Here’s where the Captain will journal her thoughts on why the fluff we’re doing this insane thing…(alcohol may have been involved…)

Leaving America

Do things ever go to plan when sailing? Probably not! The plan had been to leave our slip at Severn Yatching Center mid July, sailing up the east coast stopping at New York and then Boston. Well surprise, surprise, that didn’t happen. Why I hear you ask, well let me tell you gentle reader (too much Bridgerton I hear you cry). We had a minor drama with our stay sail, the bottom line being you can’t repair a dead sail. The fabric was just too far gone and a replacement was needed. For any of you sailors reading this you will know that getting a new sail at this time of year quickly is like hunting unicorns. You know they are out there but you just can’t get one quickly. I was getting quotes of 6 to 8 ⎌months for a new sail and when you have to leave in 6 to 8 weeks that just wasn’t going to fly. As you do, I put out a message asking for advice on the FB Irwin sail page for advice as the fab Bacon sails in Annapolis were not able to help. I was put on to a new sail loft ‘Black Dog Sail Loft’ and the very helpful Sebastian not only turned a sail around in 6 weeks but also offered advice on other canvas repairs I was completing. We navigated the different sewing terms from UK to USA and a new sail was produced and delivered. 

We were delayed in moving out ‘marching out’ of our house just because cleaning, splitting your kit into three different options (sailing, small holiday and returning to the UK) in order to have enough clothes until your packing arrives which takes between 6-12 weeks depending on the gods.

So rather then arriving on Thursday to leave Friday, we didn’t leave the marina until Tuesday. And that my friends put paid to our stops in Boston and New York. Now we were in a race to get to Halifax to meet crew by the end of July. Those of you who sail, knew that sailing to a schedule is not the way to go but when you have no choice you have to get on with it. What it means is that you you end up doing your shake down sail en-route, again not the way to do it! 

We had to leave SYC at high tide due to the depth of our keel. For those who don’t sail, high tide happens every 12 hours, so we had leave at either 2pm or 2am, personally I don’t much like sailing out of a narrow channel at night so 2pm it was. We anchored in the bay and this is where we started the list of what didn’t work this time!

We found that our windlass wasn’t working. The windlass is required to pull up the main anchor and believe me on a boat of this size, you can’t pull up the anchor by hand! Fingers crossed it was just the contacts that had rusted through lack of use. So the ‘lunch hook’ was chucked over and luckily held. Then started the jobs that we hadn’t had time to complete before leaving the dock. The first thing we had to fix was the screens or the dodger as it’s called here in the USA. And that’s when the first issue came up. Previously we had fitted solar panels to the bimini but what I hadn’t taken into account was how the weight would affect the bimin screens, bottom line they look like they are too short so we can’t fit the final fittings. We have attached them so we do have screens which is kind of essential for us and by putting up the bimini surround, we have sufficient rigidity for them to work for the moment. I have got all the material to create the new bimini but I have some ideas of how to improve the design so it’s not a disaster. So positive we have screens for the upcoming visit and ideas of how to improve the bimini with the solar panels attached.

The second ‘issue, we discovered the autopilot didn’t work, although we have a Hydrovane (wind powered autopilot) it isn’t always the best for coastal sailing and there is nothing more tiring then hand steering for the entire passage. So a romantic evening ensued of wire wiggling (get out of the gutter, our kids are on board!) to determine where the power cables for the autopilot went and determine if they were connected correctly. This was our hope because anything more complex with the autopilot would have been beyond our capabilities to fix while at anchor. Results, after a sweaty 30 minutes, the autopilot was fixed! 

While the boys attached the main sail, I started sewing with my trusty sail rite machine, I replaced some rotten stitching that we didn’t know about on the existing dodger and sewed the jack lines (safety attachment points). After a sweaty nights sleep we left the following morning. Btw we do have AC but it’s not working right now, even through we were next to an AC repair guy in the marina who offered to repair it but we ran out of time! Seems to be the story of our trip at the moment.

Day 1 on passage – motoring out of the Chesapeake

Basically the title just about covers it, we motored out.

Over night was tiring, getting back into a 3 hour watch system, especially with the heat was hard work. We had quartering seas which means the boat is ‘rolls’ and it’s not the most pleasant way to motor or sail. With the combination of running the generator, I was the first to succumb to seasickness.

As with any passage, it’s not if anything will break but when. The first to go was the mail halyard to come out. Luckily that was quite a quick and simple fix. One of the zip ties was missing. The second and more note worthy was the topping lift giving was on the main. The design is a bit different (read into that stupid) and the a piece of metal connecting it failed, so all hands on deck at 3am to fix it. Then the locking nuts holding the solar panels decided to throw themselves out just for fun at the same time. So another fun hour spent dangling over the bimini to reattach the solar panels!

