Mud, mud, glorious mud ...

Since getting back to Fambridge from Ipswich the other week, "Pagan" has been lurking on the river pontoon. Loitering with intent, though, the intent being to get her onto our mud berth on the next high water springs.

(For those who don't know, spring tides are the highest tides and neap tides are the lowest. To simplify things somewhat, these occur on a roughly four weekly cycle of springs - neaps - springs - neaps with the second spring tide of the cycle generally being a little lower than the first)

I'd done some soundings and some measuring and reckoned I needed at least 5.0m and preferably 5.1m of tide for comfort. Getting stuck half on and half off the berth, or worse without even getting close, would be a bit of a bind to put it mildly.

That meant the best day for trying to get on would be yesterday which would give me a 5.2m tide with the same again today if we needed to get off again. That was a possibility that had to be allowed for in case she didn't sit down safely and comfortably in the berth.

However, before we could attempt to put "Pagan" in the berth, the remains of the old hard under the mud had to come out. It's barely a year since I removed two lots of the slabs and crushed stone from under the keels of "Erbas", now with a bigger, deeper fin keeler I'd have to get back in there and do a lot more of the same.

The mucky job was tackled over several days of two to four hour stints, partly due to the tide times and partly due to my tolerance for the cold and physical effort involved!

I had gone out and bought a submersible trench pump for about £70 and once I worked out how to get the thing to prime and pump it saved a massive amount of effort baling out the hole each time.

What it turned out to be unable to cope with, which I'd hoped it might, was to pump out liquid mud (in theory it was claimed to be good for the job but the hose would just choke up - remove the hose and the pump would shift the stuff no problem. I found this out when it came off and pumped liquid mud straight up in the air which the wind kindly blew right into my face!)

Two stints during the week had shifted most of the mud and slabs that needed shifting, a final big push on Saturday morning broke out the compacted stone from the area required. Time didn't permit digging out further out where the aft part of the keel would land so I decided she'd just have to dig her on hole from here on

I'd have liked to put her in the berth stern to but this would have meant doubling the size of the hole and I just don't have the time, or to be honest the energy, right now. So bows in it was to be.

The time came around yesterday afternoon to go for it. With the wind blowing us hard onto the pontoon, it made sense to use the last of the flood to help get the bows off against the breeze although this meant a little bit of flood was still running as we made the approach to the berth. We could have done with being 15 minutes later really but no matter. After a bit of pushing and pulling and use of the motor we made it on OK.

Some head scratching ensued working out how best to secure her but that was soon sorted.

As the tide ebbed, I was delighted that she sat upright and fairly level. My big worry was that if I hadn't dug enough of the old hard out and the front of the keel sat on it she'd sit backwards alarmingly

Once she settled, as the afternoon wore on, she settled further into the mud and developed a somewhat bows down attitude.

This came as no surprise as the widest part of the hull is well aft and the aft end of the keel is in the mud I hadn't dug away to get to the hard. So she's having to settle down into fairly firm muddy clay which will take a while.

At its worst, she was down on an angle of about 5.4 degrees but by the morning she'd settled a little flatter. She's still, as I write, bows down by about 2.5 degrees but hopefully over the next few tides she'll level off.

If not, I'll have to get in with the pressure washer and clear some mud away from under the aft end to help her settle down. I'm in no rush to do that though!

I'd had the welcome company of my brother Glen and mate Tony over the weekend which apart from being sociable had been of considerable help in having extra hands to sort out lines and to make coffees, lunch and so on when I was in a hole!

They'd been conspiring, along with Shelagh, to find a new bear for Pagan as Erbas Bear is now the temporary skipper of "Erbas". I'd had an inkling something was afoot but I was still delighted and surprised to meet Pagan Bear when I got out of the hole yesterday and took a break to wait for the tide to come in


Tony recruited the bear, Glen sorted out his crew T-shirt and Shelagh made him a bearancy aid!

