Azores or Bust

Last weekend I, with a couple of friends from the boat club, attended a Jester Symposium at the Royal Harwich Yacht Club. A fabulous location over looking the Orwell. One of the presenters showed a quote about the Jester Challenge. "Finding the weaknesses of boat and skipper" With this and other comments about structural issues I decided to carry out a more critical inspection of Mischief. The deck around the mast has a distinct dip in it and the rig has lost tension. At this point I am fearing the worst which is that the support under the mast step has rotted and compressed. The mast needs to come down and the deck beam removed so that I can excavate the deckhead under the mast. Depending upon what I find I think I'll install oak or teak packing and the re-build. I'll add a new page for this project.

The key to winter sailing is the weather and keeping warm. A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely sail after chipping the ice off the deck and softening the lines enough to allow them to travel through blocks and round cleats. There was a brisk F6 from the west and the temperature didn't get above 0C. The outboard well make a nice ice bucket! An absolute must is to keep warm. I had five layers on; thermals, vest, fleece, jumper, coat and my new super marigolds as recommended by a chap that had sailed to Svalbard. I didn't get too cold but could have been warmer. So improvements were planned. A chap at the club has some Finnish window cleaner (Joka) gloves and my aunt bought me some real wool (Perilla) socks. The gloves are great and with the large size I can get my thinsulate gloves inside them. The socks are wonderful, not only do they keep my feet warm but they don't need changing for up to a week, well that's what their web site says! Back out last weekend...

Between buying Mischief in August 2017 and returning from the Azores in 2020 I am at the half way point in my preparations. It seemed appropriate to try a sail out of the River Medway so I set off for the Red Sands forts. This was hopefully going to be a good practice run for the club race at the end of April. After loading up a bit more kit at the club dock I set off just after high tide. With a southerly F1 to 2, I had a gentle sail to Garrison Point and then set off alongside the deep water channel out into the Thames Estuary. I met a couple of chums from the club who were out fishing. Visibility was about 2 miles and I reached Red Sands forts after 5 hours sailing. The boat was behaving very well and I managed to install my AIS and VHF units on the chart table. On the way back I finished off the wiring and then I came across my chums again. They were going into Queenborough for the evening so I decided to join them. After a fun evening in Queenborough and an excellent breakf...