Dreams

"Six days shalt thou labour and do all that thou art able/And on the seventh day holystone the decks and overhaul the cable" is typical black humour of the old sailing navy. Both the tasks are seriously hard work and provide no sabbath leisure. "The cable" then was a huge rope 6 inches in diameter and 200 yards long to which the anchor was attached. Overhauling was to inspect, clean and repair it. My boat "Christabel & Sheila", like most modern vessels has her anchor attached to a length of chain, in my case 50 metres of it. Like any metal object on a boat it tends to quietly rust away in its damp locker. Today I hauled it out on deck, chipped off the rusty bits painted it with linseed oil and restowed it. As I sat on deck engaged in this mucky job, I day dreamed of gliding into the calm water of a remote uninhabited Scottish loch and dropping anchor and chain into the glass clear water and relaxing in the cockpit with a wee dram. Bring it on!

Great timing!

Amazing that BBC2 should choose this week to show a group of irresistably charming kids reciting the cruising sailors anthem by John Masefield "I must go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and the sky" just at the time when I am getting ready to go down to the sea. If you didn't catch it, watch it on iPlayer, it's worth a years licence fee on its own even if you are no sailor.

Boats have masts primarily to hang the sails on but there is a tendency to put other things up there too, like wind vanes and lights. When something goes wrong aloft someone has to go up and fix it. In a crewed boat there is a tendency, at this stage, for people to hang back waiting for someone else to volunteer a bit like the opening of an episode of "The Apprentice". In fact the ascent is not difficult when there is some muscle available to do the hoisting. Singlehanded sailors have to find some way to get up there under their own steam and adopt various ploys. Dame Ellen McArthur's boat is so big that she is apparently able to climb up the sliding shackles which connect the mainsail to the mast. I know she took a photo from up there looking down on her boat, but then she is not like ordinary mortal sailors, especially ones like me with rather too much mileage on the clock.

Being still in boating civilisation, I was able to delegate the job today by manouvring the boat under the yard crane which then hoisted Steve in a bosun's chair to unsort a tangle. I think he got the job because he is the youngest, he is certainly the lightest. The photo is from last year on another boat. The victim this time was also chosen for his youth (I think).

Preparations

It's paradoxical that the part which causes most grief on a sailing boat is the engine. You have to have one nowadays. Harbours are designed on the assumption that you arrive and leave under power. These unregarded lumps of metal suffer more from disuse than anything else. They moulder away in their damp salty cupboards week after a week until one day they are needed urgently, a desperate skipper twists the key and nothing happens.
Mine is an ancient BMC thornycroft 4 cylinder diesel and forunately is of a vintage when durability was more important than power output. Nevertheless I always say a little prayer when I twist the key. It never has failed to start and I remind myself of that each time. The trouble is of course that there is no AA service at sea. If something goes wrong, you can't pull comfortably onto the hard shoulder and wait for that helpful mechanic. You have either to rediscover the skills of sailing into harbours which the old sailormen considered normal or declare an emergency and call the RNLI.
All this is why I spent the morning giving some TLC to my mill. Before I venture the 15 miles down the river to the sea. Another day I will run it for 2 or 3 hours to be sure there are no problems.
I am a terrible worrier. I wonder if all singlehanded sailors are? I imagine vividly all the things which can go wrong and wake in the night sweating over them. So today I spent another £70 odd on some new flares and smoke canisters. When I got the old ones out, I found they were dated 1994. (They are normally expired after 3 years). I have only ever used one once. What do you do with the old ones? They are quite dangerous. The parachute flares go off with a hell of a bang. You used to be able to dispose of them via the coastguard, but they have stopped that now. There was a time when sailing clubs let them off on bonfire night. That doesn't seem a very good idea now either. I have a large carrier bag full. Perhaps I could hand them over to the Fire Service?

I am sort of committed to setting off to sail on me tod around mainland Britain on 1st June and am, as usual already feeling apprehensive about it. I wonder why I do this sailing lark. I know I will be stressed and scared at times, will miss my sleep, miss friends and family, even miss driving my car. Why can't I stay well within my comfort zone like most old codgers do? That TV programme "Coast" is partly to blame with it's seductive cinematography. I watch it and think "I want to be there!"
Today I should be doing an engine service but am disabled by lassitude. I have a meeting at 2pm anyway so it's too late now to get all oily.
Assuming my old barky is in reasonable nick, the first problem in getting this voyage under way is that my berth in sunny Preston is 15 miles from the sea. To reach the restless ocean means negotiating the exit lock at high water and because the channel is not lit there is only one chance each day to do this. Once in the river it is then a sweaty nervous rush to get past Lytham and across the bar before the tide falls too far.The river dries completely at low water. The bar is not marked and the deep water channel has a dog leg in it which used to be marked by two tiny buoys about the size of yoghourt cartons, virtually invisible. Even these are gone now and I have to rely entirely on GPS waypoints. The river entrance lies between Blackpool and Southport and is a wide and featureless, in thick weather when visibility is poor there are no visual clues at all to help the trembling navigator.
Why am I posting this? Two reasons: I like reliving my experiences in print and a few people have expressed interest in how I get on in sailing around our beautiful islands. The plan is to head north first. If I am not in Orkney by midsummer, the project will be in jeopardy and I may have to admit defeat and return via the Caledonian Canal. I need some moderate winds from the south for the first two weeks of June. I live in hope!