Everyone (in the North Wales area) agrees that the 2024 sailing season was terrible. If it wasn’t storm this it was storm that or storm the other. At one point at the peak of the season the storms seemed to be blasting their way across the Irish Sea one after the other. It was ridiculous and offered sailors few chances of getting out there without getting battered by the wind and waves.
Despite the poor weather, Good Mood still managed a decent place in the Commodore’s Cup, a series of day-races which, perversely, were mostly sailed in sparse winds and flat seas. Oh well.
I have resolved that 2025 is going to be different because, as the good lady wife her indoors said just yesterday, we’re not getting any younger and we need to be doing things before we get too old. She’s right!
So today I have arranged for Good Mood’s sails to be removed and inspected, rigging and lines to be taken down and cleaned, mast to be unstepped, the boat to be lifted out of the water to have her keel and hull cleaned off and antifouled, hull to be polished up, new wind sensor to be fitted to the unstepped mast and while it’s down, all lighting to be replaced with LEDs (because on the night sailing I have managed to achieve, those analogue lights don’t cut it too well). When all the work is done she’ll go back in the water, have the mast refitted, rigging and lines and sails put back on, and then we’ll be good to go.
Go where? Well, I don’t know yet because a yacht is, after all, subject to the vagaries of the wind and weather. But I do have a couple of places in mind that could do with a visit from Good Mood and me.
And why not? You’ve got the boat and the Captain Birds Eye beard, so it’s time to hit the high seas!
Do you fly solo in Good Mood, or does Mrs J ride pillion?
The good lady wife her indoors gets seasick in a car. Sailing isn’t really an option. If competing, I try and recruit assistance. There’s a guy (Steve) who lives in Deganwy. He’s a master sail-trimmer and wind-reader. If pleasure sailing, I mostly go by myself. You want to have a go on the Good Mood?
Not for me, thanks.
I used to love the sea and I was even a Sea Cadet in my youth.
I can still tie a reef knot, a clove hitch and a bowline, but that’s about all I can remember from my sailing days and the ocean no longer has the appeal for me that it once did..
Except when I’m on a cruise ship.