny every day, 35+C temperatures (one day we had a 45...!) but these things never last, and all too soon it was over and we return to grey sky's and rain...  but at least we get a curry...

The trip was not without it's own challenges however....  on the last morning before we went I took the opportunity to pop out to Pap for breakfast, just to make sure all was secure before I disappeared for two weeks..  imagine my shock to find that she was significantly lower in the water than she should be... 

Jumped on board, slipped back the hatch and found about 3 or 4 inches of water in her... when I'm due to be packing for holiday, I'm faced with a sinking boat....  😮

Now this year we've had issues with some boats being holed at their moorings as a result of having sat awkwardly on exposed ground tackle (the weather has been so stormy it's possible the moorings are being scoured by tide/wind exposing the sinkers, and ground chain more than they normally would) so my first concern was that she'd been holed..

Whacked the electric bilge on and started sucking water back to where it should be (good news - battery was not flooded) then dug all the seat boards up to see if I could see where it was coming from... nothing.... no clues....

Checked the skin fittings for the toilet - no leaks...

I have no other skin fittings below the water line so I'm forced to the assumption that the hull is leaking from somewhere I couldn't see, I have two hours of tide left, and I'm going on holiday in 12 hours... oh, and I haven't packed....

No good - she was going to have to come out.. no way I could go on holiday for two weeks and leave her on the mooring...

A quick call round (early on a Sunday morning!) and I managed to rustle up some tractor/lift support from the club (it is simply not possible to say how grateful I was) but being mid-season I didn't have the A frame/mast crutch on board, I'm on my own, and there was no time to get home to get it, and  I needed the mast down to get under the bridge to the club slip .. oh well, needs must and no choice, so I rigged the new mast head halyard to the main sheet, slipped the split pin under the furler, and started to drop the mast... true enough it all went to rat sh*t, mast veered to the side, couldn't get it back in time, and I popped the (new) mast foot... 😣

Having recovered the mast, I tied it all down, and within 30 minutes I was ashore in the pen on the trailer...  went home to get mast crutch and pressure washer, and having returned I did a quick tidy up, pressure washed the hull, and went home to pack and go on holiday....  more in the next post...