For the first time, the second time the topping lift failed was a different block failed on a different part of the topping lift (sigh) so that means a very tired following day with lots of people sleeping all over the place (cockpit, cabins, wherever you could find a cool place to sleep).

Day 2

Day 2 was spent trying to find items we new were on the boat but no idea where we had put them! The first to be relocated was ‘Kuflua’ the soft toy squid that our youngest had bought to decorate his cabin, was located he was much happier. Just to find our RYA log books, kind of important to prove we have done all the courses we have said we have before we start our further sailing education in the next months.

Joys of night watches 

We do 3 hour night watches when we are on passage. That’s about all the time I can manage, it takes time to get into the routine and inevitable by the time you are in the routine you have come to the end of the passage. So the simple way to describe a passage is tiring. I tend to get through with audio books but disaster has occurred on this trip, my lightening adaptor is broken so I am only getting sound intermittently and my back up iPhone head phones are just not loud enough. Tomorrow I will hunt out an other pair but now just trying to get through the night…12-3:….

Well gentle reader, it all goes tits up on the night watch. Why can’t it ever be a simple 3 hours listening to something pleasant and straight to bed? So what happened this time I hear you ask, well there was an intermittent smell of burning wire. Initially I wasn’t sure if I was imaging it or it was really. By the end of my watch I was convinced it was there. So as we handed over we had a look in the usual places and couldn’t see anything. Then checked the engine bay, oh shit, it was smoking! So turned it off and up go the sails. Need to leave it to cool down while we have the adventure of trying to raise the mizzen in the dark with a rolling sea. If you think that sounds hard and unpleasant then you are spot on. If you are not dead into the wind on this boat, the track cars stick and it’s a bloody nightmare to pull the sail up. Clipping on points are not optimal and when the main gives you a ‘friendly clip around the head’ and sends your glasses flying that’s when you decide you really want to go home and this isn’t for you. But instead you put your big girl pants on and help try and sort the reefing pendant so that you’ve only got the sail out that you want. Romantically bracing your other half so he can scare himself shitless threading the reefing line back through the eyelet on the sail. An hour later you collapse back in bed to snatch your 3 hours before back on watch. For once there is a breeze and you can get some sleep

Morning – sails, generators and engines

Since the engine is potentially knackered we need to sail. Well it is a sail boat after all. But as with everything at the moment, it’s not straight forward. The lazy jack lines are tangled in the sail battens so a bit of defying dangling and flicking to get the sail free. Swop the stay sail for the Genoa, collapsing in the cockpit, knackered.

Refreshments and fruit and deciding how to manage the latest issues. We will need a marine mechanic to have a look at the generator and potentially the engine. For the moment, we sail on to Rhode Island….

New York, Baby!

After studying the charts, it became clear that getting into any anchorage on Rhode Island under sail was going to be difficult. We’re still learning the sail handling on this boat. A ketch sails very differently to a sloop and when you combine that with a long keel and not yet being 100% with the set up, putting yourself into a difficult anchorage isn’t the smartest idea

Plan B – hang a left into New York, obviously

I know it sounds crazy with New York being a busy industrial port but when we evaluated the wind and potential anchorage that we could sail into, New York had a number of options. So another long night sail, this time doing a couple of hours on and off, sleeping in the cockpit to be there if help was needed, for example when your reefing line decides it doesn’t want to be attached to the sail anymore.

Sailing in, we rolled back the Genoa and I was tempted to put a reef in the main but surprisingly she pointed up into the wind fairly well (she can be a pig to tack if not in the mood). I was persuaded to not reef, especially as she had levelled up. So we headed through the TSSs to reach the anchorage where we would contact friends for advise on local mechanics and do what we all do, Google them and their reviews. Fingers crossed!

Foot notes:

Whoever says night watches are enjoyable is lying. Everyone is tired, kids are anxious and if you’ve given them your phone to listen to an audio book to keep them calm then you’re left with nothing but staring out to sea, obsessively looking at navionics and praying for the time to pass quickly. Hourly chart readings become a thing to look forward to rather then listening to squeaks and groans from the boat which make you start to think; what will break next.

New York at anchor and planning

Skipper has managed to decalcify the engine heat exchanger and resealed the valves, so fingers crossed it cures overnight and we will be back on the road/sea again. Back up plans in place as always, list of marinas to ring, Towboat US on speed dial to get us in to said marinas (seriously love Towboat US, wonder if Europe has an equivalent?). Now to get some food, clean up and sleep. Testing of the streaming abilities and newly installed TV, drop an ice cube in the wine to chill it off, sorted.

