First voyage

Delivery, concerns from will the owner be able to steer to will I stay afloat ran through my mind as we set off. It was a very poor start, the idiot ran aground in one way or another four times within the first hour! First off the tender he was using to reach my was stuck on the bank of the river, then he tried to leave the buoy whilst I was still on the mud, next came the mud bank near the quay which I saw him looking at from the quay earlier and he still got stuck on it, finally he put me on the mud by the quay. If this was a sign of things to come then we had a problem.

Luckily his mates seemed to agree with me, get a grip new boy! I gave him the benefit of the doubt and to my delight he and his mates took me down the Deben for the first sail I had done for a couple of years. At least we didn't run aground again and he seemed to have some basic ideas about how to sail. It was brilliant, we reached 5 knots and although under genoa the whole time it felt great. We made it back into the Tidemill marina without too much drama but someone was a bit too eager with my gear selector so I stopped it from working. That would teach them!

The next day the plan was to leave on the tide and reach Felixstow Ferry at high tide then sail round to Shotley Marina. Good plan, unfortunatley it meant leaving at 3pm and again we touched the bottom. This time it was the sill at the Tidemill. No major scares except that they tried to use this oversized outboard engine to manoeuvre me out of the marina. Not too clever, they forgot to lock the engine in place!!

At Shotley one of the crew had to operate the gear selector with a line and the boat hook! We got there in time to see them rush off to the bar. A really pleasant sail down the coast so things were looking good.

The next day we sailed from Shotley to Althorne where I now live. Again a long day but at least we didn't end up on the mud again. It was good to be out on the water again and things were looking good for the future.