Too much or none at all

Gary from the workshop at Shotley took 5 minutes to fix the gears - he just decompressed the engine and pushed the fan belt round and it cleared. Keith had suggested something similar but I would still have been nervous about leaving even if we had managed it.

We locked out more competently this time at 09:30, got the sails up and ran out towards Harwich breakwater in company with the Thames Barge Edme under full sail. Once past Landguard point the wind dropped and the cross-swell made everything very uncomfortable. The waves were not big but we had to lash all the blocks tight to stop them banging around and getting damaged. We motor sailed for a while but gave up and got all the sails down somewhere between Pye End and Walton Pier.

A Gaff ketch - probably Gwenilli valiantly kept sailing, much further out to sea. With the motor on, we left Edme behind. After a while I tried heading nearer the Gunfleet and found some ripples and a touch of breeze so we raised the main again. It pulled increasingly well and by Holland on Sea we were able to stop the motor and sail properly, everything set, all the way to the Nass Beacon.

I'd forgotten what gentle sailing was like.

I tried getting the top sail down while on port tack as an experiment. It can be done, but I ended up needing to untie every line to the sail before it could be fully lowered and stowed, so it is not a casual alternative to tacking or gybing onto starboard!

We tied up at the mooring and pumped up the flubber and loaded all the kit into her and then Alison rowed us ashore in Worm, towing the flubber. It was just past high water so we landed at the public hard and Alison got the car round while I stowed the flubber and we backed onto the hard, loaded the boot and lifted Worm straight onto the roof. Much easier than any other way of coming ashore and loading up!