Leaving anchorage – the drama continues

So the anchorage was more ‘rolly’ then anticipated, huge anchorage and we were the only ones there, I think we have worked out why! Fortunately the windlass managed to pull the anchor up without issue, which when you’re on a rolly anchorage can be a challenge if your anchor has held well and ours had. So no problems I hear you say, sails up and off you go? Silly reader, of course not. Voyager likes to test us, CONSTANTLY! As we motored out, there felt like there was something catching on the throttle, there was, a shed load of random cables had wrapped around the propeller shaft and needed to be freed. Not easy when the thing is spinning, oh and the engine chose that moment to overheat. Some frantic work by the skipper to free everything off meant he managed to injure himself by skinning his shin when he nearly feel down the companion way as he has taken the steps of to access the engine bay.  You may ask why there are random wires dangling in the engine bay, well remember this is a forty year boat and we haven’t yet managed to work out what and where all the cables go. Some of the older disconnected cables have just been left in place or randomly cut, some were still live. We’ve had fun playing boat sized games of ‘operation’ with me holding a wooden broom ready to flick the skipper of whatever potentially live wire he’s been trying to remove. 

Anyway back to the issue at hand, no power (engine), sails up but prop spinning, trying to hold steady a position so the prop doesn’t spin whilst wires are removed, without fingers also being removed. Oh, did I mention we were also being pushed on to rocks by the tide while this was going on? No, just another jolly fact to throw in there. I should say this is the less stressful trip we’ve had on this boat so far. If you want to read real thrills, read the delivery trip when I finish it. It’s taken me a while as it was f@#£&ing scary but my view of risk has changed significantly since/because of then.

Remarkably quickly with all body parts still in tact, the skipper emerged and we continued to sail onwards. Emergency sugary sweets deployed to help everyone deal with the shock and we continue onwards to our destination of Newport to check out of the USA and onwards to Canada.

Journey to Newport

I write this at 6.48am as we motor towards Newport. Overnight wasn’t too bad, we again had rolling seas and confused winds which meant we had to ditch the sails and motor as we only had 1.5 knots boat speed. Some spectacular lighting shows around us which fortunately didn’t come over head. Nothing scarier then being in a lightning storm in a sailing boat with a 67ft mast and no one else around. All electronics that can fit, rammed in the microwave. Another 8-10 hours and we will be in Newport…

Wickford Cove Habour

Lovely night spent in Wickford Cove marina, a long slep up the river but the marina was nice with a short walk to a nice restaurant. Took us a few moments to work out the dock location in a very narrow channel. For the skipper, not for the rest of us, the instructions seemed pretty clear, the one next to the fuel pontoon (also the only one with no boat on it). Expertly executed hand break turn by the skipper once located, quick docking expertly executed by the dock crew even if I do say so myself. We all hit the showers straight away, showers or rather the quality of the showers are a big talking point when cruising, they make a big difference. There is the obvious, is it clean and is there sufficient hot water but then theres the added, is there enough hooks for your clean clothes. Possibly it’s a female thing but I do like a good shower area and these were fantastic! Then we walked into town for a later dinner, good food and nice conversation with the boys. 

Heading to Canada!

This was only to be a quick stop unfortunately as we need to be in Halifax to meet people. The morning after a really good nights sleep was focused on completing essentials, coolant for the engine, buying fresh food (sneaky coffee at the shops whilst the kids slept) and I did the laundry while the boys sorted the boat out ready to leave. Back down the river under motor allowed time for a very late lunch before putting the sails up to go round Martha’s Vineyard. We decided to go through the unlit channels so the plan was for Leo to take the first watch, supported by Sam so we could sleep and both be on deck for this rather scary bit of navigation but obviously you can’t sleep! 

Too busy worrying about the boys on watch, actually watching and not looking at phones/iPads and worry about going through an unlit passage with rocks! The passage went fine although, OMG a lot of tide pushing us sideways which had to be negotiated so off I went to bed while the skipper took the first 3 hour watch and I went to bed. Slept like the dead! 

Arriving on watch to take over I had the briefest of handover as the skipper now resembled a leading character in the walking dead. “Go south, don’t hit anything” was the instruction before he scuttled of to bed. The don’t hit anything referred to a huddle of boats who had all positioned/ anchored themselves right where I wanted to go, how rude! 

