Friday 2nd August Helen is still in hospital so today is planned to be another one where we do some work on the house until the middle of the day or Helen tells us she has seen the physios and is therefore potentially going to get discharged.
As Grace had not yet got up I set off to the boat at 7:30 and managed to install the replacement shackle for the backup bow mooring strop and included a stainless steel security wire this time so it wont come off even when the thread is corroded enough not to tighten any more (My fault for using galvanised shackles from Screwfix at 70 p each instead of heavier grade ones which might last a little longer).
My next job was to sort out the “weighted line” between bow and stern mooring strops, this had vanished somehow during whatever event led to my stern mooring arrangements being shared with the next boat in line.. This time I spliced in the bit at the bow and used knots elsewhere protecting them from coming undone using insulating tape. That should make it a lot easier to pick up the mooring when I finally get to sail.
My third job for today was scraping the bottom to remove all of the barnacles and weed that I could reach from the tender. There are still a few bits where it is hanging under the boat as well as a lot where I cannot reach with a hand scraper. A quick sail will get the loose bits off and I only have to wait 2 months before I can do a proper full hull clean on the hard.
Helen had seen the physio in the morning but hadn’t yet been given the go-ahead for discharge due to low blood pressure. We finally got the “come hither” message and left at about 2:30. Even with a one hour journey there was another delay because the discharge letter had got some incorrect medicine details. We got on our way home between 4 and 5.
Friday 9th Karl was at the sailing club at around 6:30 this morning and sent a set of photos via Watsap to show a boat run aground on the wall outside the lagoon. That was at about the time of low tide so the rescue squad are meeting at 11:00 to use the last of the rising tide to try to get her off.
I set off for the club at 10:30 to find Andy and Nick were ready to take the launch out and that the owner and his son were already working to try to free the boat. After multiple tries to move the boat as the tide approached it’s peak we eventually managed to get her swung round a little. It then took until about the time of high tide (12:40) before we finally managed to get the boat off the bank. No obvious signs of water ingress but they motored in to the jetty as a precaution. We needed to tow them another twice because today was not a particularly high tide and they got stuck in the mud at the edge of the channel before reaching the destination. We then towed another boat out to the lagoon moorings before tying up to the pontoons.
Saturday 10th Day one of the LSC regatta and I am crewing on Karl’s boat. Low tide is around 8:30 so we wont realistically be able to get out to the boats until about 10:00 and have to try to fit in 4 races before the ebbing tide at about 6pm onwards. The day starts with bacon sandwiches at 8 – 8:30 so I may be there for that or aim to arrive a bit later.
I don’t have any photos from today mainly because of being busy either acting as crew while Karl was helming during the races or me doing the helming out to the start, between races and on the way back into Poole.
There were three races today, all out in Poole bay. We were definitely not doing as well as last year.
The wind was a slightly difficult factor as Karl would normally have one reef in the mainsail if there was more than 20 knots of wind and today it fluctuated above and below that. In the first race (with one reef set) we clipped one mark so had to go around it again and we went the wrong side of another mark and had to do a much larger 360 degree set of course changes to leave it on the required side. In the second race we took out the reef part way through and managed not to get any of the race buoys wrong but instead lost speed by going too close to the wind as we crossed the finish line and drifted sideways into the committee boat – Minor gel coat scuff on their boat and none to ours. In the third race we managed to not hit anything and actually achieved 4th place out of the 5 boats competing.
Overall it was an exciting day’s sailing in a moderate wind and with some level of chop at times. Helen and Dawn has spent the afternoon at the club and a café just up the road so they weren’t around when we came ashore After they came back we went home so I could have a shower before we went out to the music evening.
Sunday 
Day 2 of the regatta. I was awake at my usual time and had breakfast before taking the dog to Delph woods. Definitely short sleeves and no jacket sailing weather today with a reasonable amount of warmth in the hazy sunshine but a solid bank of cloud on the Purbeck hills all day.
The tide was an hour later today so it was an 11:45 start to the first race. We were among the first boats to get out to the starting position and hung around for a while trying to fix the mainsail traveller mechanism. Wind today was nicely around 12 to 15 knots so no reef needed in the mainsail. We came last in the first race again, mainly because I was helming and am not as good as Karl at managing his boat when it has the mainsail pulled in tight. I kept ending up with full rudder to try to keep us from getting too close to the wind and both the wrong course and large rudder deflections slow the boat down.
That race was followed by the charity race – Karl helmed for this one so we did better and came in third in our class. I am beginning to get used to holding my nerve when sailing very close to other large boats.
We were back ashore around 4:30 with the prize giving being supposed to be about an hour later so there was time for hotdogs and beer before that started
The sailing regatta results got published on the LSC website and then copied into the local newspaper.
Sunday 25th The two Ukrainian children who we hosted are with us as a short pre-term holiday. Helen is full of cold and stayed at home today. I took Markian & Viktoriia to Lymington to meet up with Dawn & Karl on their boat.
We walked up to where they were on the town quay. We counted 7 Lilliput boats at the rally although there might
have been others moored up further away so we couldn’t see the burgees.
We had brought sandwiches so stayed on the boat with Remy while Dawn and Karl went in search of something for their lunch. The kids enjoyed exploring the boat and feeding the fish from the stern.
Eventually set off for home at around 4:00 .
Friday 30th Most of today was spent sorting out last minute things for the trip to France – We will be there for the full month taking down tents and closing the campsite for the winter.
Saturday 31st August Cross to France on Barfleur’s morning crossing. Arrived 1:45 UK time (2:45 central European time). After our mid afternoon stop the arrival time was predicted as 8:06 and we actually managed to arrive only 2 minutes later than that prediction. Not bad for 245 Km.