New bottom. New adventure

It was such a chore to replace the Silic antifouling with a top quality traditional hard antifouling, but it was necessary, and it was finally completed along with several other improvements, and Hejira was ready to return to her natural habitat.

A crew working party installed the freshly serviced and laundered sails and after other jobs and cleaning, we cast off for this year’s adventure on Monday the 2^nd of June. We took the flood tide east, in sunshine and a light south westerly wind, through the Looe channel off Selsey Bill towards Littlehampton, recording a speed of over 10 knots with the tide under us . The passage was notable for a large pod of the largest dolphins I have seen, playing around our bow.

I have moored in Littlehampton many times before and it was a good exercise to take this shortish passage to prove out some of the improvements that have been undertaken over the winter, they all passed muster.

On our entry the wind was quite fresh and there was sand being blown off the beach over the entrance channel and it seems that this was giving the water a milky appearance. The next day, as the tide rose, and in quite a blow, we witnessed a peculiar phenomenon where a line of change in water colour progressed up the river on the flood.

Maybe this was the line between the flooding, sand laden sea water against the fresh water descending the Arun River. Or maybe it was a halocline… (not my word but Richard has been looking things up on the internet).

Persistent high winds and rain recommended that another night in Littlehampton was prudent. This did require a longer passage the next day, missing out Brighton and sailing straight to Rye.

The necessity to leave Littlehampton, and to enter Rye, both near high water, gave us plenty of time between the tides to make the 58-mile passage. With a strong wind behind us, we just flew the jib, progressively reefing it but still ending up doing over 4 knots with no sails, and the rig windage giving us propulsion in an effort not to arrive off Rye too early.

Rye has long been a destination aspiration for me, and it is the perfect location for a yacht such as Hejira which can ‘take the bottom’. The Strand Quay in the middle of the delightful town has been revamped with a new pontoon and having taken advice from the harbour master, we positioned ourselves so that we sat perfectly upright when the tide retreated.

I took the prudent precaution of closing the sea cocks to the engine and generator as the soft mud would have been squeezed up the pipes and that might have caused a few issues when it came to leave.

The Rye Waterworks was originally a Victorian public convenience, but it has been converted into a charismatic, bohemian micropub. Their brews have comically themed names, David and Richard had pints of ‘Uryenal Best’ and I had the pertinent ‘I.Pee.Alot’, there was also a ‘Pissoir Porter’ and a ‘Golden Flush’!

Richard left us there to take a train home for a golf game (why?) while David and I spent the next morning exploring the pretty old  town of Rye. We ticked off some jobs and took a very long and wet walk, along the coast, around the nature reserve to Winchelsea. The motivation was to see Spike Milligan’s grave as legend says that the inscription says: ‘I told you I was ill’. It turns out that they were not allowed to put this on the gravestone, so it actually says it in Irish, who knows, and what a disappointment after all the effort.

There was a pub opposite the Church and this helped to assuage the disappointment. We took a bus back to Rye.

What a privilege it has been to have our accommodation in the centre of such a lovely and historic town!

Peter (Toad) writes:

Why does everything to do with Sailing boats move with the speed of glacial drift?

Having set off with a loaded minibus from Sunningdale, we were soon near to Hayling when there was a change of plan to collect the sails. So after an hour’s detour, money changes hands and it turns out that they have been ‘washed’.  Eventually we arrive at the marina where several more ‘financial exchanges’ are made !  I felt like a bag carrier for a drug lord!  I was expecting great things when I saw Hejira for the first time in a year and all the money that had clearly been spent over the winter.  Imagine my surprise when I climbed up a step ladder to board it, as it had spent the winter on bricks, and it looked exactly the same as the last time I saw it.

It would appear that, for the many thousands of pounds spent and six months to do the work; you get the sails washed and the bottom cleaned.  I should have chosen a career in boat maintenance.

Now, after another wait, they lifted the boat up and put it in the water, I wouldn’t mind but for all this money; they don’t even get it out of the ‘lift’, while Captain Pugwash is digging out his ring binder of checklists, I have to drag it out with a rope; but not any rope, more money had been spent on new warps, which are really ropes but cost more.  Which brings me to the madness of sailors, why can’t Nick say left or right, no, he has to say port or starboard, just another example of unnecessary complications.

I hoped the ordeal was over at this point but alas, we had to move the boat to Nick’s regular mooring that he’s had for over 3 years. I don’t know who has agreed to sail the Atlantic with Nick next year, but I have a word of warning.  I don’t fancy his chances of finding the Caribbean when he couldn’t even navigate to his own mooring without getting lost! He then caused uproar when he turned 180 degrees into the path of another boat as we searched for his regular mooring point.

I think that is the end of my sailing experience for a long time!