Making the Most of a Minimal Budget. Contact me at: skintsailor@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter: @skintsailor

Sunday 27 August 2017

Small Sail

Had a small sail around Langstone yesterday. Just went out and came back, no real time to take pictures, mainly due to the dinghy sailors racing around the harbour.

Pains in the arse that they were, criss-crossing the deep water channel and generally getting in the way. Me and another yacht had you slow down and speed up as they kept crossing the channel. The chap in the other yacht was nice, he mentioned he'd had a Seawych in the past. I jut shouted across I wish Sprite would sail a bit better.

But then the weed is growing back on the hull again, so Sprite's tacking ability is badly affected. As I found out when I started back down the harbour against the wind. Once up to speed she was ok, but slowed abruptly when tacking across the wind.

The past couple of days I've noticed the window rubbers are in a desperate sate, so they need attention before the worst of the winter weather sets in. the rear windows are pretty crazed and cracked, so the perspex needs replacement at the same time as the rubbers.

It's looking more and more likely that at some point I'm going to have to pull Sprite out of the water for a period of time. Something I'm not looking forward to. It either involves expense in putting her ashore in a yard, or vulnerability putting her ashore on the beach.

The house move during September is going to get in the way, so I'll get that out  of the way and then start to plan the shore time. By then I'll know how much storage space there is at the new house to hold all the parts I take off Sprite for safe keeping if I leave her on the beach for a few days.


2 comments:

  1. Mark, she looks big enough to take home on a trailer (if you have the room to store her and work on her) ?

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  2. Alden, no space at home unfortunately. So if she's not on the beach then any storage space needs to be paid for. Over here that's not cheap. One of the main reasons that boats become projects is that people underestimate the cost of storage and end up spending so much on storage they can't afford to do the work they put the boat in storage for in the first place.

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