Back in the water

Robinetta was launched for the season in pouring rain, but thankfully light winds.

The launch procedure has changed slightly from last year. Last time we boarded Robinetta just before the launch vehicle headed down the slipway, but this time we were told we would have to wait until she was floating in the slings. This meant getting into Worm and rowing round the launch trailer before scrambling aboard, trying not to hit our heads on bits of the launch trailer, or get Worm tangled in the sling. The engine started without problems (always a concern after a winter ashore) and I backed Robinetta out of the slings, with Julian keeping a careful watch to make sure Worm did not get caught on anything.

Julian and I took Robinetta straight to her mooring as the weather was too miserable to want to do anything else, but we will need to take her over to Rhu Marina soon to clean and fill the water tanks.  

Worm had filled with rain water up to the level of the duck board by the time we transhipped to her again for the row back to Mark's Landing. It was high tide, so we could row all the way to the top of the beach, where we tipped out the rain water before carrying Worm back to our garden. 

It was lovely to see Robinetta back on her mooring

Working on the bow

Last year at the OGA rally in Oban Robinetta 's bulwarks were damaged. We did a jury rig to hold them in place for the trip home which worked so well we forgot all about the need to repair them. Once Robinetta was out of the water I cleared the foredeck of the extra ropes, with only a vague memory of why they were there, and once I put the tarpaulin on the foredeck I forgot all about it again.

The need for repair suddenly became urgent when I got a launch date of Sunday 7th April. I was checking  the state of the rope on the bobstay when I put my hand on the bulwalk and felt it move slightly. As soon as I actually looked at the bulwalk area adjoining the stem post I could see that it had pulled away from the stem post. It needed to be pulled back into place and refastened.

The first step was to get the bowsprit out of the gammon iron (the metal hoop that the bowsprit goes through, which is bolted through the stem post). Then I removed the metal plate that reinforced the area of the bulwalks that the bowsprit goes through. The wood underneath it had not been painted in a while, and needed repairing or replacing before it could be re-screwed into the stem post. Once Julian had a look he decided on replacement, so he suddenly had woodwork to do, and not much time to do it.

Luckily (or not) the wind got up, and our launch date got pushed back to Wednesday 10th, giving us a little more time!

Starting prep for the new season

Robinetta has been outside on the hard all winter, covered with her cockpit tent and a tarpaulin on her foredeck. The fine weather on Tuesday made me decide to get the covers off, and see what needed doing before launch. The deck and cockpit just need a bit of a wash, although I will probably sand down the tiller and main hatch to get some varnish on them if the weather allows. 

The hull needs a good wash before getting a fresh coat of antifoul. Unfortunately the yard does not have running water at the moment, and having to use a bucket rather than a hose will add to the time needed for this.

In need of a good wash

That's the ceiling clean at least!

As normal the interior looks horribly grimy. The black mold is a regular feature of boats left without heating or a dehumidifier, and is reasonably easy to wash off. However it does take time! I made a start on both hull and interior on Thursday and it was a tiring but rewarding experience. I am really looking forward to the sailing season.

I talked to Craig at the yard, and booked Robinetta's launch for the first week of April. This is when Craig begins to get the boats into the water, as long as the yard's boat lift passes its safety inspection...

We have been getting a spike in readers to the blog in the last couple of weeks, which often happens when the spring comes around. It is always interesting to see where the readers are. When I see hundreds of page hits from places like Singapore and America I would love to know what they enjoy in particular.

It would be great to get more comments. We have been maintaining this blog since 2007, and have had 174,430 page reads, but only 91 comments.

End of the season

We have had a very short season on Robinetta this year. We have other sailing commitments, and our personal logs are more than double Robinetta's! She came out of the water on Sunday 22nd , and is being laid up at Craig's yard again. Not in the shed this time though! 

With such a short season there will be no book this year. We have bigger plans for next year, with visiting Shetland on the wish list, but we will have to see what the winter work reveals.

Our totals for the year are 350 nautical miles covered, in 112 hours, with the engine on for 74 hours.

Through the storm

We watched anxiously as Storm Babette made its way towards us. Luckily the winds on the West coast were much lower than on the East, and while we had gusts of 40 knots the wind direction meant there was not much fetch to raise the waves and Robinetta came through unscathed. We had put her cockpit cover on after our trip to Holy Loch, and one of the ties did get chaffed through, but the rest of them held the cover safely in place.

A weekend away

 We belong to a facebook sailing group called Sailing Cruising Scotland. This weekend they had a Rally planned at Holy Loch Marina. As this is only 10nm from Robinetta's mooring we decided to go. The forecast was for very light winds, so potentially we would be motoring the whole way, which was not a problem with this length of trip.

Unusually our son Alex decided he would like to come too, so there were three aboard Worm when I rowed us out to Robinetta mid-morning on Saturday. The sea was totally flat (a bit of a difference from my last row out)which was just as well as we did not have much freeboard!

We were at mid flood tide, springs, as we came off the mooring, with not a hope of getting through the Rhu Narrows under sail with the wind we had. Once we were through the Narrows we did try sailing for 15 minutes, but at about 0.7knots we would miss the barbeque, so the engine went back on until we were passing Kilcreggan, with a little more wind. An hour later we had still not reached Cove, so the engine went on for 15 minutes, at which point we finally found a good wind and began sailing properly.

By 14.45 we were just off Holy Loch Marina, and put the engine on to take down the sails.

Most of the Rally boats moored up on the breakwater pontoon. We chose to go on the outside of the breakwater where we would be blown off. There was plenty of room since most of the boats had gone inside to be away from any waves. It was so calm that this was not problem for us. Once settled in we headed for the "cocktail bar" manned by the Cutters and Sloops group before moving on to the Holy Loch Sailing Club for the barbeque. 

The weather was perfect for the event, with bright warm sunshine. Even the midges were kind to us and stayed away! Alex got a little sunburnt as he is not used to being outside as much.

Sunday's sail home was pretty much a repeat of Saturday, although the wind came in earlier. We had a slow sail out of Holy Loch, but the wind came picked up as we passed the Ardmore Cardinal at the entrance, and we had a lovely fast sail home, touching 5 knots at times.

No submarine movements impeded our progress and we headed up the Loch a little to see Hanako on her mooring. We had met them on the rally and it was good to see where they kept the boat.

We got the sails down and Julian helmed us, very slowly, onto our mooring after a lovely weekend away.

Checking on Robinetta after strong winds

 As I was driving back from taking a guest to the train station this morning I noticed that Robinetta's mainsail cover was hanging under the sail it was meant to be over. There had been some strong winds in the last couple of days, and there were more expected, so it had to be secured. I rowed Julian over to Robinetta at lunch time, to check on things. The cover was only being held on by the lazy jacks, and could easily have gone over the side if they had not been tight.

I was reminded of heading to Robinetta years ago when she was kept on the moorings at West Mersea. On that occasion I had not being able to see the cover at all. To my relief I found it lying in the cockpit. Later I was told by a friend who had a mooring close by that he had seen the cover was about to go over the side and had rowed over to rescue it. At least now we lived close enough to notice the problem ourselves.

When I opened the cabin the wooden spoons which are kept in a plastic cup were on the floor, so Robinetta's motion had obviously been quite violent at some point, although there was no other sign of distress. The cabin was quite grubby, and our absence of time on board this month was clear.

I put the engine on as it had not been turned over in a month, then Julian and I replaced the cover, tying it down tightly. We really should come out to visit Robinetta more often. Even coming over in the evening for a cup of tea would be a pleasant trip out of the house...

Julian had to get back to work, so we turned off the engine and locked up the cabin, then I rowed us back ashore.