Getting Ready to Slip The Lines

A south-west wind meant we spent the 6 hours tacking up and down the solent, covering almost 40 nm with speeds up to 8 kts and we reached Lymington to refuel in time for lunch. We decided to stay the night here as the tide had turned against us and we couldn’t continue through the Needles until the evening, so we pumped up the dinghy and went ashore.

Lymington at Dusk

Alex later cooked a spaghetti bolognaise and we opened a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate the start of our journey.

Tomorrow we intend to head out of the Needles by 0630 and depending on wind direction, sail further west or to Cherbourg.

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes – we will miss you but hope to see you again soon – somewhere warmer!

Dressed and Ready for Her Party

Thanks to everyone who attended, for all the cards, good wishes, thoughtful presents, donations to charity and for a lovely evening in their company. It was wonderful to see the Lightship full of old and new friends and family, some of whom had travelled a long distance to be there. A special thank you to Kym, James, Gisella and Sian, who spent 2 hours decorating the venue with banners, balloons and dodgy old photographs of Rob and I. Kym and James also gave moving speeches, hence the few tears.

Emotional Speech

The Hoyle family made us a beautiful cake with a model of Beyzano on top and we had a selection of cakes for the various occasions we were celebrating. The rain held off and we had blue skies for most of the day, which enabled us to take some pictures of the earlier arrivals on Beyzano and by 7.30pm almost everyone had arrived in time for the BBQ and cakes.

Celebratory Cakes

First Arrivals Visiting Beyzano

I had been dreading the thought of saying goodbye to everyone but in the end it was such a busy evening trying to get a few minutes with every guest and the atmosphere had a positive, forward looking feel to it, so I ended up feeling happy and excited rather than sad. We will miss our family and friends but hope to see many of them in warmer climates over the next few years. Whenever we get an internet connection this blog will be updated and we intend to stay in many places for quite a long time to enable people to book flights and plan a trip.

By the end of the evening a hardy few, including our new ARC friends on Saltwhistle, were left drinking champagne and black sambuca shots followed by a dubious cake eating race!

Vanilla Sponge Beats Fruit Cake!

We have a few things to do before we leave, such as checking our SSB and modem are set up properly with Bob from Yachtcom, so we can stay in touch with our friends as promised. A friend’s son with sextant know-how is showing us how to use Rob’s new toy this week and we have a few evening meals out with local friends. Then we need to collect the last few items from YouBoat and pay their bill, pay the marina as we leave and our crew will move aboard next weekend, hopefully in better weather than this. We will take them out with some other friends from the marina who are well versed in the art of flying the spinnaker, for some practice sessions as we haven’t used our huge spinnaker since we bought the boat. Far too big for 2 apparently!

During the next 9 days, whilst Rob services the engine, changes the filters and puts the mainsail up complete with new third reef and lazyjacks, I will be visiting my parents, provisioning and cooking for the voyages ahead and sorting out the final bits of admin. It was good to have the party ahead of leaving so we now have time to calmly check everything we can think of is done and wait for the right weather to leave Haslar.

Nearly There!

We discovered that there was some corrosion on the SSB dynaplate bolts and it was also coming away from the hull. The generator had been installed over the top of the bolt heads, so in order to replace the 2 bolts we had the generator removed by Endeavour Yacht Services. We decided to have the dynaplate repositioned to make future maintenance easier. We also had a galvanic isolator fitted to reduce the risk of corrosion from stray electrical currents which we may encounter whilst berthed in marinas.

Due to the corrosion we also had all the stopcocks checked, which were all OK for now but we will keep a close eye on their condition.

Re-organisation Underway!

We are now focussing on getting everything put back to normal as everything was filthy inside and out due to the 7 weeks in a busy boatyard, so we have had to clean every inch of the interior and will be doing the same on deck.

Inside Finished

New turning blocks have been fitted at the base of the mast for the extra reef we have had sewn into the main and the replaced rigging has been tuned up by XW Rigging at Haslar. We haven’t been able to test our new prop yet so will need to find time to motor out soon to monitor the performance and if it needs adjusting she will have to come out of the water again.

Featherstream Propellor

We will be collecting our sails this weekend and hope the wind drops so we can get them back up and fit the new lazyjacks! Finally we have a large quantity of chandlery goods to collect from You Boat in Gosport and the unenviable task of paying for them.

Having done everything we can think of Beyzano is as well prepared for her journey as possible so the only unknown is us

Thanks go to Sam Cassell, the Project Manager at Endeavour Yacht Services for keeping everything on track, liaising with suppliers and providing an excellent service.

As the mast is back up we are finally able to fly our ARC flag.

Beyzano - 1 of 4 ARC 2011 Yachts in Haslar Marina

We still have to get the genoa down but are waiting for the wind to come round to the south so it will be more manageable.

Next will be to get the boom off and disconnect the electrics in the mast, so that when she gets to the boatyard they can unstep the mast before lifting her out of the water.

XW Rigging then have a few days to replace all the standing rigging, lifelines and some new dyneema halyards before the mast goes back up.

We have 8 weeks in total to finish the rest of the tasks relying on the boat being ashore. A friend of ours, Sam, has kindly offered us an ensuite room in her flat whilst we work on the boat, so we will be spoilt for while. It overlooks the boatyard so we can check Rob is working hard!

We managed to cook a full roast turkey lunch on 2 burners and in a small oven with the aid of a hot water bottle to warm up the gas bottle in the locker. Joys of winter onboard. On Christmas Eve we decided to stay in Haslar due to the forecast and lack of electricity at Buckler’s Hard as we thought we might need our fan heater and electric blanket during the night. On Boxing Day we had a motor to Osborne Bay and only saw one other sailing boat all afternoon.

Happy New Year!

Our friend Caroline sent us some photos. of Beyzano during the recent snow, which looks even deeper than January. Not quite as deep as we have had in Edinburgh!

Really looking forward to being (and hoping to be) back home for Christmas, to catch up with family and friends and party on the Lightship to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Merry Christmas and we hope 2011 is a great year for you all!

My friend asked why I hadn’t called to stay the night during the snow and gales – answer was I love it on the boat. But tonight I may well change my mind. Thank goodness the prevailng wind direction is a south westerly.

They make a big effort with any special date in the calendar, such as Burn’s Night, St George’s Day and New Year’s Eve. Lots of great food during the week too, at great prices. How can you beat a curry night for five pounds or 3 courses for ten pounds when some of the mains are 9.95!