Wednesday 25 June 2014

Exploring


We managed to get out for a few day sails since we took the boat to Baltimore, mainly in and around Roaring water bay, taking different routes to suit the wind and Teals draft and seeing what kind of milage we could realistically do in different conditions. We didn't get to go on shore on any of the islands this time round because I need to finish the dinghy.
I did finally get Jess out for her first time sailing and in the evening we picked up our kids and motored out to Sherkin Island for a night on-board, the kids are young so we weren't sure how they would take it but all in all it went well.
In the morning I swapped Jess and the kids for Ken and his sister in-law Grainne, We were considering a trip to the fasnet but with light westerlys forecast returning to Union Hall seemed to make more sense.
We had a lovely sail back, calm, roasting hot, and just enough of a breeze to keep us moving although at one stage we did get becalmed and spun around in a small tidal eddy just East of Toehead which we had to motor out of.
Grainne and I decided to have a go at jumping overboard and swimming along side, Apparently I can just about sprint at 2.5kts so I clambered back on board, Grainne had to good sense to hold a rope. Then looking for other ways to pass the time we had a go at setting the topsail, we don't have a sheet set up so we had to drop the main and tie the topsail outhall to the gaff which meant it wouldn't set quite right but it definitely gave a noticeable speed increase. Our final little accomplishment was to get her on to her mooring under full sail, topsail included but we had plenty hands to make light work of it.
Now the plan is to catch up on some varnishing and some other TLC before the next little adventure.





Ken cleaned the rust marks off the Genoa with oxalic acid and it came out lovely, Time for the rest to get the same treatment.





 

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