Paul and Claire

Final Pre-ARC 2013 trials

ARC, Sailing

So we knew that summer would be the time to do all of the above deck jobs that need sorting from the waterline to mast head – bathed in sunshine and a light breeze with sealants and paint setting fast and jobs being ticked off. Well not in April, nor May, June, nah; try July in rain and 15 degs C with a constant F7 and a bit of windchill – so most of the ‘outside’ jobs list is carried forward and may have been added to. Aside from that we have had a few good sessions with a 48

Paul and Claire

Preparations for the circumnavigation

ARC, Cruising, Preparation

Both Aditi and we are at the half-way mark. We all feel that we are progressing well against our original 2 year timetable ahead of departure. Our preparatory work is covered under the ARC 2013 page of this site. As we are now at the mid-point in our 24 month run up to the big cast-off we can definitely confirm that it takes two years hard slog alongside a job to get a boat ready. It’s about what we expected. We turned away from some serious projects because, although a great challenge, we could see a 5 year commitment would

Paul and Claire

Naming Ceremony and Party!

Photos

We decided to hold a party to mark exactly one year in the water, celebrate the first year of preparation and to officially toast the new name now that it was safely stuck on the boom! We had a wonderful evening with fun, friends and frolics! The highlights of the evening were: Greetings to Reggae music and sweet sunshine Fran hosting and looking after the food (thank you!) Everyone having their photo taken in the ‘Captain’s hat’ A loud compact ‘city’ Club with 17 in the saloon Flashing of various tattoos and however concealed! (how I missed this I don’t know!) A rather tipsy guest going missing

Paul and Claire

Dieppe Dash 2012

Sailing

  We had a full ship with the 4 of us joined by Simon and Clare. Clare nobley took the top bunk. Although as it turned out, in a very rolly Dieppe on our second night, that was the best place to be! We were somewhere between being a bit late to very late to get started as we had to firstly wait for enough depth of water to move plus we had some broken battens in the main to replace. In Force 2/3 we mainly drifted East and eventually had to motor for three hours before a north westerly

Paul and Claire

Birthday Sleepover

Preparation

Sophie wanted a sailing sleepover for her 14th birthday in May. As Aditi was still on the hard (in fact still on the sale stand) we decided to wait until she was in the water. Our first opportunity was 24th June and so we all piled into the car, including Pepe, and headed for Brighton for a sensational sunny sailing weekend. We arrived with a Force 7 and rain….the rain kindly stopped but it was still too windy and by 8pm on Saturday we had fog and the fig horn was sounding. This continued until lunchtime Sunday when suddenly the

Paul and Claire

First Sail!

Ports

Aditi went into the water on the 1st June and was towed to a berth in Lymington. Our first sail was on Friday 3rd June – here is Paul’s take on our first adventure! The first few hours under new management are always going to be a bit hair raising! The plan was wait till full tide at Lymington, back out in the nice sunshine and drift to Alum Bay to anchor for the night and play with stuff that needs sea water to work. Then head East next day….and of course first thing is it’s blowing F5 directly abeam

Paul and Claire

Antifouling

Maintenance

A beautiful weekend in April afforded us the time to antifoul Aditi. Having already antifouled our 38′  boat, Jemma, a couple of weeks previously we were quite organised but weren’t prepared for the sheer scale of the job!! 57′ in length and just over 9′ draft created some challenges on how to tackle the job. There was no time for monkeying around.                 I think I look fetching in my white astronaut suit!  

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