Thanks folks, he's great and I'm sure he'll be posting to the blog himself when he's settled in on board

Buy one, get one free...

Two blog entries in one evening!

The other is the brief story of my final "voyage" as skipper of "Erbas

With that task complete, I set about having a tidy up in the saloon on "Pagan" which looked like a bomb site!

It was, to be honest, largely a case of shoving stuff in lockers or up in the v-berth and having a dust and wipe down. There's kit all over the place in the rest of the boat but at least the saloon is now habitable!

There's no shortage of stowage space aboard "Pagan" but we need a major session of organising what goes where and sorting out containers and so on. In the fullness of time, I think I'll be adding some shelves to the lockers above the saloon settees which are very tall and therefore difficult to make the best use of

Galley stores is another issue. At the moment, my food supply is shoved willy nilly into the starboard forward locker above the settee but that's not ideal. Much to do!

With as much sorting as I was going to get done done, I warmed up a pan of beans and bits for dinner. My meal was enlivened by a Facebook post of a picture of "Pagan" from the river!

It took me a moment or two to figure it out but it transpired that a friend, Steven, who's boat is in the marina was out for a jolly on his friends motorboat

When they came back upriver they came a-calling up the inside of the pontoon ...

I dread to think what the running costs are but they do get places quickly do them motor boats!

 They look down on us yotties though! It's a long way up to the fly bridge, I reckon I'd get vertigo! .....

That bit of excitement over, I settled down for a quiet evening on board.

No music tonight, no telly, just a warm cabin, the glow of the oil lamp on the woodwork and a glass of very good scotch!

Tomorrow I'm off back to Kettering as it's Dad's 80th birthday dinner on Saturday night. Plus the eldest and the dear lady wife have found and had an offer accepted on a really nice looking house and doubtless there'll be paperwork to sign

I'm back down on Monday or early Tuesday morning as I have several days work in Brightlingsea lined up next week plus I need to do some more digging to prepare our berth for "Pagan". The tides are right next weekend to get her on there and I can't lurk on the river pontoon forever!

So here's a goodnight photo (if you haven't seen it already on Facebook!) ...

Cheers

An Epic Adventure and Our First Sail

I must tender my apologies to our loyal and faithful fan for not updating the blog in a more timely fashion over the last few days. In my defence, it's been fairly non-stop, quite literally!

As you'll recall, our intrepid crew were last seen planning an escape from Haslar Marine, Portsmouth early on Friday morning having lost a day due to gales in the channel.

Escape we did departing Portsmouth at 04:40BST, forty minutes later than we'd planned (although the plan had been to depart as soon after 4am as possible and definitely by 5am so we weren't actually late away)

Conditions out in the Solent were not too bad so on we pressed heading for Brighton. "Pagan" has a reasonably large plastic diesel tank of unstated size which I estimated to be around 90 to 100 litres. When we took the boat over it was about a third full (you can, usefully, see through the plastic as there is no fuel gauge). I'd contemplated filling up at Port Hamble and again thought about it at Haslar but then realised that at my best guess on likely consumption under motor (3 litres an hour) we'd be very marginal on fuel if we had to motor all the way from Haslar to Fox's.

So I decided that losing a bit of time on the passage by diving into Brighton for a pit stop was the only option. From Brighton we would have enough fuel with a margin for safety (and a further margin because we'd got 25l of diesel in cans)

With a fair tide we absolutely flew along the South Coast arriving at Brighton at about 10:40BST an hour and twenty minutes ahead of schedule

Forty minutes later we were on our way again with a full diesel tank and a considerably lighter wallet!

