Author: webcraft

At 1900 we slipped Ardglass and set off towards the Scillies. Wind was 4kts from the South with a lot of swell, then picked up to 12kts from the NW. By eight o’clock we had the engine off and the main up.

It soon became obvious that all was not well. We were on a beam reach in 12-14 knots of wind the  on port tack and there was massive weather helm and slow, even ponderous helm response. Better on starboard, but not great. We sailed on for a bit, tacked a couple of times and sailed round in circles while we discussed the issue. Finally at 21.30 we decided not to continue with the boat in this trim and set off beating back to Ardglass, getting in in the dark and coming alongside at 23.25 feeling greatly disheartened and thinking we would have to return home to fix the boat.

Darren said he would look at the rig in the morning and generally gave us a bit of a morale boost. Drink was taken.

Saturday 8th August

The next day we took one of the toggles out of the rigging to move the top of the mast forward, and tightened the forward lowers and slackened the aft lowers slightly to take the middle of the mast forward and so decrease the draft of the mainsail. We also moved the first reefing line considerably further aft and lowered the boom slightly on its track on the mast.

At 15.45 on Saturday 8th August we slipped Ardglass and went out for a test sail. Although still a little heavy on the helm, the boat performed well – and equally well – on botrh tacks, pointing well in 18 kts apparent wind without excessive heel. She also responded well to the helm on other points of sail, and it was decided there and then that Darren was a genius and the voyage could continue.

(Though I am now of the opinion that the mainsail on this boat must be treated with considerable respect. Although it is a fairly new Jeckells sail it is too big for the boat – seems whoever ordered it measured the full hoist and used that for the luff measurement, then took the full length of the boom minus a couple of inches as the foot measurement. The sail is also a little deep-drafted (or ‘nacho-shaped’ as Darren put it). Pulling the first reef well back and lowering the boom has improved the sail shape a lot, and the rigging adjustments have made the weather helm liveable with – though it remains to be seen how the autohelm and navik will handle it.

Back to Ardglass again for a good night’s rest and a planned 11am departure in the morning.

Quite a lot of boat work, but also time for some wandering about. Refilled diesel, ran out of gas and had to buy two cylinders at the usual extortionate UK price, bought a 20l water container after discovering the flexi-tank on Avy-J only holds 30 litres, showers and laundry.

Went to the weirdest shop/exhibition ever and got our pictures taken on the Iron Throne, spent a lot of time looking over the wall at the fishing harbour watching the alarming swell in the entrance and saying well, we’re not going out in that.

Not a lot of social distancing going on in Ardglass, and apparently NI is having a wee Covid-19 spike. was still hoping to go down the Irish coast, so phoned Howth and Dunleary. Not only do they not want us, they apparently do not even want British yachts in their inshore waters in case we infect their lifeboat crews!

Nearly went to Holyhead on the 6th, but decided to wait and go straight to the Scillies (with a possible pull-in at Milford Haven) when the Northerlies set in on Friday.

We slipped Glenarm at 07.05, only five minutes after the plan, and motorsailed South with the tide giving us a cuple of knots and more at times. I made tea and toast for me and Darren while Catherine snoozed on in the forepeak. We passed Hunters Rock at 08.30 making 7kts over the ground, and were soon sailing across the mouth of Belfast Lough. It would have been nice to go into Bangor and see our friends Eilish and Ric, but we had a tide to carry and places to be.

As expected, we lost the tide as we came out of the bottom of Donaghadee Sound at 10.45, but it was neaps and we stayed close inshore to the Ards peninsula and made better time than expected. Very lumpy going across the mouth of Strangford Lough, then it was the familiar sight of the water tower and so into this wonderfully sheltered little marina, mooring up just before seven o’clock.

The forecast is showing strong Southerlies, so we are likely to be here for a few days.

We dropped the mooring at Gigha just after twelve midday and meandered to the Mull with a mix of sailing, motoring and motor-sailing. There was still substantial weather helm in the gusts (max 18kts) even with one reef in.

