Grand Slam

We're off!

 

At last we're away. We left Port Edgar on a rather windy evening heading north
 for Inverness and on to Oban on the first leg of the trip down to Portugal. 
The wind was blowing a good 25 knots under the bridges - bang on the nose and
 the forecast was F4-5 NE which didn't sound too good. We knew however that 
delaying leaving we were likely to suffer stronger winds so it was now or 
never. We motored for the first 4 hours and felt a little easier when Forth 
Coastguard told us there was only 10 knots of wind at Fife Ness. With a 
rather grey evening we saw our last view of the bridges for a while.



By midnight we were round Fife Ness and the wind swung to NNE keeping it 
bang on the nose although it did drop to 10 knots as predicted. At least 
now we were able to get the main up and motor sail a while. The boat was 
fully crewed by Andys - well to be more exact, half the crew were Andys. 
Tom and Andy had joined us for the trip round to Oban - not quite the 
hair-raising experience that Andy's photo shows.



We managed to sail for around 6 hours but progress was slow beating into 
the wind and waves so reluctantly decided to go back to motor sailing to 
try and get round Rattray head before midnight. We just managed it and 
sailed into Lossiemouth around six-ish on Sunday morning. Time then for 
a few beers and a couple of wee drams before crashing out. It was Tom's 
first long sail (36 hours) but a great experience.Not really a lot to 
report about the trip except it would have been interesting going into 
Lossie with the mainsail up if Tom hadnt reminded me to get it down. 
No speed records set today (or yesterday) - maybe we can get a chance 
for some exciting sailing soon.



Sunday evening we sampled the buffet in the local Chinese "Charlie Chan's " 
excellent food for a buffet. Everyone stuffed themselves ready for an early 
morning start to get out of Lossie before the tide dropped too much. We saw 
Sherkin and Elise in the harbour but no sign of Stuart who we had met on 
previous years North Sea races. 

Next leg, down to Inverness and into the canal. 

"I name this ship........"

The sun shone and the wine and beer flowed. We finally got round to having the dinghy naming party and it turned out to be a reasonable day weather-wise. Plenty of people turned up and a great time was had by all. I think we ended up with 30+ on board and consequently the bow had lifted about six inches out of the water. I suggested that we try and see if we could get everyone on the dinghy but no-one seemed interested!

The dinghy was duly named "Grand Slam Too" to commemerate Wales' second Grand Slam win in far too few years. We had to borrow another welsh flag (off John - another welsh ex-pat up here in the frozen north) as the scottish one was a bit big.

Pam had found a helium cylinder in Costco a couple of days earlier so we had decorated the boat and dinghy with balloons. The instructions said to inflate them a couple of hours before the party which seemed a bit strange. Little did we realise why. At least a quarter of them went bang!!!!! with the sound of a rifle shot - not good for the heart if you were standing within a hundred yards of the boat. Obviously the heat of the sun was inflating them above their limit.

So we are now in the final throws of getting the boat ready to go Friday. All that is left is getting the provisions on board and getting the drinks cabinet fitted (ETA now when we are over in Oban).

Thanks to all who turned up on Sunday - now what else do we need to do before Friday........?

Talk about lying down on the job!!

Talk about lying down on the job!! This is the location for the new drinks cabinet which is due to be built by Rob by a week Friday!! That's when we are leaving to take the boat round to Dunstaffnage on the first leg of the trip down south.

At the moment it is a few bits of carboard stuck together with sellotape but just think what it will be like when we get all the glasses and spirits in a nice cabinet. That will keep Rob busy for a few nights.

Don't ask what the "mini-greenhouse" (on the right) is!

Rob finnally got it all measured up after the brief sail we had on the weekend. Managed to get the spinnaker up to practice gybing it with the sock. Not bad - probably easy to handle with 3 people (if not 2).

Current plan is to set off end of next week to get to the west coast either via Orkney or the Cally canal depending on the weather and get round to Oban by the 1st June to get lifted out and antifouled. After that we will be off to Ireland for a month or so and hopefully a trip down Ireland's west coast.

The boat is now pretty much ready with the ssb radio now working well and all the other bits on the back of the transom. Looks a bit busy - and not a lot of room for anything else. For anyone who knows the Marina, you will notice something missing in this photo - the Forth Road Bridge! This was taken last Sunday with the south of England basking in 25 C temps. We reached about 12 C with an annoying easterly wind bringing in the har and reducing visability to not a lot. Role on the summer.

It's official

Well here it is - Anna bought Rob a hat to celebrate his success at Southern Sailing. Obviously compulsory attire for the sail this weekend!

We've finnaly got back on the boat and well on the way to getting the ssb radio fitted. 2 days hard slog and we've managed to get the copper ground strip and the ATU installed and all the associated wiring. If only I had taken the duogen down to the boat I could have got the antenna installed - need to measure how long the blades are so I make sure they dont hit the antenna - but I didn't so I couldn't! So that's the plan for tomorrow and Monday along with a sail to try out the new headsail.

3 weeks to go before we push off for the west coast so it's all systems go.