Wednesday 21 October 2015

More Lessons Learned

Yesterday, Tuesday, was one of those gorgeous autumn days when the sun shines, a moderate breeze springs up and you can hear a voice in your head saying "I am GOD and I am COMMANDING you to go SAILING because verily it raineth on the morrow."
So I did.
Lessons learned:
1) Even if you misread the 24 hour timings on the tide tables so you expect high water at 3pm instead of 17.00, when you arrive at Dell Quay at 12.30 you will still get on the water because the hard was started in Roman times and is enormous.
2) When you see a guy wading through the water pulling a quite large yacht to the pontoon (in the background of the picture), don't wade in to help because it is muddy as hell and you will lose a boot, Luckily, the bloke in the boathouse saw it happen and offered me use of his hose. It still meant I had to spend the day with one sock drying on the foredeck, though.
3) To get the boat in at this state of the tide, make sure you can see the pub sign round the corner of the sailing club, where that is where the hard sticks out further into the channel. This pearl of local knowledge also came from the man in the boathouse.
Apart from that, it went well. Even in the light breeze, with the rig correctly tensioned and me pulling the sheet in properly, Snarleyow went about every time.
And at the end of the day I saw an idle benefits-cheater cormorant hanging around on a buoy waiting for his food handout.
And today, indeed it raineth as foretold.

5 comments:

Graham Neil said...

Only launch where you can see the pub sign.
Excellent local knowledge there Chris which I will remember wherever I am launching.

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

You lucky bugger.. I was sat in the depths of the office bunker all day....

Chris Waite said...

That large yacht

I think it's a French design called a Beluga. If her name was 'Flying Fox', I used to know some previous owners; 22 feet LOA, I seem to remember. They're centre-boarders, otherwise the puller in the mud would have had to swim to keep her afloat.

Christo von W

Alden Smith said...

Oh multi favoured one - fancy having a hot line to God like that (with built in weather prediction as well!).
Good on you for helping out the other boat owner despite the inconvenience - that's what we boaties do, it will be a sad day when we all ignore each other (And your weather forecaster may not be very pleased either).

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I would really like to have ago at water rowing tho and will certainly give it a try now.