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!

Time to go home

The 7am forecast still said F6-F8 for the morning so we abandoned the idea of catching the morning tide to West Mersea.

I could get a bus and train home and get to work on time for Tuesday or we could try and push the tide or go in the evening and have a very short night.

I managed to get online on the Shotley Wifi with Alison's netbook and check my diary - Tuesday was clear so I sent an email to work saying I'd be a day late.

I'd been worried about the VHF - we hadn't been hearing the Walton MSI broadcasts or Transcur's Sunday briefing so I called Thames Coastguard for a radio check. They could only hear us on high power so I'm sure there is a break in the cable to the antenna. Another thing to go on the list.

We mooched around and had a chat with Neil by his just launched Oysterman 16 - a very nice little boat - and then had lunch at the Bristol Arms.

We finally took the time to go around the Ganges museum. The establishment was huge in its day.

By mid afternoon the wind had dropped and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. Tuesdays forecast was for almost no wind so we decided to go with the evening tide after all. We had an hour's doze then got fuel and went to lock out. I messed up completely while docking and dropped the aft mooring line, got it stuck round the prop and jammed the gear lever in forward.

The lock keeper walked us round to the working dock where we were found by Keith and Julie from Maryl. They hung around and provided really great moral support while I went into the water wearing my mask and snorkel and freed the prop but we couldn't shift the gear lever. We're really green with marine diesels and I wanted the yard to take a look so we stayed on the working dock overnight.

More wind, no racing

Sunday morning brought more gale warnings and the President's race was cancelled. We came up with all sorts of tasks to do on Robinetta and Worm but we both felt more like being lazy.

I did decide to give Worm a maiden sail, even though we had no rudder. I got in and found another disaster - the rear thwart had come unglued. It hadn't been the best fit and the wetted area was not ideal but it was a real blow. Luckily we had the cordless drill and it was quite firm with four brass wood screws fitted.

Then I started rigging her. The four parrel beads I had made from the old teak hand rails were not quite enough but worked well with a half-hitch between each one as a spacer. I couldn't remember how the plans used the two sets of holes on the boom jaws but using the aft ones for sail lacing and the foreward ones as a combined parrell line and downhaul worked well. I made a kicker and a horse and a loop to attach the sheet to the boom and it all seemed workable.

The one cleat I hadn't fitted yet was the one on the yard for the halyard as I was still experimenting with how far up the yard the halyard should be tied. Too low and the yard would fall upside-down when raising. Too high and the boom was too low. I compromised with the boom at decapitation height - ducking will be required!

Iain recommends a topsail halyard bend for attaching the halyard but I couldn't find instructions so I just used a clove hitch. It worked fine, partly because Hempex is nice and rough and knots well.

It was really windy so a good opportunity to reef. The only problem is that the eyes are too big so there is no way to easily fix the pennants to the sail. The reef went in really easily but makes it necessary to move the halyard bend further up the yard. At least the boom can be raised more out of head's way.

Next came trying the leeboard. We were surprised how bouyant it still is, even with the lead fitted. This turns out to be a good thing for lifting it out of the water but a bad thing for getting it to stay put. I think a little more lead is best, but not too much.I rowed to the end of J pontoon next to Melvyn's smack's boat. Melvyn and Julia were on board Elen and agreed to give us a lift to the dinner so we told Shotley we would stay another night.

The wind was really flaky there - coming from all directions. It was clear that the sculling notch and oars are not an alternative to a rudder, at least in their current incarnation. Eventually, with some help from an oar - as a paddle and a fender - I got down-wind and out into the open area beyond the pontoons.

I had a play with the leeboard but never got the boat under control enough to see it working. But in its current state its quite easy to move from one side to another. Lots more experimentation and practice will be needed to be able to move tiller, sheet and leeboard effectively when tacking. I guess when gybing the board should be up before the gybe.

The wind was more predictable beyond the pontoons and things became more stable. I won't say I ever had the boat under control, but at least I know approximately what it would do next. When I ran out of room I furled the sails and rowed back to Robinetta. Not a successful sail, but a very good experiment with lots learned.

Furling the rig for rowing turns out to be easy. You drop the yard and raise the boom so its against the mast and tie things up with the halyard. the mast doesn't foul the single person rowing position at all. As it is pretty much impossible to sail other than single handed, this is fine.