So a slightly stressful first half of watch while I navigated through them, making sure my intentions were clear. Then unfortunately had to wake the skipper for a quick consultation as to whether I could cross in to a specific area. After that all clear sailing as we pootle across Nantucket Shoals, avoiding the low water! Skipper turns up to take over the watch at 5 looking worse then when he went off watch. I’m feeling surprisingly ok so I let him go back to bed for another hour, I’m a trooper like that 😉

Releasing the dragon

Quite a pleasant day, massive push from the tide has given us really good speed even through under engine as the winds were too light to sail. However, once they picked up, it gave us time to deploy the dragon for the first. That’s our spinnaker, it’s a massive Welsh flag which is rather cool! It made the skipper rather happy as you can see by the picture. 

The weather picked up in the evening, when it hit 7 knots consistently, it was time to bring the dragon down. White sails back up and a consistent 6 knots, after dinner the eldest is on watch for a few hours with strict instructions to call if the wind increases, which unsurprisingly it did. As the wind increased we made a decision to bring the Genoa and main down and switch to jib and jigger. On went the engine to bring the boat into wind…..turn the key and nothing happened. Down to the engine bay goes the skipper, I turn the key as he watches the engine, “STOP!,” the starter motor has become detached! Well, it made for an interesting time getting the sails down, the sails on this boat are huge so take a bit of man handling, especially as they are coming to the end of life, the track car sticks and the battens of the sails tend to catch on the lazy jack lines. Basically they are a bugger to get up and down and will shortly be replaced with either mast furling or a new track system. The new connected spreader lights “otherwise known as “Blackpool Illuminations”  (footnote for none Brits, it’s a seaside town in the UK which puts up lights in a theme for the public to drive through, for most kids from the north, its a tradition to do it several times during your childhood.) provided enough light to easily see what we are doing. Even while clipped on you are banged back and forth while trying to complete the task. After successfully getting the main down and tying a couple of sail ties to ensure the main didn’t decide to go back up, all was done. Down to the skipper to get us back on course, so, he did some fancy sailing, tacking is the usual option but this boat doesn’t tack well when not completely balanced so a bit of a gebe. Now I’m back on watch, 70M heading to Canada, 257 NM to go…

We took it slowly to get into the marina as we were under motor and didn’t really want to go in to an unfamiliar setting in the dark. It was just me and the Skipper on deck at in the early hours as we motored in, for once I was on the helm all the way. In a rather professional manuerve I took the boat to mooring buoy first time and the skipper was able to catch and tie us on. The Skipper rarely does these menial tasks these days so meaning I don’t get as much helm time and I was quite impressed and pleased with myself, which I took pleasure in telling him. My exact words were ‘I am fu£$ing amazing’, to which he wisely responded, ‘yes, you are darling’. 

Besides our time being extremely limited in Halifax due to the race to get there for the skipper to meet the crew who would be sailing across the Atlantic with him, there wasn’t really time to experience the local sites. We did have a few hours to watch a local seal swimming up and down the river; listening to his breathing before he dove into the water was amazing. After checking into the country with the Canadian Border Force, it was time for myself and the boys to disembark. We were not staying for the Atlantic crossing due to a combination of a reluctant sailor (The Cruise Director), having to renew a passport, get all our possessions that have been storage for the past three years and other admin things. It is very stressful leaving your boat, which is everything you financially have in the world, to people you have never met and who’s sailing experience you don’t know. Would we do that again? Probably not without a great deal more vetting and commitment to learn the boat. You may think we were naive but sometimes situations arise and you lose control. I’ll leave the story of the Atlantic crossing to the Skipper, I just provided land support, cross checking weather, huracanie warning etc and dealt with the kids ;0)

Return to Voyager

I haven’t journaled (sorry I can’t call it blogging) in so long, this is probably going to be a little chaotic and jumbled but it should be interesting so stick with me. The ‘stuff’ that has happen couldn’t have been thought of or made up, it just ‘happened’.

We pick up the tale when my eldest and I flew out to Cork to rejoin the boat and sail her into Milford Haven. Due to time restrictions and the weather, the German crew on Voyager departed and Leo and I flew out to sail her back with the Skipper. Unfortunately they had only made it as far as Agricole and not Cork as planned, so the intrepid replacement crew enjoyed a long taxi ride from the airport to the bay. Leo and I journeyed to Manchester airport, and through a happy coincide (or my travel knowledge gained from my 10 years auditing travel experience, we found ourself happily camped out at the gate which coincidentally became our gate! A rather uneventful flight and pick up by the local taxis driver (who had ferried the Voyager crew to the airport) and we were deposited at the quay side. We were collected by a tired and very ‘piraty’ looking Skipper, dinghyied to the boat were we promptly set sail. To be honest it was quite an uneventful trip across the Irish Sea into Dale but we were just ahead of the weather and that’s were the fun began.