Up to this point, our friends and followers had been keeping track of us via the AIS transponder that is part of the existing instrument fit on "Pagan". However, from Brighton onwards we were only being picked up by the shore stations intermittently, if at all. Several people sent me texts to say we'd disappeared! So I fired up the Boatbeacon android app which sends positions over the mobile phone data network (the reason for the AIS transponder failure will become evident later)

The tide had now turned and we went from flying along at 8 or 9 knots over the ground to crawling along at around 4 knots. We were going to have to take at least one foul tide somewhere on the passage and the leg from Beachy Head to Dungeness was it. That was the least worst option overall but boy was it a slog!

We seemed to be staring at the unlovely vista of Dungeness Nuclear Power Station for half a lifetime and matters, slightly to my surprise, didn't improve when we finally crawled past Dungeness Lighthouse. The tide remained foul until we were an hour or so shy of Dover when it finally turned and our speed over the ground shot back up to well over 6 knots.

Approaching Dover was a key decision point. By now, of course, it was dark. It was also cold. And we wee rolling awkwardly in the usual channel swell enhanced by the gales of the previous day and a fairly stiff tail wind. The vote was proposed - press on or stop? The unanimous decision was to press on.

We were now making good speed at last and neither of us felt inclined to waste a fair tide. Nor were we excessively tired having both managed to grab some rest during the day. And critically the cheap gas cartridge heater I'd bought in anticipation of it being cold was proving to be a Godsend.

Although it would have been lethally unsafe to leave the thing burning unattended, we'd found that a few minutes hunched over it in the saloon was sufficient to get warmed up again and that was to prove crucial through the coming night

Rik had suggested, and I had agreed with enthusiasm, that rather than adopt some sort of formal watch system we should simply take turns at the helm and swap whenever the helmsman had had enough. It might not work on an ocean voyage but we found it worked perfectly for our purposes.

We flew past Dover a couple of miles offshore making 9 knots over the ground and fully two hours ahead of schedule (the schedule had been planned at an average speed of 5 knots by the way!). A handy gap in the ferry traffic opened up at just the right moment and on we went

We were abeam Ramsgate less than two hours later with Rik off watch below and I had to disturb his slumbers as this was the critical decision time.

If we pressed on now, we would be committing ourselves to at least another 8 hours at sea, quite possibly more, before we would have the choice of stopping again. However, once again those pesky tides reared their awkward heads. We had a fair tide and if my nefarious calculations were right and if we could keep up the speed over the ground we had a very good chance of keeping a fair tide all the way to our destination.

As before, we both felt OK and inclined to carry on. So on we went!

We simply flew up the North Sea between North Foreland and Long Sand. The starscape overhead was awesome despite the whole of the North Sea being lit up by the numerous wind farms that continue to expand all over the place. I'm not sure why they need to have bright lights on every turbine at night, it seems like a waste of electricity to me!

Reaching Fishermans Gat, a short cut that cuts through the aptly named Long Sand, I reached the end of my endurance and called for Rik to take over. I often claim to be like the Duracell Bunny because I just go on and on and on but the bunnie's battery had run flat in spectacular style!

We went through our now practised handover procedure. Rik crawled out of the passage berth we'd made up on the starboard saloon settee, sparked up the gas heater, warmed up and togged up and then we swapped over. I sat hunched over the heater until I stopped shivering (it was the cold as much as fatigue that had caught up with me), removed the outer layers of my deck gear, warmed up a bit more and the turned the heater off and dived into the berth

Rik now had the helm until Cork Sand unless he ran out of steam - I gave a skippery instruction that I was to be called on the approach to Cork Sand if I wasn't already on deck as the approaches to Harwich are, whilst not especially tricky, not to be taken lightly

My internal alarm clock woke me at just the right moment and I togged up and emerged on deck into the cold light of day at just the right moment. We rounded the Cork Sand Yacht Beacon, made our way into Harwich and then on upriver towards Ipswich

We arrived alongside at Fox's Marina in Ipswich and stopped the engine at 09:55BST an astonishing six hours ahead of schedule! We were greeted by a welcoming committee of fellow East Coast Forum members who helped us tie up which was really nice and appreciated

There was only one thing to do now - a Full English breakfast apiece in the Yacht Club!

