Sailing and pumping again

With the reassurance of a fully working engine I untied our rope from the staging, passed it to Julian, and edged up the gangplank before pushing the gangplank back onto the staging.

Next thing I knew Julian had untied the bowline. Now there were several problems with this for me.  I was going to ask Julian to helm us out, and he was at the wrong end of the boat. He had forgotten to ask if I was ready before undoing the line, and now I was stuck with trying to undo the stern line, hook it on the staging, and steer backwards (which Julian is much better at). I also needed him to pull the bow towards the staging and he had moved too far back in the boat in order to loop his rope over the staging to get any sort of leverage to do this. Shouting ensued.

I  eventually got him to move back to the bow, so he could pull the bow in which would put the stern in a position where I would not hit the boat behind when I went backwards. Barry Watt who was watching on the shore took the line from him, and we were off.

Julian hated being shouted at, and he was very critical of how close I actually went to the other boat as I reversed round it to head out of the creek. He had a point. We were closer than I would have been comfortable with if he were on the helm...

After we both calmed down we agreed that he should not have let off the bow line without asking if I was ready, and I should have told him to retie it rather than trying to go when I was not prepared. Peace was restored.

After the fraught start we had a lovely trip out of the river Blackwater. We were under sail while still in the Tollesbury Leavings, and since we were at the top of the tide we could ignore the sand banks and the Nass Beacon and head due east into the Blackwater.

As we sailed along past Mersea Flats we saw a smack coming towards us. It turned out to be Ellen, also out for her first sail of the season. She rounded Robinetta, then headed back to the Colne.

Ellen sailing past with her family aboard

After that we headed up the Wallet to Harwich Harbour. The wind went light a couple of times, but with the tide under us and the wind far enough off the bow to sail we kept the engine off and stayed on port tack until we got past Walton Pier. At this point the wind shifted though a full 90, and we went onto starboard tack.

I had noticed that Robinetta's topsides had dried out a fair bit, and was not too surprised to see water seeping though them as she took up. The pump went after three hours, then again an hour later, which was nothing to worry about. However once we changed tack the float switch began to work every five minutes. There were not just dribbles, but ten seconds of strong pumping every time. Down below the seams were streaming, but possibly not enough for the water we were seeing being pumped out...

As we went onto a broad reach/run to head up the Stour towards Shotley marina the pumping stopped. Julian thinks it might be the garboards working, but we can't be sure.

When we pressed the button to start the engine before getting the sails down nothing happened. we had to turn the key off then on again before it worked. We need to talk to Barry again...

I called up Shotley Marina and we entered the lock at 17:00. It is years since we were here, but as we waited for the lock to fill Mike Garmin, Robinetta's previous owner, who sold her to us here, called down from the lock side to say hello.

It almost felt like a home coming.