Christmas Weekend Cruise 1

Godot in Kinsale was scheduled to go out on the annual boxing day race, and on this side of the Atlantic, we were going to do the same and toast each other, but they had ice in Ireland and did not race, but here in Norfolk we went sailing!

It was very foggy when we got up, and very, very moist air with mist when we went to the boat, which had an amazing interior soaking up to the point of the waterline. Dripping wet at everypoint from the waterline down, and forming a perfect waterline - on the interior of the boat! I first thought the boat had perhaps partially sunk before the self bailer kicked in and drained all the water. But that seemed to be impossible as the damage, etc did not lead to that conclusion. Then we figured it had to be condensation! Crazy! Probably because the air today was actually warmer than the sea water - which is a sudden inversion from normal.

Anyways, as we had expected, it took quite a while to set the boat up as it was in winter mode (sheets stowed, sails stowed, halyards skyed, etc, etc). We headed out in the cold mist, and had light airs out of the West, and a large rolling sea out of the East!

We sailed on a tight reach out to the 'middle' bouy, avoiding all the shipping that was appearing out of the fog as we crossed the channel, and then sailed back at close to the same sailing angle - ahead of abeam. The weather improved somewhat, and visibility improved dramatically.

There was a strong North to South tide running, which kept the water levels high at Cobbs, despite the ebb and flood!

Sailed upwind for a while on both tacks, with the boat well healed, to test the rebuilt muffler, and see if it had resolved the problem, and I am happy to say it seems to have done the trick! After the sailing there were NO engine starting issues - how sweet is that!!!

We came back to the dock and drank a toast to the family in Ireland, ourselves, and the crew of Godot!