We moored on the Pontoon at Dale, with the ‘Q Flag’ hoisted and contacted Border Control with the expectation that they would come out to the boat to clear us through customs. After abrief phone conversation confirming we were who we said we were and Border Control were happy and didn’t come out to us, bit of a anticlimax to be honest. At this point we should have moved up river (hindsight is a wonderful thing), we knew weather was coming but 1. We were all tried and 2. We thought we would be ‘safe’ (that’s a relative term in sailing) on the pontoon. There is one direction that the wind can come into Dale to make it unpleasant and guess which way the wind was coming! We were being bounced all over the place on the pontoon, even being on the ‘right’ side of the pontoon. There was a small boat on the other side of the pontoon to us and quite frankly I was concerned that it was going to be bounced over the pontoon and onto us. Nerve racking doesn’t quite cover it. We had more then the usual number of lines on the boat to the pontoon but they are only as good as the strength/quality/age of the line as they came with the boat we couldn’t answer any of those questions but they ‘looked’ good. To give perspective the lines for a 52ft boat are 14mm/half an inch in tickness so not light weight but we did have a couple of them snap. For those looking for reassurance, we have now replaced them, Skipper only weaped a little at the cost but reluctantly agreed it was worthwhile. 

During our ‘rest’ on the pontoon we got to watch the RNLI in action, rescuing a yacht that was at anchor and dragged onto the rocks. Quite scary to be honest. Huge respect for the volunteers that help to keep the seas safe.

The kindness of strangers

With no marina space available in either of the marinas in the area (what is considered a small boat in the USA is frankly quite a large boat in the UK, another of those thoughts that hadn’t occurred to either of us), we were extremely lucky to be given the use of a mooring buoy through a friend of a friend (Pembrokeshire is fairly awesome for this kind of thing). 

Looking at the weather we thought we would have to ride it out until Saturday evening/Sunday morning after foolishly having a celebratory breakfast and the skipper going to bed to recover from the crossing. However there was a ray of sunshine, literally! I was in the galley preparing lunch when I looked out to see the wind had dropped and the rain stopped. After quickly sticking my head out of the cockpit, I woke the skipper, telling him I thought we should take the opportunity to move and get to the mooring up the river which we had been assured would be more sheltered. With the skipper in agreement, we jumped into action, dropped the lines and motored up river. We knew we would be mooring at dusk, losing the light, not ideal but preferable to being bounced against a pontoon for 12 hours. 

What followed was quite frankly epic and as always we learnt loads (remembered how to do it correctly?) about picking up a mooring from a very high sided boat. The skipper had some ‘knowledge’ slip but safe to say we managed to get on the mooring but there were some injuries, stretched arms and some nearly squashed/lost fingers. We have since slipped and picked up that mooring several times and made it look much less dramatic and that we actually know what we are doing.

The lack of marina space and the need to complete boats jobs meant I looked at haul out options. Not ideally as we wouldn’t be able to live on the boat but we were in the fortunate situation we did have access to a house. So problem solved, or so we thought…

The first change to plan was when the company hauling us out, phoned to say they needed to delay by a week as the boat occupying the space we were going to go into needed to stay ‘on the hard’ for an additional week waiting for parts to arrive. So another week on the anchor/mooring (I can’t remember which – anchor first I think).

The day of haul out arrived and we trundled down the river to Neyland. The wind and tide were quite strong and not in the direction we wanted and Neyland isn’t a particularly large marina when you are trying to manuever a 52ft boat with other boats coming in and out of the marina and fuel dock. At the time we hadn’t yet got our wireless head phones so there was possibly some talking with attitude using strong words but the skipper got her in to the slip and made her ready to be lifted. 

We started to become wary when there was a lot of muttering from the haul out crew. When they returned with the operations manager we knew things were not going as planned. The bottomline turned out that due to our configuration (Ketch = 2 masts, and a long keel) that without taking of the missen mast (the one at the back) they couldn’t position the slings safely so she wouldn’t swing in the lift and potentially tip. 

That resulted in mild panic on part of the skipper and a series of phone calls on my part to try and get us in any marina space. We had things to do and being at anchor would just make life more difficult. Completing the refit went on hold and just getting the admin we needed to do on land completed to leave was the priority. 