That put both of us to sleep pretty damn quick and we hit our berths for a few hours. We were duly disturbed by the arrival of Tony after he finished work.

What a passage!

Apart from having popped the genoa out for a few hours to give us a bit more boat speed, we hadn't had the wind or the conditions to make hoisting the main and mizzen worthwhile so we motored the whole way (which I'd anticipated hence the cogitations over fuel). That was fine, this was a delivery trip not a pleasure cruise and it was not the conditions for messing about

We covered about 170 miles in just over 29 hours at an average speed of about 6 knots

The Epic Passage - Portsmouth to Ipswich non-stop

We spent the evening in good company with friends old and new at the East Coast Forum Fitting Up Supper. I think it was me that was fitted up this time being presented with the tin mug trophy for the most meritorious voyage to the supper!

Then it was time for bed but our adventure continues in the morning ...

Our First Sail

I'll keep this fairly brief! Tony ran Rik up to the railway station and then we set off a bit later than planned but not too late.

We motored down the Orwell and out of Harwich Harbour then, for the very first time, set all sail and switched off the motor.

We were just able to lay the course down the Wallet for the Spitway hard on the wind and, despite a few niggles with the set of the sails which I'll iron out with experience, we simply flew along!

Across the Spitway and around the North side of the Swallowtail bank, we breezed into the Crouch with the now rising wind astern. Goosewinging and gybing our way upriver we rapidly came in sight of our home port.

Dropping the sails was, frankly, a right mess! It's going to take practice to get these evolutions sorted out on a new, and considerably bigger, boat. Lazy jacks have just shot up my wish list and I think we'll probably go the whole hog and get stack packs made for the main and mizzen

I nearly made a disastrous hash of coming alongside the inside of the river pontoon. A deal of cursing and to-ing and fro-ing and I somehow straightened things out without hitting anything but it was a bad moment which left me shaken. (Foolishly, I'd tried to do something that "Erbas" would have handled with ease but which "Pagan" simply won't do which is to power round in a tight space against both wind and tide. I now know better than to try that again!)

After I'd calmed down with a mug of coffee, we sorted out the sail stowage and generally made things ship-shape.

By now the Easterly wind had blown up to a full F6 plus and big waves were rolling up the river. "Pagan" was being thrown around hard against her mooring lines which I didn't like one little bit but there was nothing to be done other than grit my teeth and hope nothing broke.

So here we are at home ...

The next mission is to get "Erbas" ready for sale and move her to Burnham and then the fun job of digging out the berth to accommodate "Pagan".

Conclusions...

"Pagan" motors well and her 38 year old Mercedes trogs along without a murmur of complaint nicely. She used about 3.3litres of diesel an hour, a little more than I'd hoped but we did have the hammer down a bit.

I suspect the blade pitch on the feathering prop is set slightly too fine. She feels a bit like driving a car in third gear - loads of acceleration up to a point but no grunt. That's easily sorted

She sails beautifully and she feels quick, at least to me used to plodding bilge keelers anyway! The sails seem to set well with good shape to them so I don't think new canvas is on the agenda anytime soon

There's a few extra jobs for the "to-do" list ...

The fridge is barely working. I suspect it needs re-gassing.

The AIS transponder is working but we finally spotted the brief error message that had occasionally flashed up on the plotter screen and it seems the AIS antenna is duff. That's a few quid, no big deal

And the autohelm struggled badly needing constant assistance to keep on course. The steering is heavy due to the dodgy bottom bearing on the rudder (which is scheduled to be replaced when she comes out this summer) but even so I suspect the steering motor is tired. I want to replace it anyway, it's simply a matter of priorities

Overall, I am deeply satisfied that she's the right boat for us. A lot of work to do but we knew that and at the end of it she will be the boat we wanted from the start - a bigger and better "Erbas" with an annex!

