Woke at 05H00 - neighbours awake too. Yanni slept in. Let's get cracking, according to the echo sounder there's 10cm beneath the keel. Cast off bow - I let slip the stern. Done.

Traffic lights on red - dredger in front of the entrance. Bugger. Did 360s for a while - slowly. God motored up to say goodbye. Exchanged pleasantries. Got fed up - Port Control: I'm sure we can squeeze by. OK, on your way then. Thanks.

Once we cleared the breakwaters - the moment of truth - engage autopilot. And Snorky was back in business. For all of 30 seconds. Something's wrong, very wrong. Switch off, back on. Same again, helms OK for half a minute and then just switches himself off. Back where we started.

To boot - no wind. Motoring and hand helming. Not exactly my idea of fun. Seven hours of boredom later and we have just cleared the main TSS. Fuel level in 'reserve' - will we get there? Then, as by miracle: wind. Phew, finished with engines. Let's do some sailing. Ten to twelve knots of wind. Not exactly going like a train, but sailing all the same.





Sailed all the way from the TSS to Rough Towers, past Sealand and Cork Sands to Landguard. Don't mind hand helming one bit when we're sailing. It improved my mood no end. Dropped the sails just past Landguard - too close to the wind. Motored up to our mooring and once again Brigitte parked the boat like a pro. With Yanni's help, I picked up the buoy at the first attempt.

To recap, the engine ran a lot smoother but the autopilot's still OOO. I'll try to recalibrate alongside next week. The bilges are dryer than they were. So, a partial result, of sorts. Sometimes it feels like the boat is falling apart faster than I can afford to fix her.