It's been a long time since I updated my blog, so firstly I must apologize for this. I've had one very busy year (which is no excuse I know) but I'm now making a much better effort to get the Blogs back on track.

Here's where we're up to with boats. Spindrift is my Pandora 22 fibreglass cruiser / racer. She's currently lying on a drying mooring in Holbrook Creek on the River Stour and will be up for sale in March. I need to tidy up a few bits and pieces here and there before she goes on the market. The reason I'm selling Spindrift after many years of enjoyable sailing is to make space for new ventures. My family have recently bought a well known Essex Sailing Smack called 'Lillibullero' she is of wood construction built in 1932, is 43ft long and will need serious upkeep. My dad has kept hold of 'Amber' his wooden sailing open boat, and 'Awol' our family smacks boat. 'Awol' is just a small traditional sailing dinghy, much like what you would see in the film swallows and amazons. So as things stand we have 4 sailing boats on our hands and Spindrift is the one to go.

Lillibullero is laid up in the yard at Foxs Marina as we speak, and we've got a couple of areas of hardwood to replace, which my Dad is working on. I've stripped back all the varnish on Amber and varnished all the spars in the workshop. I will re-paint the topsides and varnish the rubbing strakes when the outside temperature gets a bit higher. Then it's going to be all hands to the deck with Antifoul and rollers to cover Lillibullero's massive underside below the waterline.

Will get some more photo's during daylight hours, and another update for you soon. In the meantime, this is what the Orwell bridge looks like from Lilli's cockpit on a cold winters day, destined for lifting out at Foxs Marina

Clive

So the leak in the back of Spindrift seems to be holding out ok, its letting in a small amount of water over a period of time, but nothing too major. So I decided to do some racing...

A couple of weekends ago myself, Annie, and Josh took part in the RHS Rally 2010. This is an event organised by the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook Boat Owners Association, and the Old Gaffers Association. Basically, it's a tour around the school, with lunch. Then a few sailing races, and a fishing competiton, followed by a BBQ on wrabness beach. Quite a nice day out on the river actually, only bummer is High Tide was at 23:45 that day so it was gonna be a late night trip back onto Spindrift's drying mooring :(

We went over to Wrabness, it was blowing fairly hard that day. Easterly. The race instructions said I was to cross the line at wrabness, leave Holbrook Beacon to Starboard, rounding 'Ramsey' Starboard buoy off shotley, leaving Holbrook Beacon to port on the way back. I was tempted to reef the main, but decided not to because no-one else did. There was about 8 of us at the start line and most of them had been timing their starts for a while before hand. I was un-prepared as usual, and Phil from the committe boat kindly handed me some instructions about 5 minutes before the start. Annie and Josh were huddled in the cabin keeping an eye on the clock start (the weather wasn't to thier taste) so I was pretty much single-handed. Somehow I slipped into the front of the pack, started to harden up, and crossed the line on the start exactly. The boat 1 metre in front of us went early, and had to do a 720 turn. We were off.

I was a dead beat up to Holbrook Beacon, against the wind, but tide was pushing us hard. we averaged 6 knots over the ground with the tide. Smashing through the waves I got pretty wet, and i was sailing a bit too close, but it made things a bit more confortable and it just 60 mins, we'd come around 'Ramsey' and were making our way back.

Initially I wanted to fly the kite to get us home, but in the single-handed situation I decided that was a bad idea. The last thing I wanted was a blown out spinnaker. So I goose winged her back to the finish line, staying in as shallow water aas possible, because now we were fighting against the tide. We came back to Holbrook Beacon...left it to port. A point for the finish line put us on a beam / broad reach. Now we were flying. 6 knots over ground, against 2 knots of tide! Spindrift was surfing with the waves and the boat behind us was at least 1 mile behind. We crossed the finish line, got well off the course, and ran aground. typical. It gave me an oppurtunity to get the sails down! :)

I knew we'd get heavily handi-capped as we came first the year before, but somehow we still managed to bag first place. Not a bad performance from Spindrift at all.

BBQ on the shore was nice, sunset from Wrabness is always a pleasure, despite the mud. Journey back across Holbrook was as calm as a sheet of glass, and evetually after lots of waiting and trying, we managed to scrape Spindrift back onto her mooring about midnight.

Must get that leaky transome fixed before the end of the summer!

So it turns out the boat didn't come out of the water. She was supposed to come out on monday, and go back in on thursday, ready for the trafalgar day race on saturday. However this was not the case...

I get a phone call from the marina on Monday saying that because of staffing problems, they couldn't lift her out until wednesday. No good for me. I cannot do 1 weeks worth of work, in 24 hours. So I told them to leave her in the water, and I'd come and take her back to Holbrook as soon as I could.

I'm a bit dissapointed by this, because it means that the leaky back end will continue to fester in the back of my mind, until it's been fixed solid.

I suppose sometimes, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Will have to book her in again, later in the year.

So it turns out to be a thursday evening sail back to the mooring in Holbrook, ready for Saturday's race. This time, it's not single-handed. Annie has come with me which is nice, because it means I get to play around with lots of sails while Annie does the hard work! :)

After some weeks debating the leaky transom I've decided it's time to get Spindrift out of the water and re-build the offending fibreglass.

She's booked in for a 1 week lift out with Shotley Marina, and the new rudder pins have been made. I just need to learn a thing or two about how to fibreglass and apply gelcoat :|

The Sunday afternoon sail up the Stour was a doddle. Northerly winds meant it was a one tack beam reach all the way to Shotley. Averaging 5 knots most of the time under Genoa. A nice easy single-handed sail.

The new forward looking sonar seemed to work quite well, I used it to stay on the edge of the shipping lane. Good sail all round.

My parents have been sailing for most of their life, so natrually I have been sailing for as long as I can remember. My first resposibility was to be dads 'First Mate' aboard Amber at the age of about 7 and my older brother Ashley was the 'Engineer' (He got more enjoyment out of firing up the seagull outboard)

18 years later, and here I am...

My mum and dad still sail 'Amber' every year. I've had a mirror dinghy, topper, 18 foot crusier, and now I'm lucky enough to own Spindrift. She's a 22ft Van De Stadt Pandora. Bermudan rigged masthead sloop, on a fin keel. We've raced her a couple of times, but mainly cruise the East Coast.

This winter just gone I've done some work on the transom. The rudder mountings put too much pressure on the fibreglass when she sat in the mud and caused a few cracks. I've added some hardwood blocks either side of the transom to reinforce the area, but it really needs new fibreglass.

I need to replace the pushpit, solder up a few electrical joints, replace the alternator electrical plug, service the masthead nav lights, and fit the new sonar fish finder.

Hopefully when I've done all these jobs, she'll be in good shape for another seasons sailing.

Although very muddy, the River Stour at Holbrook can be a place of Beauty...

It's the start of the sailing seaon in 2010, and feeling as though my online presence has slipped dramatically in the last 2 years, and my time spent on the water, I've decided to start blogging my sailing antics for anyone who may be interested to know what the joy of sailing brings.

So, here's to a new project! I hope you get as much enjoyment out of reading my blog entries, as what I do writing them.

Clive