Passage Plan 8 Apr 2016

The weather forecast is looking promising. F4 or just into 5 Westerly or Sou'westerly, not much in the way of gusts. Good as it's going to get

The sea state may well still be showing the effects of the gales but we can only judge that when we get outside Portsmouth

We are all set up to go!

We plan to depart Haslar Marina approx 04:30 local time (03:30UTC)

If the sea state is OK once we're out, we'll press on Eastwards, if not we'll turn around and come back in.

We may, if it looks like we'll have to motor a lot, dive into Brighton to top up the diesel tank - we used more than I expected yesterday and we may not have enough to motor the whole way back if it came to that

We plan to start standing watches as soon as we're out and sorted

We may decide to stop at Brighton, Newhaven, Dover or Ramsgate but if we make good time and as long as we don't get too cold or too tired we're going to try and go straight through

If we get that far, we'll make a decision on whether to head for the Crouch or up to Ipswich as we pass through Fishermans Gat

ETA Brighton app. 12:00 local Friday
ETA off Eastbourne app. 16:30 local Friday
ETA off Dover app. 02:00 local Saturday
ETA off Ramsgate app. 04:00 local Saturday
ETA Fishermans Gat app. 08:00 Saturday
ETA Fox's (big if!) app. 16:30 Saturday

Reality is I don't really expect to make it to Fox's (Ipswich) but we're going for it

Rik has hit the sack already, I'm for my berth in a few minutes.

The Delivery Trip - Day #1

The day dawned pretty miserably. Cold, damp and very very windy!

The initial decision was a "no go" and rightly so.

We discovered the "domestic" batteries were flat. Then we discovered that it was actually the engine battery that was flat because the 1-Both-2 switch is wired up the wrong way round and for two days I've been running the fridge, the lighting and all the rest of a little 55a/h lead acid and not the two big deep cycle batteries!

So that and the need for better heating meant a move to a berth somewhere with shore power was definitely needed.

A frontal system passed through and behind it came some slightly calmer weather so we made a snap decision to chance our arm a bit and motor down to Portsmouth.

We togged up, made ready and departed Port Hamble at 10:00UTC

Conditions were somewhat challenging but the boat and the crew handled it well enough

Rik did most of the helming as usual and found it tiring with an awkward following sea but quite comfortable

Indeed, we both felt very comfortable despite the rocking and rolling, and mutually commentated on our suspicion that we'd have found such a day a lot more challenging on "Erbas" and positively frightening on "Brigantia"

It looks a lot nicer in the photos than it actually was! It was fairly chilly the whole time and soggy on occasions to boot

The wind also got up as the passage wore on and we were struggling for speed over the ground. OK, we were fighting a foul tide the whole way but even so we just didn't seem to have as much grunt as you'd expect from a 42hp engine

Heading up the Swashway into Portsmouth we encountered a lot of commercial ferry traffic but only one other idiot was out there in a yacht!

Entering Portsmouth against the ebb tide was very slow going!

I gave in and thrashed the engine in the end, something I'd been keen to avoid, but I got fed up and slightly embarrassed at sitting virtually stationary under the gaze of the National Coastwatch Institution volunteers in their lookout!

At a tads short of full throttle the speed over the ground shot up from barely half a knot to nearly three knots which was a big improvement!

I have a sneaking suspicion that either the prop blades aren't fully un-feathering or (and my gut instinct points this way) that the blade pitch is set slightly too fine. Either way, it's rather like driving everywhere in third gear.

That's not a massive problem to sort out when she comes out of the water this summer but for now we've got to accept we may not be able to get ahead as quick as we should.

We got alongside in Haslar Marina about 13:30UTC

A much needed cup of that which revives to taste followed!

All in all, a not unsatisfactory little jaunt.

Our speed over the ground was, as already mentioned, somewhat woeful but we knocked of a couple of hours at least from the next leg of the trip.

