A little out of the normal blog territory but as it is a sailing adventure and also adds to my nights afloat tally I'll include it here.
My friend Jeff has bought himself a Mirage 27 called Escallon. He very diligently researched and viewed several models, inspected several different Mirages and deliberated long and hard over the pros and cons of fin v. bilge before deciding to plump for a very tidy example of the boat that was for sale, through the brokerage, at Woolverstone Marina, on the River Orwell on the Essex/Suffolk border.
Although it was a good example, it was still 30 years old and with any boat getting on in years, she needed some work done. The prop shaft needed checking and adjustment, an elbow on the exhaust needed replacing and the mast foot plate needed replacing or welding. Not bad, except when removing the mast to get at the foot the foresail rigging was damaged and to cut a long story short Jeff had to motor the mile or so to Foxes Marina, upstream at Ipswich, whilst the riggers moved the mast by road and would re-install when fixed. This actually took them nearly three weeks but as they had arranged the berth at no cost to Jeff, he wasn't worried, especially as he was away on holiday for most of the period.
A call from the riggers confirmed the mast was up and so the Friday saw us setting off just after the traffic had died down on the 2 hours journey to Tollesbury Marina, where Jeff had arranged a berth for the season.
From there, once the paperwork was done we jumped into a taxi to travel to Foxes Marina, some 60 miles away.
As chance would have it the taxi driver lived, with his wife, on a newly commissioned barge in the Tollesbury channel that leads up to the marina. He was a mine of local information and, on arrival at Foxes, spent several minutes pointing out approaches and hazards on the charts we had with us. (In fairness I showed him the traffic feature on his Samsung tablet which he knew nothing about so we were all square on the knowledge transfer front).
Friday was spent rigging, checking and testing. Both the main sail and the Genoa appeared to be almost brand new, very crisp and clean. The chandlers at Foxes was well stocked and Jeff experienced the sudden wallet emptying effect boat ownership has.......
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| Escalon in Foxes Marina |
We retired to the pub across the road for a meal and turned in tired but happy - ready for the the adventures of the next day.
Saturday
We departed mid morning, giving us enough time to play around in the Orwell before catching the current south along the coast to our overnight destination of Brightlingsea.
Our first discovery was the performance of the boat when motoring astern. As we found out later, with enough room and way on her she becomes quite responsive. Unfortunately within the marina we didn't have enough room to get the way on her and the prop wash kept pulling her back into the berthing position we had been in. However with some advice form those around we managed to use this to our advantage, finding that she would turn very easily after a combination of forward and reverse bursts of throttle.
We navigated our way out into the main channel that leads to Ipswich Docks and turned to starboard to head down the river under the A14 bridge
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| Ipswich docks |
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| A14 bridge over the Orwell |
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| Proud skipper |
We motored down under the bridge and played about with the engine, finding that she would steer astern quite well once you got her moving but you need about 20 m to play in.
We set the main with a reef in it and then the Genoa and had her sailing nicely all the way down the river, past Felixstowe docks and out to sea.
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| Felixstowe Docks in the background |
It was then I decided to go down below and make a brew. The casual comment "isn't all this water meant to be on the outside" provoked a suitable reaction from Jeff... but as it turned out I only managed to get two bucket full up before it seemed to stop. Later investigations led us to believe that the boat had been washed out prior to going on the market and some of the water had found itself into nooks and crannies that when the boat was flat and level contained the flow. It was only on this first sail that the motion caused it to run out and into the bilges. Drama over we enjoyed our cup of tea.
As we approached Brightlingsea the wind got up and I had some fun on the foredeck bouncing around trying to tame the Genoa that had freed itself and it's sheets.
We doused the sail in the entrance to the harbour and made our way in.
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| Brightlingsea entrance |
It was very shallow and when we called up the harbour master came out to meet us and guided us up the visitor's pontoon that was very full.
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| Face of concentration |
Brightlingsea is a quaint mixture of old and new. Some flats and a marina are under construction and yet photos show the bus stop in the central square as the only area above water on a high spring tide....
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| New flats on the left and old house to the right |
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| Old craft and new flats |
We made friends in the pub and enjoyed some strange sights - not sure if was a fancy dress party or a normal Saturday night in Brightlingsea. We enjoyed a curry before returning by water taxi, to the boat and bed.
Sunday
We set off in good time for Tollesbury and took advantage of a course shaped by another yacht to take a tighter route across the bay than we had planned on the charts. Picking up the tide we arrived off Tollesbury quicker than we thought and were soon search for the entrance. Thank goodness for chart plotters otherwise we would have quite happily headed up the wrong creek. It's so flat and has so many creeks you can see where you want to go in the distance but the route is altogether more complicated.
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| Tollesbury in the distance |
We made our way up the creek and over the sill into the marina. We found the berth and Jeff judged it just right as we moored up in Escallon's new home.
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| New berth at Tollesbury Marina |
A good adventure and no doubt one of many to come.
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| Voyage route - Day one yellow / Day Two pink |