Luckily from our vantage point at the haul out dock I could see Neyland Haven Marina and that was my first call. Luckily they were able to accommodate us straight away. What followed over the next couple of months was moving between Neyland Haven Marina, Penna Gut (anchor) and a mooring ball (Llangwm) while we retrieved all our possessions from storage where it had been for the past three years while we were in the USA, went through it all, repacked and put it back in storage while we sail. Arrange for eye tests for everyone, get new glasses/contacts for those who needed them and complete various RYA training courses. At the end of this period of time we had a certified competent crew who also completed his sea survival course and first aid, a new Yachtmaster Coastal (that would be me) and an RYA Cruising Instructor (that would be the Skipper). 

I completed my Yachtmaster Course in October with UKSA on the Isle of Wight. I still have mixed emotions about it. I can tell you it was a very long week with lots of highs and lows, and I can say tears, which for those who know me well, will tell you that’s really not me. It was one of the hardest things that I have done in a long time. Was I as prepared as I would have wanted to be? Absolutely not! Was there anything I could have done about that, from the theory said possibly, from the practical, due to the turn of events? Probably not. Did I draw on all ‘our adventures’? Absolutely! For those who don’t know, the RYA primarily want to know that you are a safe skipper. During the testing period, which is usually over a weekend, you are monitored/examined constantly but particularly when you are the named skipper for your 8 hour stint. You cover all aspects of sailing and boat management.  I’m rather pleased (and relieved) to say I passed and am now officially a Yachtmaster Coastal. After a rather long break from technical sailing this is a huge personal achievement for me. I can tell you it’s definitely not a participation course, the expectations are high and not all crew on my boat passed. I will let the Skipper tell his own story of his Cruising Instructor check out but I can say we do now give him A LOT of stick when he gets things wrong. My favourite (currently) is when securing our lines on the fuel pontoon at Neyland to refuel before heading north, the Skipper tried to tell one of his crew not to move lines which he was doing to put on a box spring in order for us to get off the pontoon. Said crew who was actually doing the lines correctly, ignored the Skipper, rolled his eyes and carried on. Once the Skipper could see the error of his ways, he quickly acknowledged his mistake and took the ribbing he truly deserved.

The run away dinghy

The next adventure which comes to mind is the story of the run away dinghy. The dinghy was a Christmas present from myself to the Skipper Christmas 2021. It’s a Highfield and is much loved.  At the time there was lots of dreamy eyes when he looked at it.  We had problems leaving the house for a while as he couldn’t walk past it in the garage without stopping and staring it for 5-15 mins depending if he was alone or not.

Anyway back to the story, at the time we were back on the mooring bouy. There had been a couple of weeks of bad weather which had slowed down all other activities. Due to the size of the boat, we were not comfortable all leaving the boat to get things done when the weather wasn’t great. We had a period of high winds and big tides. During one of these we lost a couple of things, one being the swim steps which the skipper had ‘forgotten’ to tie on to the side of the boat. He then stopped mocking the fender step which I had bought while on the IOW, its proved to be very useful getting on our very high sided boat. The second was a kayak paddle which got blown off the boat. 

The other which nearly proved very costly was when the dinghy ‘escaped’. The skipper had tied the dinghy to the boat using the rubber grab handle rather then the tie-eye on the hull. The handle had held on pretty well for a number of weeks and the skipper claimed he had been thinking about changing the tie point however he hadn’t.  We were all relaxing one evening when the skipper jumps up, sticks his head out of the cockpit hatch and yelled, ‘the dinghy’s $%^&ing gone’. He had been alerted to its departure by the air tag which informed him while he had been surfing the net that the dinghy was no longer at his location. The scramble ensued to head down river to see if we could find it. A quick call to the coastguard to inform them that we had lost our tender and where to make sure we didn’t trigger a full scale rescue. The skipper for some unknown reason (he is a law unto himself) decided once we were clear of the mooring bouy, to dive into the kayak and go in the direction he thought the dinghy had disappeared. This left me and the boys on a 52ft boat, at dusk on a falling tide to go down the river searching for a dinghy. Not scary at all, though to be honest at the time it wasn’t probably due to the adrenaline! Fortunately we (I) had purchased Bluetooth Sena headsets meaning we no longer had to shout to each other which on a 52ft boat when it is windy happened a lot prior to the purchase of the headsets (yep that was a not too subtle dig at the Skipper). The fabulous headsets meant that I could skipper the boat (keeping an eye on the depth) while I had the boys looking out for the dinghy.

This worked really well, with a combination of the air tag pinging off my phone, eagle eyed kids picking up the reflection, we managed to locate the dinghy. I did throw the boat around like it was a dinghy and was very grateful fro the brush-up of skills from my Yachtmaster course as this allowed me to get alongside the dinghy.