A bit of sorting out followed and then in the evening we repaired to the Lightship for a very good dinner and some beers. We were joined by Rik's friend Paul for the evening and later by a fellow YBW forum member Simon for further drinks

Our plans from here are up in the air. At the moment, as I write this (late) on lunchtime Thursday it's raining but the wind has dropped.

The forecast for the next two or three days looks much better, still windy but no more gales for a while.

Much depends on the sea state. It takes a while to calm down after a gale.

Our current very provisional thinking is to depart from Haslar early tomorrow morning, around 4-ish local time and stick our heads out and see what's what. If conditions are OK we'll press on Eastwards. If not, we'll turn around and come back in!

If we go, it'll be on the basis of seeing how far we get. We'll start a watch system straight away and press on until we've had enough or get back to either Fox's or Fambridge.

If we can get enough speed over the ground, we can do the trip in about 34 to 36 hours (averaging 5 knots) but we struggled with that yesterday so we're not counting on it.

If we get too cold, too wet, too tired or simply fed up we'll duck into the nearest save haven be that Brighton, Newhaven, Dover or Ramsgate and rest up.

And that's assuming we go at all of course, there is still the option of reversing course and getting Pagan into Lymington for a couple of weeks whilst I'm otherwise engaged and then having another go at getting her back

The track from yesterday ...

12.5 miles in 3:30 (approx)

Average speed over the ground 3.6kn

That includes the very slow drag into Portsmouth Harbour, at sea we averaged something over 4 knots despite fighting a foul tide and having a lot of steering input to counter the wind and waves

That bodes well for maintaining an average of at least 5 knots if we're to stand any chance of making home base by Sunday evening.

No go

Gale warnings, actuals match forecast

Added to which it's miserable, cold and damp out.

Decision is made, we're not leaving the Hamble today

We do need to move onto a berth where e can get shore power as the domestic batteries are desperately in need of charging so we'll do that later this morning

Tomorrow doesn't look much better either which may put a serious crimp in our plans but another day

Trains and boats and ... vans!

I know, I know, it doesn't scan as well as the original lyric but hey ho

So off I went at 5 this morning to drive the van back to Fambridge. The journey went exceptionally well and, after stopping off at South Woodham Ferrets to buy a train ticket (there's no machine or ticket office at Fambridge and the on-line ticket sites wouldn't let me travel during the off-peak period today!) I arrived in good time to have a quick shower, park up the van and walk up to the station

The rail journey also went very well with only brief waits for connections and even the final 30 minute walk from the station, well outside Hamble, to the marina was not unpleasant

Once I'd revived myself with a coffee, I set about striking the cockpit tent and pondering on how the hell I was going to bend on the mainsail with a stiff breeze from astern. Normally, I'd just turn the boat around but we're jammed in between a load of expensive looking racing machines and I really need help to get out of here!

No sooner had I removed the cockpit tent, the heavens opened up! On the bright (philosophically speaking) side, the rain killed the wind and when the heavy shower had passed I was able to bend on the main without much difficulty. It's not the prettiest of harbour stows I have to confess but it's on and ready.

I then toddled up to the chandlery to pick up the hatch cover they promised to get for me yesterday. The nice fairly new looking perspex hatch over the v-berth is all very well but it's going to annoy the hell out of anyone sleeping in there when the sun comes up at an early hour! So it's getting a cover over it.

Whilst there, I bit the bullet and bought a decent Standard Horizon HX870 DSC hand held VHF. I've been hankering after one ever since they came out and the dirt cheap Cobra I've got is pretty rubbish. My justification is that whilst the fixed VHF appears to be transmitting and receiving (tested from feet away with the Cobra) I'm hearing diddly squat on 16 or the local VTS channels and an attempt at a radio check with Solent Coastguard on their working channel elicited no responce.

I suspect either a faulty cable or masthead antenna and there's no time to address that right now so the decent hand held goes under the heading of "essential safety item" and therefore I've allowed myself to buy it.