After lunch, mostly we stayed in the cabin and read.Around 4pm a huge line squall came over and threatened to take the jib away. We dropped and stowed it, glad not to be on the way to Levington!

Alison got me to make a slide show of some of the photos and we put her netbook on a table in the bar for people to look at before the meal. The food was better than last year and we had some fun prize giving, good craic and a safe journey back in Melvyn's car.

Even the two Pete's are thinking of moving next year's cruise to a different week!

Thorn Race

We carried straight on from the Two Rivers race into the Thorn Race which I skippered. I felt we did OK but we didn't make the leader board. It was great fun going way out near the banks of the Stour and hoping there was enough water. We only fell a little way behind Gwenilli but Martin was single handing the big ketch.

I wanted to sail up to the key at Mistley but Alison wasn't keen and it was a bit close to the wind so we put the main down on the way in an motored. Martin managed to hit Swan Island, allegedly at about 6 knots! It took the combined weight of several committee members and "hangers on" to shift Gwenilli, and earned Martin the coveted Bowlocks Maximus for the year!

We had a fine tea of beer and sandwiches and divine brownies at the Quay and headed back. Brian warned us that the forecast over night was northerly F7-8 and not ideal for Wrabness so we snuck into Shotley for the night.

The Two Rivers Race

We raised anchor at 09:10, then motored down river, raising the main, top, and stay sail as we went. Today was scheduled to be the Two Rivers Race, and it was actually going to happen as planned! The weather had turned dull again, but it was dry, and the wind direction gave us a run down the Orwell against the tide, then a beat up the Stour with it helping us; much better than the other way round!

We had to tow Worm today since we were going to anchor at Wrabness rather than return to the Orwell, and I felt slightly nervous about racing while towing, but people do it all the time and it did not cause any problems although we did need to keep an eye on it.

We got a good start at 10:00. Fourth across the line, and although we immediately fell back from the leaders we kept our place against the other boats with a similar handicap until we rounded Shotley Horse, narrowly missing it with Worm, and began the beat up the Stour.

Starting near the front and being slow put us in the perfect position to snap lots of the boats. Lots of pics here.

Maybe someone took one of us.

We got our topsail down smartly, but forgot to make sure that our gaff peak was fully pulled up so we did not have a good sail shape. That’s when the other boats all pulled away from us again, and we crossed the finish line, the Lee Buoy at Wrabness, last at 13:50.

Scandanavian Seaways Race

Thanks to Julian’s heroic efforts yesterday Robinetta was ready to compete in the Scandanavian Seaways race. We left Levington at 09:40 in light drizzle, tied Worm on a mooring buoy just outside, and were ready to race at 10:30.

We were well back at the start having turned too far up river to put up our top sail, but it was a run out of the Orwell, and we kept up with our little group until we reached the Pye End buoy and began the beat back in. We then fell back, having made some bad tacking decisions (mine, since I was skipper and helm). We were quite slow to get our top sail down, and top sails hinder rather than help on a beat. I gave the helm to Julian (which I should have done before since I was obviously tired) and we crossed the finish line by 14:30, just before the tide turned and made beating up the river a nightmare.

We collected Worm from her buoy, then headed up river to Pin Mill to anchor. We set the hook at 15:00 as the sun came out for the first time today. I rowed Worm all the way to Pin Mill hard rather than face a muddy walk back, then we had a pleasant walk up to the shop of the main road then back to Pin Mill sailing club for the evening’s barbeque and briefing. It turned into a beautiful evening to be on shore, no wind, bright sun...

Worm was too far up the hard when we wanted to head back, but after we had struggled a bit another OGA member came and helped Julian carry her down to the water. I had a lovely row back to Robinetta in bright moonlight with the plough clear in the sky, and once back on board we checked our position on the GPS (which we had left on). Everything was good, and we rafted Worm alongside .

I woke up in the night when a wind shift made Worm start to knock against the hull, so I let her hang off the stern instead, and waited up until we swung with the tide to make sure she did not run up against us again. All was fine, so I went back to bed.

Model Boat Racing

In the afternoon we gathered for the model boat racing. This should have been at Woodbridge but we did it outside the Lightship.

We hadn't had time to build anything - too busy mending Robinetta! But I did take some photos with the waterproof camera placed at waterline level to try to get a "being there" feel. All available on Facebook

Here is the start line