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Mrs. Craggy's Big Day OutLots of the previous entries in this blog refer to me sailing single handed. There is a reason for this, I am an antisocial git. Actually I would happily take my partner out, but she doesn't like sailing, or so she said. Put off at a very early age as a small child, when caught in a storm in the Irish Sea while out with her parents on their friends yacht, it is easy to understand why. Being tossed around in a small boat with no sail up because the wind is too strong, and no motor because it failed to start when the storm blew up, is not the recommended way to ease a newcomer into the joys of being afloat. So Mrs. Craggy does not come sailing with me. Until today. Quite why I don't know, but she has decided that she wants to come out and see what it's like. I think she's basically jealous of my mistress, but whatever, she has invited herself. On condition.On condition that I take a more experienced sailor out with us as well, Mrs. Craggy knows I am a novice at this sailing lark, and while I may kill myself by falling overboard while out solo, she does not intend to go the same way. So I emailed Doug. Doug is much more experienced than me, so he will be able to cope when things go keel up. Anyway, Doug agrees to come out with us, so come the appointed day we meet up and trek along the four motorways that form the link from home to Fleetwood. Approaching Fleetwood we stop at Morrisons, as has become the norm, to pick up refreshments. Mrs. Craggy gets the sandwiches, Doug buys the beer; Special Offer, 8 bottles for a tenner, so we have 8 bottles of high quality beverage between us. The government has just passed some new law about drink-boating, the effect on sales figures has obviously driven Ken Morrison to desperate measures. I had anxiously monitored the weather forecast over the preceding days, as it varied between OK, quite good, and fierce. When we arose this morning it had changed again, to very light airs, still we would get whatever we got. We had decided to "Lock Out" - Fleetwood provides one lock-out an hour before the dock gates normally open, and a lock-in an hour after the gates close, thus extending the single tide sailing window by a couple of hours. I have not locked out of Fleetwood before. Traffic had delayed us, and we prepped the boat in a rush. I made a hash of getting out of the berth. I tried a new method, it worked in principle but needs more practice, and saw us doing a seven-point turn to get out. Nothing bashed. Delayed by my faffing, we squeaked into the lock at the last moment, last in. Both sides were largely occupied, there was a space we could take, near the front, but manouevering into it proved too much for me so another boat took pity on us and generously allowed us to raft. Exiting the lock we motored up the channel out of the marina with half a metre of mud showing each side, and decided to get out of the channel altogether and into Lune Deep before raising sail. The wind was blustery and we didn't fancy burying the keel in mud. Reaching the end of the Fleetwood channel it was still gusty, so Doug and I decided a reef would be appropriate. Doug helmed, I hoisted. The mainsail went up very easily, by hand. It became apparent that a lot of the grief experienced previously is more due to friction in the winch than the track. Anyway, I winched the mainsail taut, hoisted the (no. 2) jib, and Doug pointed us off towards Heysham to catch the wind. It died. We were nicely reefed, making under a knot, with barely enough air to fill the sails. I shook out the reef, and we pottered along past the mouth of the Lune at a gentle two knots(-ish), no heeling, no hassle, no gusts, all the early bluster of the air had evaporated. I thought about replacing the jib with the genoa, but it was too much hassle, so we opened our sandwiches & beer. Doug thought our progress was ideal for trolling, so I handed him a fishing line which he let out over the stern.  Mrs. Craggy seemed quite calm about this sailing lark, I don't know if the beer helped, but we floated along gently, chatting away, until it seemed like a good idea to turn back. Despite the light air and lack of canvas we seemed to have made good progress. As we turned away from it we realised that we had got much closer to Heysham power station that we had expected, and speculated that we had benefitted from the tide. I dug out the tidal atlas in the almanac, but that showed the tide pushing us in to the south of the bay, so we'd obviously made our progress under our own steam. Out came our GPS's to check speed over ground, and sure enough we were making somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 knots in something around 4 - 5 knots of wind. Very gentle sailing, from my point of view the best possible introduction for Mrs. Craggy. It can be exciting having the toerails in the water, but probably not ideal for a nervous novice. The beer was excellent, Doug, a connoisseur, had again made fine choices.  Being Skipper and driver I only had the one, the "Whitstable Bay" by Shepherd Neame. It was excellent, a really clean and crisp bitter. The others seemed to go down rather well too. A gentle sail back to the old Fleetwood lighthouse marking the head of the channel, during which we pondered the absence of other yachts, there was only one visible, motoring under bare poles. We had left with quite a flotilla, but they must have all retired early; perhaps the light air was just too light for them, but we did OK out of it. Doug recovered the fishing line - what was left of it. The lures and trolling weight had vanished. I was amazed, given our gentle progress I reckon that if we had snagged the line it would have held us at anchor, and a decent sized mackerel could have towed the boat backwards. I shall make the next one out of stronger stuff!  And so back into the marina. Doug gave me the helm as we passed through the lock, preferring to let me park my boat. As with the previous outing, my parking was perfect, and Doug stepped onto the pontoon finger from a stationary boat to secure the warps. At leat Mrs. Craggy was aboard to witness my mooring skills! If only I can learn to leave the berth as smoothly. 10:00 PM - Aug. 5, 2007 - post comment
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