Checking out the wardrobe
Saturday 6th August, 2005
Andrew and I went up to Whitworths (Crows Nest) to do a bit of shopping in the morning. Got down to the boat around 12:30pm. I’ve brought a stash of jelly babies and rice crackers to put onto the boat.
Attached the sheet bags and winch handle holder. I managed to snap one drill bit and it is now permanently lodged in the bulkhead. I didn’t expect much from drill bits bought in a $2 shop. Anyway, I’ve managed to conceal where it sticks through into the cabin with a few strips of gaffer tape.
At 2pm I head over to Greenwich wharf to pick up Andrew. (While I was mucking about on the boat Andrew took his daughter Lara for a bike ride). Andrew and I are going to go through the sail wardrobe, check out the sails (most of them I have not looked at yet). While I am rummaging around below Andrew decides to motor us back to the mooring. There is not much wind so there will be no harm in raising the sails while on the mooring.
We pulled out one of the main sails. Battens – where are the battens? I find some below. We slide the foot into the boom and hoist the sail up the mast. The sail looks OK. We pull out the other main sail. It is not in very good nick. It looks like it might be the boat’s original sail. We might put that one back in the bag and leave it below for emergency use. Out with the number 3. Andrew does some work on cleaning up the hanks while I pull out the light genoa. The hanks on the light genoa need some work too.
At this stage we can see there is a bit of breeze up now. We might be able to get a short twilight sail in. But then we decide that is too late and we won’t get much of a sail in during the brief winter twilight. Time instead to crack open the bottle of scotch I’ve stashed below. We pack up the sails and decide to head over to Andrew’s S80 to check up on her. A quick motor around Woodford Bay checking out moored yachts. There is Alex Rossi’s house (the house she grew up in). Alex was a Loreto Kirribilli girl who I knew in my school days. I went to a couple of great parties at that house.
Returning to the mooring we get to shore before dark.