We dodged a tanker as we scraped across the top of the Mull of Kintyre TSS. Darren saw a vertically leaping shark (allegedly) and a pilot whale. Catherine and I missed these, but saw a pod of porpoises.

We were alongside Glenarm at 20.45, no-one around but we borrowed a gate fob off another boat so we could visit the facilities. Chicken curry and an early night as we had decided on an early start in the morning.

We parked up the car and walked down to the boatyard. At the shop we met Chris and Ruth, who offered us a lift in the back of the van. We gratefully accepted, but said we had to go and see Tim and Jenny first. They gave us a wonderful present for the trip: a bottle of Nights Watch, Oban Distillery’s latest signature edition, and the world’s smallest jigsaw. Then it was into the back of Chris and Ruth;s van for a lift to the boatyard.

Rowing out to Avy-J in Balvicar Bay for  the last time, we were pleased that we could leave the dinghy on the mooring – Bill had promised to retrieve it and stash it at Hitler’s Bunker. (Seil water rats will know where this is).

We dropped the mooring at 13.45 and motored over to Craobh to meet up with Darren, our friend, boatbuilder and crew for the next four weeks. At Craobh I changed the engine oil, Darren fitted the new batteries and we filled the water tank.Finally at 17.35 we slipped Craobh and the advewnture began.

Cutting inside the McCormack Isles to get a bit of tide we were disappointed to  find that in fact we had tide against us – a funny bit of water, that. Wind was pretty much on the nose all the way to Ardminish Bay,  rising from 2kts to about 15 at times.This was to be the first of a lot of motoring over the next couple of weeks!

We picked up a mooring in Ardminish Bay, Gigha, a bit after midnight and celebrated the first passage with a wee dram of Nights Watch.

Check out the new stack pack in the header above!

July 2020 and it’s three years since we bought Avy-J – three years of work, expense and disappointment as we have postponed our departure date twice then faced coronavirus, a poorly cat and health issues. Not to mention Brexit.

But now we have a boat that is ready to go, a new home for the cat and a willing and able crew member to share the hard work of taking the boat to Portugal. The boat is fully equipped for the trip and we are pretty much ready to go. There is a last chance feel about it; if we get the boat there before the end of the year it will be an EU boat, deemed VAT registered, which is something, and I intend to look into Portuguese residence as a way out of the Brexit nightmare.

Normally we would route down the Irish coast, to Dublin, Kilmore Quay and so to the Scillies, but Ireland is still closed to ‘foreign’ yachts, so the plan at the moment is Ardglass then across to Holyhead.

Just need a sweet run of Northerlies to see us down the Irish Sea, but at the moment Windy is showing a huge low pressure system for the end of next week that could postpone our departure for a few days.

Wish us luck and watch this space.

One of the pre-departure jobs was to finally fit the Lofrans Royal manual windlass we got at a bargain price last year. Many thanks once again to Darren Taylor of Mainsail Marine for his help with this. The job involved cutting the anchor locker lid and using the aft section to effectively extend the deck and mount the windlass. The tricky bit was leaving the forward (opening) part big enough to be able to stow the 9Kg Knox anchor inside the locker on passage.

Ten days later we set off on what was intended to be a more extensive sea trial. We got as far as Tobermory, but the weather turned grim and we retreated back to Balvicar via a night in Lochaline. Not a lot of sailing, but the engine ran perfectly. One incident where it did not go into gear, but otherwise it performed flawlessly.

Our first trip was up to Oban for a couple of days on the pontoons there sorting things out. Darren spent a night on board and helped us with various things, plus a bit of socialising. Most fun was trying out our new cruising chute, least fun was when the engine wouldn’t go into gear just off the entrance to the marina. The jury is out on whether or not this is due to worn clutch cones or we just need to adjust idle setting and morse cable more carefully.

Finally, two years after we bought her, Avy-J goes back in the water. The engine started, no water came in, and we left her on the mooring looking good.