So 2023 gets underway at last.
I had a reasonably sucessful solo trip down to the boat in early March, the main focus of which was to progress the ongoing forecabin refit which, at last, has reached the stage of trimming out. It's still a very long way from being finished but it's getting there.
To my delight, the boat was entirely dry and everything was in good order. To my further delight, when I reconnected the radar, which hasn't been powered up since 2018, it worked perfectly. I fully expected it to fail after being unused for so long so happy days on that one.
As we'd only been in the water for three weeks last autumn, I decided to just patch up any iffy spots on the antifoul and not completely recoat it. I suspect I'll regret that decision before the end of the summer but hey ho!
We overslept more than somewhat and had to dash around madly to get ready but in we went bang on time. With malice aforthought, we spent the next five days on the river pontoon with shore access and power available whilst we worked through the boat getting things ship-shape again
One of the primary tasks over the weekend was to set the running rigging back up. When I removed it all I fully expected to be re-rigging the following spring and my memory would doubtless have sufficed as to how to put it all back. That was five years ago!
After much head scratching and only one mistake, plus a trip up the mizzen mast to re-reeve the mizzen topping lift, I had everything bar the spinnaker halyard and spinny pole topping lift re-rigged (I think) correctly.
Another issue was that once again we had fuel feed problems to the engine. This turned out to be an air lock in the main engine fuel filter and once that was bled she seemed to run fine. I can only assume that there was still air in the system after the problems last autumn and that over the winter it had settled out to that location.
On Monday, Gareth from Dolphin Sails rocked up to measure up for our new genoa, mainsail and mizzen sail. The piggy bank is gonna squeal about the cost but I'm really looking forward to getting Pagan sailing properly again. The old sails had life in them when we bought her but by the time we were on our way back from the Channel Islands in 2018 they were blown out and falling apart.
We've got nigh on a fortnight aboard next month which we anticipate spending at least half of on more boat fettling. I've still got to fix the depth sounder (I forgot to order the parts!) and reconnect the VHF and AIS antennas and there's an enormous amount of sorting out to do, mainly associated with the cockpit lockers which are empty and shouldn't be and the aft cabin is full of stuff which should be in the aforementioned cockpit lockers!
Then maybe, just maybe, we'll get out and about for a few days. We probably won't go beyond the river but a night or two at anchor in the Roach and a night in Burnham would be a start.
We might have the new sails for our week aboard in late July but it's more likely we'll have them for a 10 days or so we're aboard in late August. I haven't made up my mind whether to bend on the old sails in the meantime or not. I guess it wouldn't hurt to make sure everything is properly set up before the new sails arrive.
With the standing rigging replaced and the new sails, the headline high cost items on the "to do" list are looking slightly less scary. There's still the anchoring gear to completely replace (new anchor, chain and an electric windlass), the saloon upholstery is frankly knackered (we've got some thoughts on that) and as I've previously discussed we desperately need solar panels and a battery capacity upgrade. Disappointingly, we're probably going to have to replace the cockpit tent and spray hood both of which, despite not being all that old, are starting to fall apart.
That lot should eat up another year or two's savings after which we're hopefully down to less costly albeit time consuming jobs like repainting the decks, revarnishing woodwork, repainting the topsides and such like jobs.
One day, maybe, we'll have Pagan up to scratch the way we want her!
And maybe we'll get to potter around the Estuary as the summer wears on. Nothing ambitious for a year or two but some revisting of old haunts and basically getting back into the habit of getting down to the boat and using her whenever we can grab the chance.
Because that's become something of a problem. The long term consequences of the Covid lockdowns are not just financial. We find ourselves in a rut, to put it bluntly, of not doing anything. Not going out, not socialising, not having the energy, drive or inclination to do more than exist. And we're not having that! We don't yet know just how we're going to get our plans back on track but we're not giving up.
