Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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she's definitely a sturdy boat.
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@Nik:
How did the two of you feel about it? Fun? Scary?
We made two major errors…
- We did not check the Met Office forecast and relied on windy.com....Bad move, windy.com gave us a very rosy picture of the days weather
- We did not notice the wave icons on the chart way down the channel, because we assumed the worst conditions would be at the narrowest part. WRONG... We got through the narrows with hardly an issue, then we got to The Bridge (it's a buoy called Bridge, so the whole area is known as the bridge)...
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Wow sounds like a real test and a good lesson taken away from it. Today’s picture looks a lot more calm and enjoyable.
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The start of this trip reminds me of the story Mark and Mary told us about they're boat adventure in Greece??
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What is that device mounted on the rail?
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It is called a Jon Buoy. Because @Madame Buttonfly and I will be doing a lot of sailing on our own, we are investing in plenty of safety aids, if I was to fall overboard and compromised in my ability to help myself, she would have great difficulty getting me back onboard without something like the Jon Buoy. Also once you pull yourself onto it, you are to some extent kept out of the water, so the survival period in a cold sea is much longer….
https://www.thewetworks.co.uk/products/jon-buoy-overboard-recovery
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Very interesting piece of safety equipment for sure.
Makes a lot of sense for her as well–if it means you would be able to buy her time to get you back to safety.
Smart
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We also have AIS beacons in our lifejackets which will go off when we hit the water, when it activates it sends an alert to the VHF radio on board and also throws up an icon on the chart plotter. With SAKURA we will also have a panning and zooming infra red camera which will lock onto the person, so we can easily see the person in the water even in almost pitch black….
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Great stuff !! I could geek out all day on just safety equipment alone!
Technology just keeps getting better and better–-and smaller which is good as well.
I would be doing the same thing---especially when it will be just the two of you for probably most of your trips.
I mean lets face it Giles ---you hit the Lotto with your retirement dream
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Haha— much like IH—- you always “ NEED” something
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Raymarine’s catalogue is the bomb—- I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing
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@Nik:
How did the two of you feel about it? Fun? Scary?
In the worst of it, I got really quite upset, felt very nauseous but not sure whether because of the movement of the boat or because I was scared! The really bad patch lasted about 10 minutes and we now know that was the worst of it out of the way, but because we're such newbies we didn't know that and I was anxious for the remainder of the journey that we'd encounter more of the same.
We've discussed it at great length, and we're both embarrassed and annoyed with ourselves for making some basic mistakes which put us - potentially (although on this occasion I don't think we ever were) - in danger.
Anyway, all's well that ends well and we definitely learnt a lot of lessons. The friend we travelled to meet up with is a very experienced sailor, and as well as helping us dock the boat in a very crowded marina (thank you David and well done @Giles) he gave us masses of great advice, and treated us to a wonderful Thai meal near his (very lovely) home. And yesterday morning Giles did a truly excellent job of getting us out of the marina and the journey back was a great deal more pleasant
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Thanks for sharing this story. It's all completely understandable. I bet next time you hit heavy weather it'll be different, and you'll probably feel more confident. Pretty cool to be out there in those strong forces, as long as it is safe. And it sounds like you've got the training, the tech, and most important the attitude necessary to get through the tough stuff.
When Clara and I visited my Dad on the sailboat he retired onto and we went sailing for the first time we got caught in a thunderstorm with heavy rain and lightning. Clara and I have zero experience on boats and we were both scared. She went down below with my Dad's two boat cats, and I took directions on getting the sails down and keeping the boat bow into the waves. At one point I couldn't keep her right and had to ask my Dad for help, which I didn't want to do, but he was good about it. It's a good memory now, but was not at all good at the time.
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Oh noes!!
I suppose things could’ve gone worse than your recent adventure.
