First time with the bimini

11 Nautical Miles

We went down to the marina early to fit the new bimini and ready the boat for the sail today. The forecast said light winds in the morning, heavier in the afternoon (Bft 3) dying down again later.

When I reversed out of our mooring I had the helm over to starboard, but the boat pulled to port. Very strange. I then had to do a 270 degree multi-point turn to get the right direction to exit the marina. Then someone noticed we were trailing one of the spring lines from the port side. Pull it in and suddenly the helm is responsive again.

Light meant non-existant! So we motored round to the other side of the harbour for coffee and a swim.

Tim cleaned the barnacles off the outboard. The encrustations were getting heavy so we need to find some solution. For next year we can paint the part in the water with anti-fouling, but for now we need to keep cleaning and cleaning and cleaning...

We're not happy that we cannot lift the outboard and we may try to find a solution to that. Tim tried lifting the motor and only succeeded in bending the rod keeping it in line with the boat.

Most of the photos from the day are useless sadly as the camera got stuck in macro mode. However, we were really, really pleased with the bimini, it gives a significant amount of shade and really makes sailing a lot easier.

Yes, that's petrol in the cans at the stern of the yacht. We don't want petrol inside the hull, and we really need to make a petrol locker sometime... hopefully by the end of next season we will have a reliable inboard, so it won't be so necessary. Watch this space!

After about a hour the wind came up to 5 knots so we sailed out towards Cape Pila. Then it rose to 10-11 knots and we were sailing beautifully. Tim made lunch and we, that is me, Tim, Sidney, Maria and Melvyn enjoyed a tuna sandwich.

The autopilot was misbehaving again, didn't hold the course we expected and to get it to hold course to wind we had to set it then click the +10 degrees button, then it did hold course to wind perfectly. Also had to increase the sensitivity of the drive.

Then the wind picked up some more... 16 knots gusting 19 knots. and dying down so the gusts were quite significant. We were slightly concerned that if it picked up more and we had to wait till 19:00 or 20:00 for calmer weather we would be rentering the marina at night. Not something we want to do yet.

So we reluctantly turned for home.

We don't have lazy jacks on the booms yet, so we had to unzip the bimini to drop the main sail. It all worked perfectly. Not neat, but worked.

Then we motored into the marina and moored. Peter was on the quayside to take the lines. This was the first time that I did a perfect mooring... practice makes perfect. We need many more of these to build up experience.

Then a coffee. We have a wonderful device for making coffee, sort of like an espresso but not quite. Sitting under the bimini sipping really good coffee... this is the life!