Got to the West Country Part One

Well, we have managed our first passage on Sarah G now. She is currently on the visitors pontoon at Dartmouth waiting for us to take her the final bit round to Torpoint next weekend. Overall the whole thing was a success though, as ever, it certainly didn't go to plan. I arrived on Thursday evening after work and had an initial panic as they had moved her from where she was last time we were down. At least I found her on the “A” line and all ready to go. After ensuring that the cat was happy as this was also to be Schrodinger's first real passage, I tried the engine out and was delighted to find it starting exactly as the engineer had said.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting her ready with the last bits such as putting the now good diesel back in the tank and stowing all our stuff. The weather forecasts were very variable but seemed to be promising north easters of some sort but they were a bit vague as to strength. Audrey arrived and while she had chicken and chips I proudly cooked myself some pasta with pesto.

We had a bit of a drama with the cat as I had left the forehatch open to get some air moving and we suddenly heard this scrabbling sound and realised she had climbed out and was on deck. Without the harness, I was worried about her going over the side and not realising that the stuff beyond the scuppers would be very wet and not nice at all. I scooped her up and tried to persuade her back down the forehatch with Audrey below but she didn't like that so it was back to the cockpit. She seemed to settle down OK after that and looked quite happy on the dinette.

The next morning we did the final running around to get the last wires to the mast connected – specifically the VHF which was a right pig for Audrey to manage as she had to solder some very fiddly bits together under the mast. At least we got it all done just as Matthew arrived. An hour later and the tide had risen sufficiently for us to make a departure and bid a final farewell to Emsworth. The first passage however proved a bit short. We got sail up as soon as it freed a bit about half way down the channel and sailed out of Chichester Harbour on the last of the flood. We then found plenty of wind from the west and were quite pleased to have put a reef in the main. The sailing was a good bit brisker than I would have chosen for a first sail of the season and progress down the Solent was feeling a bit slow despite making around six knots through the water. Then, we noticed water coming over the deck sole as she heeled more and an inspection of the keel sump showed quite a lot of water in there. Without knowing if it was a slow leak or something worse,we took the option of running back to Sparkes to take stock and work out what was wrong. A very fast reach to West Pole and and a bit of drama trying to go starboard side to a berth to windward and we sorted ourselves out. The leak was, thankfully, a slow one, most likely from the zinc anode.

So ended our first day of the delivery trip with a total distance achieved of about 2 miles but with 16 miles logged through the water.

The rest of the delivery trip will follow.