My excellent crew (minus the skipper who was somewhere off down river in the dark) managed to snag the dinghy but unfortunately due to the strength of the ebbing tide (and the fact they are 14 and 12) they couldn’t hold on to it long enough for us to get a proper line on it. However we knew where it was! At this time point we realised having the skipper might be useful, if just for his brut strength if nothing else, but we hadn’t heard from him in a while. That is when we discovered the radio operator had accidentally turned the handheld radio to a different channel – his reply ‘oops’. Communications restored, we instructed the Skipper to paddle his arse back to our location as we had found the dinghy and just needed a bit of help to get it back alongside.  The next steps were relatively uneventful but comical in parts. The skipper initially thought he could tow the kayak behind the dinghy, he found out he couldn’t as apparently he lost steerage of the dinghy. The skipper then suggested to tie the kayak to the boat and for us to tow it. However the crew and I thought this was a stupid suggestion and the ‘strongest avenger’ (aged 14) took control and got the kayak onboard. Sorted! The plan was to head back to our mooring and all collapse and make fun of the skipper and breath a sigh of relief that a rather expensive mistake had been averted. So the crew of Voyager led by her valiant captain, yours truly, headed back up river with the cruise director (CD) keeping an eye on the skipper in the dinghy. He was keeping to the shore as we were now in the full force of the ebb and the dinghy outboard isn’t that powerful. As I steered the boat up river, there was a cry from the CD, “Mum, I think Dad’s decided to paddle”. Looking over my shoulder I immediately knew what had happened, yep, that’s right, the skipper had run out of of petrol. Personally I always check the tank before I start the engine and as I knew he had a petrol can in the dinghy I wasn’t unduly worried but I did hang back and wait for him to catch up. You have to show due diligence you know and as I was officially skippering the boat, he was part of my crew, ;0) 

After a few minutes, the dinghy was back underway. The plan once we got closer to the mooring was for us to follow the dinghy in. One of the extras we had purchased was the light set for the dinghy to make us compliant with US Coastguard regulations. The light set is well worth the purchase and it made it made it very easy for us to follow the skipper in and to pick up the mooring bouy. The only ‘hiccup’ came was when the Skipper managed to get the pick up ball wedged beneath the seat of the dinghy and while we (Voyager) were tying to the mooring ball, the skipper in the dinghy nearly disappeared under the boat. I am writing this in January 2023 and we have just about let the skipper live down the ‘tale of the escaping dinghy’.

Oops I broke the boat..

The negative side of throwing a 52ft boat around like a dinghy is that it exacerbated the issue we had with the drive shaft. A couple of weeks earlier we had noticed a vibration in the drive shaft.  We’d had a marine mechanic come out to the boat to look at an issue we had with the generator, which for no apparent reason had decided to stop working. Initially the skipper had thought it was due to water in the fuel getting into the generator. It transpired that is was nothing more then two wires to the fuel sensor vibrating off. This took the (real) mechanic about an hour to diagnose (arm-chair mechanic had come up with some weird and wacky reasons why it wasn’t working, little bit of knowledge and all that). At the same time he had diagnosed the issue with the boat drive shaft, which required a new bearing. A £20 part which ‘Tom Smith’s’ were able to source for us as we need the imperial measured center and not metric (come on America, get metric!). But to fit the part, the boat needed to be lifted…….

Thankfully at the time, we were having the upholstery replaced by the fantastic Cleadeau Marine Upholstery and they pushed us to towards contacting ‘Mainstay Marine’ a commercial organisation that don’t usually haul leisure crafts out as they are not set up to ‘chock’ yachts. However when we explained our situation they were able to accommodate us. The plan was to leave Voyager in the slings while the drive shaft and bearing was replaced, all in a day or overnight worse case scenario and we’d be on our way north. Having missed our weather window to head first to the Caribbean (original plan) and then to the Mediterranean (plan b) we were unfortunately stuck in the UK until March/April 2023 (plan c) until the next suitable weather window and we can move somewhere warmer.  As you might have guessed, when you live on a sail boat, you are at the mercy of the weather. Mainstay had to delay our original haul out date so three weeks later then we had planned we were hauled out. As we still had hold of my Dad’s car (thanks Dad!) I helped the crew get the boat ready, the skipper dropped me of at the slip and I drove to meet the arrival of Voyager. To say my heart was in my mouth as I watched the skipper drive the boat in to the sling, fighting the high winds, is not an experience I want to repeat in a hurry but they managed it with a few heart in the mouth moments (the shrouds being caught on the lift was one of them). The repair was completed quite quickly but the high winds prevented the boat going straight back into the water. The result was 3 nights in a hotel for the crew (boys loved it, easy access to Wi-Fi and they were hooked back up to their friends). Easy access to hot showers was a plus too.

