After a long session on the boat carrying out essential maintenance, I’m a bit chuffed to say that I’ve fixed the jamming mast gate issue. Also, the autopilot has come back from being serviced, and is fully operational. I also carried out some essential maintenance on both batteries.
Yesterday I went up to Deganwy and just… went sailing. It was that simple.
We (Arthur and I) left the marina, motored down the Conwy and out into the bay, put the autopilot on, hoisted the mainsail and it went all the way up as easy and as sweet as if it was brand spanking new. The wind was light to start, a steady 10-12kts. Under full main we rolled out the Genoa and made a steady 6kts SOG.
We practised gybing and tacking for a couple of hours. The wind soon picked up to a steady 20kts with occasional gusts to 24kts. We put a reef in the main, reduced the Genoa and still made 6kts. Despite the wind, the sea state was smooth to moderate, but we occasionally took some spray across the deck, usually when we were heeled (but we weren’t ever more than 10-12 degrees of heel).
Satisfied that all my work over the last few weeks had been effective, and the mainsail went up and came down as required, we motored back in to the marina and had lunch. Later we practised casting off and mooring single-handedly. And after that I came home.
Here’s a little video I took, just to show how much fun we had (a lot of fun!):
They could have done with you and your boating skills in that London yesterday!
I wouldn’t go down there. London is full of people, and I’m avoiding them like the plague