November 2006

We had arranged for Tapestry to have some work at at Fox's, Ipswich over the winter. As our keel normally rests in the mud at low water we will not be returning to Levington in the spring . So technically we have set off!!

The start was not auspicious. The wind was blowing between 25-35 knots. We had taken time off work and unfortunately it was not possible to delay the move. As luck would have it, a bigger gust blew our bow sideways just after casting off. Our anchor neatly lodged inside our neighbour's outboard which was hanging on their pushpit. It was too windy to stop and we watched in horror as we pulled it off straight into the water.

Lets hope things improve!

January 2007

Our retirement dates are now confirmed as April for Lesley and July for Ian. This has allowed us to apply to participate in the Rally Portugal. We left the East Coast in mid May to reach Plymouth for the start of the rally at the beginning of June. We have booked Tapestry into Marina de Lagos for July to September and will sail around to Gibraltar in early October.

March 2006

We made Tapestry available to the boatyard during November and we had planned to be back in the water by the end of March. Progress continued with Tapestry until the end of February but has since ground to a halt. The watermaker and SSB radio are fitted, but some other less obvious improvements seemed to have had less appeal to the boatyard!  We are getting very nervous about whether we can be properly prepared for leaving before mid May. This picture was taken right at the end of March!

We recently attended the first of two weekend seminars for BWR participants. There will be 34 participating boats and it looks as though it will be very gregarious! It is also apparent that there is a lot of experience amongst some of the other crews. We are pleased to see that there are a number of boats of similar or smaller length than Tapestry.

May 2007

This is what can happen if you leave your boat without closing the seacocks.

The owner of this boat had just relaunched and after testing the engine, he left her with the sea water filter incorrectly sealed. She sank overnight at her marina berth. We witnessed an epic salvage operation adjacent to our berth at Fox's.

The yard work was finally finished two months later than promised and two weeks later than our last possible date! We left without even so much as a shake down cruise, hoping that we had already found most of our problems, which included the tricolour light being fitted the wrong way round, (which we thought was impossible to do) and a new shower pump being carefully plumbed in to empty our holding tank into the shower! And then to cap it we had a satellite phone call from Iridium in the USA telling us that we had already used our years' supply of airtime sending gibberish by attempted text message to the satellite system. Somehow our phone had lost its programming, and was blocking the satellite system.

After a brief delay for gales we finally left only a few days late.

We took these two pictures on our way down the River Orwell to remind ourselves what we are leaving!

Sailing on the River Orwell, Suffolk Yacht Harbour in the background                                                                                                                                         Felixstowe Docks

Mainly we motored, but we were pleased to try our new sails in a good blow from Dover to Brighton. We thought our luck had turned as we were in Portsmouth within three days. Then on the way to Weymouth our tricolour fell off. We diverted to Poole, and Ian tried his luck climbing the mast for the first time. Unfortunately he wasn't able to solve the problem, but a friendly rigger was working nearby renovating the former royal yacht Bloodhound. He kindly went up the mast for the price of a beer to repair the fitting, and we hope that is the last time we shall be troubled by the tricolour. We saw dolphins in Lyme Bay, which always gives us a good feeling. We reached Dartmouth before the weekend where we spent a few days chilling out, and letting more gales through before heading for Plymouth to meet up with the other Rally Portugal participants.

Here are a couple of pictures we took during the week.

The Spinnaker at Portsmouth                                                                                                                                                                         Old Harry at Studland Bay, Dorset