Ashdown sailing weekend 15-16 Feb

The learning curve OR little things make a BIG difference:

Wednesday night: I received a call from John. Alan could not make the weekend and could I skipper Lucrece. Had the man gone MAD… Me skipper Lucrece! I was honoured that Alan had such faith in me. I accepted and following calls to Barry and Sophie Gaines and a new member Keith Sinden where I gave them all the opportunity to opt out, all was set for the weekend. The fools didn't take the opportunity to jump ship.

Friday night: I collected Keith and we set off for Chi via the Crown and Anchor. Fed and watered we retired to Layla for a night cap to warm the bits the hard frost had got to on the way back from the pub. As it was so cold I extolled the virtues of Lucrece's Webasto heating. No cold boat for us tonight. We would be as warm as toast. We left at 23:30 and this is where the fun started. We emptied the contents of the car and went down to the boat. First task was to switch on the lights. No power. Think Raby. Oh yes the main switches. Unfortunately I couldn't see what I was doing as there was no light. Fortunately Keith being the Boy Scout he is had a torch on him. Switches on…Still no lights. Never mind the shore power is on. All I need to do is to find the mains light. Could I find it? Not a hope. What must Keith think? This is his first time out with the club, its 11:45 and he is on deck freezing. Just as all sense of credibility was slipping away I remembered the main battery switch. Eureka! We have lights.

Let's get that heating on pronto, its freezing in here. Guess what? Plenty of fan but no heat. Everything is going so well…Not. Never mind better tell Keith how the heads work. Switch this over to the left and pump…..don't forget the seacocks Raby. Spanner out turned the seacock a few turns but still no water coming in. After a few more turns still no water. Finally I realised that all I had to do was turn the seacock a quarter of a turn. What a great start. I am sure Keith is so impressed…NOT. We retired, me with my credibility (if I had any to start with) in tatters and Keith… Well I don't know what he thought, but I can guess.

Saturday Morning: You know it is cold when you have ice on the inside of the windows. We got up and sorted ourselves out before Barry and Sophie turned up. Following breakfast I distinctly remember saying "The objective of the weekend is to get everyone back in one piece and that Lucrece must not have a scratch on her".

And so to get the boat ready. Trying to think everything through. Main halyard on, winch handles out, sea cocks on, power line in, start engine, make sure water is coming out the back, head rope in, springs off, …Are we ready? We slip at 09:30. We use Lucrece as an icebreaker to go out through the lock on free flow remembering Alan's words to me. "Give her some wellie" which I did. Fenders in, down the end of the channel and off we go.

What happens next is a bit of a blur. I don't know whether I just felt that something was wrong or that I saw the steam but when we lifted the engine cover, steam poured out. Engine off quick. I can't believe it, we are only at the end of the channel. Barry took the helm and thankfully because the wind was in the East unfurled the headsail and started to sail us towards Itchenor. Engine cover off, cockpit sole up, what's gone wrong? I took the back cover off the engine and there staring me in the face is the engine seacock which I had not turned on. I felt sick! I could not believe it. We sailed Lucrece down to a pontoon at Itchenor with thoughts of head gasket replacement being the minimum I could get away with and how much was a new engine going to cost me. More to the point what would Alan say, indeed how was I going to tell him. With the seacock on when we turned the engine on water was pouring into the bilges. As I had signalled to John at the end of the marina channel that I had a problem he came over. It turned out that the water was coming from the water trap on the exhaust. John volunteered to take me back to Peters so I could get a new one. £55.00 for a plastic box! Still I would have paid whatever it cost! Thankfully when we returned to the boat and fitted the new water trap all was OK. I say all was OK, I mean that all seemed OK mechanically. I was a nervous wreck.

At the beginning of the transit I asked the crew to hoist the mainsail and put a reef in. It then dawned on me that when we sailed round East Head we would gybe so we promptly took down the sail. We got to the West Pole at 12:50 and set the sails again. With the wind directly up our transom the motion wasn't very comfortable so we decided to sail off the wind. Bembridge here we come. We put a tack in once past the forts and set sail for Portsmouth. With the wind force 4 the sailing was brisk but cold.

We arrived in Haslar at 15:20 and whilst the crew got the sails down and fenders out I contemplated mooring. Gulp! We slipped into the visitors mooring under the shadow of the Mary Mouse and I am pleased to say came alongside beautifully. Why is there never anyone around when you do something right?

We dined ashore that evening. By the time Fizzgig and Layla came to refresh themselves we were all ready for bed, but we managed the extra pint.

Sunday Morning: Alan always says "If your crew want to shower and have breakfast you must allow 2 hours". We did not want to get up at 6:30 so we set the alarm for 7am giving us one and a half hours to get ready. You know what? Alan is right. We slipped at 8:50. As the other boats had slipped I was keen to get going. Motoring out of Portsmouth with a strong flood running was interesting. It was surprisingly hard to hold the helm. When we got to buoy No 2 we put up the mainsail. I should have done that in the safety and comfort of the harbour. Think ahead Raby! It was pretty bumpy. The plan was to motor to the Dolphin and then sail. That was until the strong wind warning. Force 6. Life jackets on everybody! I decided we would motor all the way back to the Bar.

When we arrived at the bar we sailed Lucrece up as far as East Head Spit, which was interesting as the wind had definitely backed and was now from the North. Pizza in the oven at the end of Itchenor channel, through the lock on free flow and onto the mooring (I would give myself a 90% for that). We discovered a charcoal disc in the oven but ate it anyway. We then put the boat to bed and before leaving Keith and I took out the fridge so that John could look at the Webasto during the week.

Lessons learnt from the weekend:

1) The problem was that anytime I have sailed on Lucrece I have come down after the boat has been set up. Ideally I would have spent at least one weekend as skipper of the boat from start to finish with Alan stopping me from doing disastrous things like not turning on sea cocks. It was unfortunate that circumstances did not allow this.

2) Think ahead more. I put up the mainsail at the wrong time on both days. Thinking it through more would have prevented 2 crew going forward in bumpy conditions.

3) Finally Alan learnt not to let me loose on Lucrece on my own.

Thank you to Alan to letting me take out Lucrece and thank you to Barry, Sophie and Keith for being so patient with me. I hope I didn't scare you too much.

Gery Raby