With that on charge, I fired up the laptop and connected it to the work mobile (better signal) to get a data connection and set about some admin in the form of a Ship's Radio Licence, a Portable Radio Licence and the Small Ships Registration.

Then it was on to sorting out transferring the pre-planned routes from the PC to the chart plotter. That's an ongoing job because I'm having to reformat the CF card as the plotter wouldn't read it.

Rik's train arrives about 8, if he can get here by not much after 8:30 the pub five minutes away does food until 9 (I rang and checked!). Otherwise dinner will be out of a tin

The forecast for tomorrow is pants. Gale warning in this sea area which, if it's still extant in the morning, almost certainly means a no-go. If it drops to a Strong Breeze warning I'll consider going depending on what the weather actuals from the likes of Bramble and Chimet look like.

Early post today as hopefully we'll be up the pub in an hour and a bit

All aboard ...

Well, the skipper is aboard anyway!

Horrible four hour drive down this morning which scuppered my intention of stopping for breakfast and a snooze once I was South of the river. Never mind. I arrived at the brokers office and picked up the paperwork so Pagan, ex-Sandpiper, is now officially ours

Then it was a short hop, via Tesco for some bits and bobs I'd forgotten, to Port Hamble

24 hours parking set me back £10 but needs must.

First order of business was my first mug of much needed coffee aboard and then it was four big trolley loads of gear from the van, a good hundred yards away, to the pontoon. Then it all had to be heaved across the decks of an Elan racing yacht. That was no picnic as the decks are all at horrible angles to walk on (no doubt that works when the thing is flying along under sail but at the dock it is a serious pain in the bottom)

Half way through I broke off to set the water tank filling from the hose.

Eventually, everything was aboard and the water was full!

Another coffee break was followed by setting about finding places to put everything away. I haven't gone to town on the stowage, it's all just "away", because doubtless we'll be changing our minds when we settle down to sort her out properly.

I can already see a number of additional items on my "to do" list improving the stowage with extra shelves and things.

Having largely sorted all that out, other than my clothes and fouly bags which are just chucked up in the v-berth for now, I wandered up to Force 4 chandlery and parted with yet more "cash" for a full gas bottle (one empty and one that feels nearly empty was not good!), swapped a four year out of date coastal flare pack for a shiny new in date pack and ordered up a hatch cover for the big perspex hatch over the v-berth

The cover will keep the perspex from suffering UV damage but more importantly it will keep the daylight from disturbing us when we're asleep in there.

I was about to put the kettle on again when Nicki, the previous owner, arrived to show me anything I hadn't found already. As it happens, I'd pretty well figured everything out but she did pass on several useful bits of info over coffee.

Then I had a fiddle to work out why the AIS transponder appeared to be refusing to transmit a position. Once I'd fired up the configuration software it was obvious. It was, for some reason, set to Silent Mode in the software. I changed that and changed the name in the AIS config for good measure.

I shall have to fit a hardware silent switch at some point

The one remaining job left to do is to bend on the mainsail which has been away at the menders having some stitching re-done. I'm too tired, it's blowing a bit too much from just the wrong direction and it's getting a bit chilly so that will have to wait until I get back here tomorrow afternoon.

I may be glad of the emergency heating (a 1kw gas cartridge camping heater) tonight as I cannot get shore power where I am. It's only half past six and, despite it having been a pleasantly warm day, I can feel the temperature dropping noticeably as the sun heads towards the horizon.

Something for dinner will be on the cards very soon and then I'll chill (literally!) until I'm ready to sleep

With no shore power and only a weak mobile data signal my tech time is strictly limited and posting pictures isn't going to happen. That's quite handy as I haven't taken any all day!

Tomorrow must be another early start to drive back to Fambridge and then hop on the train straight back here again. But more of that another day. Tomorrow, in fact!