Rope round the prop, and a galley "fire".

After spending Saturday socializing with members of the Clyde Cruising Club, the Clyde Corinthian Yacht Club, the Fairlie Yacht Club, and the Holy Loch Sailing Club. It was time to head home.

We had been safely tucked up on the inside of the visitor pontoon, with Worm out of the water beside us. Once Robinetta was prepared to leave, and the engine warmed up, we launched Worm beneath the bowsprit on a long painter. This usually works without any problems, but this time the wind caught Worm, and rather than falling neatly into place behind Robinetta she was blown around her bow, with the line running under Robinetta's keel.

Julian called to me to stop the engine, but I needed to keep the power on to complete the turn, and by the time I could throttle back Worm's painter was well and truly wrapped round the prop. The engine alarm went, and I quickly turned off the engine, and raised the staysail to give me steerage way. This worked a treat, and I could keep in the center of the fairway out of the marina.

Meanwhile Julian was leaning over the stern trying to free Worm's painter. This meant I could not move the tiller easily, which made steering difficult, but luckily I spotted an empty mooring buoy ahead that I could steer towards, and we decided to pick it up, then sort out the problem.

Once we were moored Julian got into Worm, and began working on clearing the prop. It took about half an hour to work the line free, but eventually we could turn the engine on, and begin to head home.

The wind was light but usable in Holy Loch, and we got the main sail up as soon as possible, and spent an enjoyable hour tacking slowly out into the Clyde. This was not entirely without incident. I put the kettle on to make a cup of soup, and after a couple of minutes I smelt burning. Some of Friday night's stew had spilled unnoticed onto the spirit canister, and as we were heeled and I had not deployed the gimbals, the burning spirit had found the debris and set it alight. No harm was done, but it was interesting to use our fire blanket for the first time!

Once in the Clyde the wind fell away to nothing, and we put the engine on. When the wind came back it was on the bow, and we spent a cold hour and a half heading up river under engine in some wind over tide chop. Turning into the Gairloch the sea state smoothed out, the wind was usable, and the engine went off for a lovely half hour's sail up to our mooring. We tried picking this up under sail, but did not quite manage it, so the engine went on again for a few minutes.

It had been a good weekend away for our first trip of the year, and despite the incidents on the return trip we had kept ourselves safe. It felt good to get back to sailing after the winter.