That brings us to the end of November, as I have said we couldn’t find marina space in Pembrokeshire so we had to decide what we were going to do. Warmer climates were now a distant dream as we didn’t want to put the kids off sailing with a rough crossing of the Bay of Biscay which would be highly likely. As we were going to be in the UK, we decided we could use the opportunity to catch up with family that we haven‘t seen in 3 years due to being in the USA during COVID. Now to find a marina!

Leaving Prembrokeshire

A 52ft boat isn‘t a very big boat in the USA however as we found out, in the UK, it‘s a very big boat for most marinas. Initially we had hoped to stay somewhere close to Pembrokeshire as we had a lot of friends there, but as I started ringing round this hope start to go out. I tried Swansea, then Cardiff to no avail, so we had to cast the net wider. Armed with the Almanac (An A-Z of the coast and marinas, think a rough guide with maps for sailors) I started working my way up the coast, looking at price and location, cross checking witch google maps to see the location of facilities to the marina, primarily can we walk to a supermarket (have to give Dad his car back) and was there easy access to a train station so we could visit family. Initially I thought Liverpool would be a cool option, it had been a city of culture, birth place of the Beetles and other cool stuff. After checking the marina website, I had to get the skipper to recheck my calculations on marina fees as I was sure I‘d got it wrong. Unfortunately the skipper confirmed my calculations were correct and after a longer then probably should be allowed, we decided we shouldn‘t/couldn‘t actually sell one of the children to stay there, possibly as we might need to do that at a later stage in the trip and we had only just really started our sailing hiatus. Besides we hadn‘t decided which one would be more useful yet…

We settled between three marinas, all close (ish) together, we had our preferences and so had our family‘s so we ended up heading to Fleetwood. It looked ideal on google maps and from the almanac. Super market within walking distance, across the marina bridge and in the shopping mall, 6 miles to the train station, an hour 15 minutes to my parents. Our weather windows were now limited due to the time of year so we knew we wouldn‘t be able to be too picky. The skipper and I did our passage planning and then compared notes. We agreed we would have to leave in not the most ideal conditions (27 Nov 22).  Leaving the Haven it was ‚lumpy‘ to say the least. One of the pilot vessels from the Haven actually came to check on us to see why the crazy yacht people were leaving and did they need help.

We assured them that we were fine and would also keep out of the way of the tanker on the way in, which was the main reason they‘d come to check us out. Why did we leave in such a horrible sea state? Simple, we new the weather was going to improve in the next 12 hours and if we didn‘t leave then, then we didn‘t know when/if we were going to be able to leave. They were some tense moments on the trip as we had to get up to Anglesey by a certain time as we didn‘t want to be there when the tide change. If we were late then we would basically be going backwards as the tide would be too strong for us. I had more faith in our passage planning then the skipper did and we made it through the TSS before the tide changed, not a lot of wiggle room but enough to make it safely. Then we had quite a relaxed sail up to Fleetwood.

Going ‘Up North’

Like many Marinas with locks, you can only enter at certain states and for Fleetwood this is 1 1/2 hours either side of High Water (HW). We knew we would be arriving in the early hours and we had no desire to enter at the high water window in the dark so after clearing Anglesey we decided to slow down. We arrived at the channel outside Fleetwood at 5am, dropped the anchor to wait for 1pm, the start of the next High Water window. 

My Dad had jokingly said that when we saw Blackpool Tower (Famous Northern Landmark, Ball room dancers will have heard of it) we should hang-a-right and we‘d find it. The problem with this helpful direction is that you‘d have to be able to see Blackpool Tower; we hadn‘t accounted for the fog!

We hoped it would burn off before we needed to head down the channel, however for that you would need sun and the north of England isn‘t well known for it‘s sunshine. So this was a test of my navigation skills and the Skippers driving. Again I can say ‘Thank God‘ for the bluetooth headsets!

The SA and myself were sat on the bow shivering to death, navigating our way into the channel, pointing out buoys to the skipper while he kept a weather eye on the depth. If you have a look on the chart, you can see the way in is ‘wiggly‘ to say the least. With the added interest of a missing buoy (number 16 if you are interested) I navigated us up a very narrow channel. To say it there was a lot of pressure is an under statement, the positives is that we were doing this on a rising tide so theoretically if we did touch the bottom then we would be lifted off on the rising tide. I can safely say we got ourself up the channel and safely into the marina. A week or so later we took a walk down the coast and actually got to see how narrow the channel was and how little wiggle room we had for mistakes.