Odyssey i.e An epic voyage

Some weeks ago, having a gap of a few days in my work schedule that coincided with the new owner's plans, I volunteered to join the crew on a delivery trip from North Fambridge to Falmouth

Odyssey under full sail in earlier times

"Odyssey" is a 55' (overall including bowsprit and davits) 22 ton ferro-cement staysail schooner built around 30 years ago in Australia. Under her previous ownership. she has sailed all over the world but in recent years she's been laid up at Fambridge Yacht Haven

I joined ship last Friday and the crew, consisting of the owner, his father, myself and a friend of the owner set about making ready for the trip. "Odyssey" will need a fair amount of cosmetic work and, as you'd expect given that she hasn't been sailed for some years, no small measure of TLC to return her to her former glory but the basics seemed sound, the engine checked out OK and all seemed well for the fast blast down channel under, in all probability, motor.

So late afternoon, I took the helm (being the most experienced at handling big heavy boats, after all I used to chuck loaded working narrowboats about and most of the paint stayed on most of the time!) and motored her astern out of the berth and down to the fuel pontoon

I was pleasantly surprised at how well she handled. The helm was a little vague and she was somewhat ponderous but with a big Izuzu diesel and a decent prop she's got grunt and she's very predictable at slow speeds

After filling the tanks and emptying the owners wallet, as I half expected it proved less easy to back out of the fuel berth and I had to perform a multi-point turn further down the marina to get her pointing in the right direction. I'd have almost certainly had to do the same with "Pagan" in the same conditions albeit, in all probability, with fewer points to the turn

We came alongside the river pontoon neatly all set for a fairly early 6:00am start the next day.

We were, unsurprisingly, a little later away than planned but being a cunning navigator I'd allowed for that and we were making encouraging progress downriver when, just upstream of Burnham, we discovered that there was no engine cooling and the alternator warning light was on.

To cut a long story short, we had to make a temporary fix to an unanticipated engineering problem and return upriver to the pontoon. One thing led to another and over the next two days we uncovered a series of increasingly problematic engineering faults culminating in a fault that needed the services of an engineering company to resolve. That was game over for the time being.

We set about making use of the next couple of days to properly sort out the rig. We'd departed knowing that we'd have a limited sail plan - adequate for delivery and safety I hasten to add - so now we made shift to re-rig the running rigging so that all the sails could be properly hoisted

This involved much head scratching and cogitation (do you know how to rig a staysail schooner? Bugg'rd if I do! But I do now!!). We also sorted out some non-critical domestic systems problems (such as fixing the fresh water pump and getting the fridge working).

The owner is taking the relevant engine parts back to Cornwall with him to get the machining needed done by a local firm of his acquaintance and we've tentatively scheduled a fresh attempt at the delivery for the week beginning the 19th of August (as that's the next free week in my schedule and it happens to be right for the tides too)

Meanwhile, it's not long now to our 28 day summer cruise on "Pagan" so watch this space!

For the avoidance of doubt, I would like to make it clear that whilst, because I have the most experience on the crew, I was happy to step into the role of skipper for the trip (and will do so again if asked) I was, and will be, on the crew in a purely voluntary and unpaid capacity as one amateur yachtsman helping out another