why have we had so much fun?

Well this video will show you. It is long, around 45 minutes, but if  you watch only the first 10 minutes you will get the picture. It has been exciting stuff!

Pushed for time? Then perhaps the abridged version of what can only be described as a day of pushing it to the limit.....day 7 the final winner takes all fleet race with wind speeds in excess of 25 kts!

Comm'on folks........secretly.......wouldn't you have loved to just be here with us to have seen some of this stuff live?

And guess what.........there is talk that they MIGHT bring it back to Plymouth again because they have so enjoyed themselves......oh yeah.......BRING IT ON.........Arwen and I challenge  Oracle 5 to a head to head match race....winner takes the prize...........a packet of gummy bears!



I'm in the middle of editing just a few short video clips of what I saw and will post this week.

In the meantime Arwen is under wraps on the drive. I'm hoping for a break in the weather so that we can get a voyage in before the winter gales arrive.......er - delete that last sentence.......what am I thinking?  They have arrived and with a vengeance too.  

I'm off to the boat jumble this weekend  with a shopping list of things including

• some stainless steel bolts of various sizes with nuts and washers for 'Stacey' our Motovespa 125 super 1971 Father/Son restoration
• some long narrow cushions to put onto the thwart back panels because they can be rather hard on long voyages as I discovered on the way to Fowey, especially if you wear just a life jacket and not a padded buoyancy aid
• some little turn stud button thingies which will push through the holes at each corner of aforementioned cushions, so securing them to the thwart sides
• to talk to a man what does interesting things with canvas - could he make me a cheapo canvas tent and simple frame for Arwen?  And then can he sell me some sensibly priced canvas to make some canvas flaps which will press in to those stud thingies - to be placed across the oval holes in Arwen's thwart backrests. In the rain - they get water in them and so anything stored in these areas under the deck gets wetter than it should. I noticed that Steve on Spartina has such a canvas flap somewhere to protect an area where I think he keeps his radio and ditty box.
• a trailer clamp of some form to attach the spare tyre to the trailer in such a way that it is out of the way and also padlockable
• to talk to a man who is an electronics expert - can we install an aerial on the mast which plugs into my new handheld VHF, in order to extend its range - feasible? practical? needed?

And then there is the Bacon butty and latte coffee; the normal chat and donation to the RNLI people; a good nose and rummage around peoples stalls and car boots; the excitement at the fishing tackle stall (what's new; what's catching; all those rubber and plastic lures to marvel at!!!!!). There will be the 'I can't believe you have the cheek to sell that broken down crock of an outboard to some mug who will buy it without seeing it working - dur!" stall run by some very dodgy looking gent; the guy who sells discount paints (with a 1902 sell by date scratched off the tins....so do look hard before you buy!). There is the rope seller (very fair prices and excellent quality); the epoxy people (ditto about advice and prices) and then the general public who are selling whatever didn't get used this season....they bought it on a whim and realised over the summer it was next to useless and so now they want to pass it on to me! You know the kind of thing I mean.......the mooring pole that extends and has one of those hook contraptions which pushes your warp through the mooring buoy loop and returns it back to you but then fails to release itself from the actual mooring buoy so that as your boat goes by.....you, reluctant to let go of the expensive contraption.....get pulled overboard (you can tell I've been there, done it and got the cap badge.....just don't ask)!
We'll queue to get in, have a chat, chew the cud and have a moan about the price of marinas; there will be gossip about the Americas Cup including the heated debate about whether multihull sailing and this new fangled approach to the cup is in fact real sailing......the mono hull boys will, I'm sure, reflect nostalgically on the days when big hulled boats competed for it, using a handicap system no one understood, out in the offshore waters where nobody saw what was going on......

us dinghy cruising boys, a solitary and hardened breed, will recognise each other from our weather beaten tanned faces with a haunted expression on them. we will gather in little clusters in little corners and share horror stories.........."Honest to God mate, force 8 , bouncing up and down like a YoYo and I met my vomit on the way back up the wave crest"

I can't wait - I love the Newton Abbott boat jumble - it is fun, quaint, quirky and good value.  Roll on Saturday!

Steve