Aground, Adrift, Ashore and Afloat.

Well the Swale barge match did not go to plan. One of my crew brought me the charts we were to use the night before and unfortunately it did not cover the start line. I have sailed in this area a couple of times before and knew where to go. About an hour before my start time we raised anchor and started sailing towards the line. I had two crew, one which had sailed in these waters plenty of times.  I left it to them to get us up to the line, as I went about the running of the ship very excited to finally be going for my first proper sail in my boat! "Were aground" came the call.  ohh no aground and off the chart.. and on a falling tide, Great. I went for a run/swim around the boat in a circle of about 20metre diameter and found no deeper water. I got the dingy and a lead line and motored around looking for the channel, no luck. The tide disappeared very quickly and I rigged up two anchors abeam to make sure we stayed upright. I was very disappointed and berated myself for not keeping a closer eye on our course!  Lesson learnt. Do every little bit of navigating myself!

Yes Aground

The wind strengthen the tide came up and lifted us off the mud. We had a very exciting sail well reefed down, into the wind and tide through the very crowded Anchorage, and found a spot to anchor. We were running late for the prize giving and left the boat at anchor. I anchored in 6m of water with about 2m still to rise. I put out my 30m of chain and about 10m warp on a CQR thinking that should do the trick. Right. Wrong 

Well we had three pints and I headed back with my one remaining crew. As we passed near a boat they said  "do you own that little blue boat"  "yes"  "it went that way" "what" " yeah it went that way, I think that those two barges rafted up may have rescued it".  We quickly rowed down to tide to find Valmik rafted up alongside two barges. People with torches were going through the boat. Ohh here we go I though, Salvage claim, all my stuff gone. I couldn't have been more wrong. They were the loveliest people! It took me an hour in the dark to clear, unfoul and stow my anchor and this seamed to surprise everyone even me. As my warp was all wrapped around my lower pintel and gudgeon. I gave them a bottle of wine and all the beers I had for there trouble. I'm still not sure why my anchor dragged. I will be sailing in the anchor from now on whenever I can. Maybe too much scope tripped the CQR???  

                            A couple of days after the swale barge match, I awoke to this beautiful scene over the swale!

This morning I would be heading for Ramsgate with one crew. We had a lovely sail(google maps link updated), beam reaching all the way to north foreland. Rounding the corner we became headed and had to tack to get there. The wind picked up and we were riding over small 1m waves.  Heeling over Valmik was leaking, as would be expected of an old wooden boat. The topsides of a clinker wooden boat will leak, as they may not have "taken up" like the planks under the waterline have. The slapping of the waves knocked in some mud, that had been sitting in between the lands of some of the planking. When I painted the inside of the hull all those years ago, the planks were very dry. Some paint had gone down into the lands and hardened  between the planks, stopping them from swelling and closing the gap, which the mud soon filled. We were leaking about 1litre every minute whilst tied up in Ramsgate. I became more and more worried about it. I had advice from a few people, and decided to lift her out and re new some of the old copper clenching. I headed back to the swale rather than face an expensive lift out and mooring bill in Ramsgate. I re newed quite a lot of copper nails where there was not much, if any at all, bent over the rove. Even with no roves these nails still took some persuading to be removed she was still strong. The nails that were removed still had a lot of meat left in them so to say. I was careful not to created more problems, and had her back in the water within three weeks, keeping the moisture content high the whole time. 

I was the last, not to start the swale barge match :-)  And had to pull out of the trip to Folkboat week for repairs.

I will weather the winter in Kent, and do as much sailing as work on the boat will allow.

Planing to cruise around the U.K come march.

I've now been planning this for over four and a half years, I bloody well hope its 2013 i may go mad by2014 :) 

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