End of season summary

The season is over and Daisy Grace is back home awaiting winter titivating. A summary of the 2010 sailing season from Poole:

View 2010 cruises in a larger map

Number of visits down to the boat: 22
Total distance sailed: 417nm (I drove 10 times as far as I sailed...)
Nights on board: 16
Crew on occassion: 1 daughter, 1 wife, 1 sister and 5 friends
Cruising range: Swanage in the south, Wareham in the west, River Medina in the East and Southampton Water in the north
Biggest Cruise: English Raid for five days, sailing to and around the Western Solent
Oddest cruise: modelling for the Practical Boat Owner photographer for the Baycruiser review.
Best anchorages: Studland cliffs, anywhere off Brownsea Island, in the shallows below Shipstal Point.
Best Marinas: Parkstone Bay, Poole; Bucklers Hard, Beaulieu River
Worst anchorage: Swanage because of the disco on shore.

Plans for next year? Motoring down the Thames before relaunching at Poole. Getting at least as far west as Chapmans Pool and maybe even Weymouth.

Season well and truly over. Daisy G out of the water and back home

I was lucky for once. The weather has been atrocious, but it broke just for one day on Saturday which is when I went down to fetch Dasiy G back. If it had been stormy I just couldn't have done it on my own. As it was, the only problem I had was the Baiter slipway at Poole. It was as slippery as oil and I fell over twice, running from clipping her on back to the winch handle. A kind soul held her straight for me as I cranked her on. The only small problem was that the winch webbing strap kept going off centre and over running the gears, but she came on fine. I was able to haul her out in shallow water with the trailer still hooked to the car. Everyone else was having to unhitch and push their trailers into deeper water. The shallow draft with the ballast pumped out is a real blessing.

This photo shows her all loaded up,ready to roll. A couple of thoughts. She was so "nose light" that when I unhitched her to get the engine off, I didn't have to push the hitch up, it went up on its own. Made getting the motor out easy, but I have heard that the weight on the hitch should be about 50kg, not 0kg. When I got her home, I loosened the forward rollers (she rested on the keel roller), then loosened the winch post and moved it 200mm closer to the car, and then retightened the forward rollers to just prop her in place. Should imrpove the balance a bit.

I also noticed that the mast could be slid further forward, to come within the rudder projection. The two part mast really ins't necessary, it stows like this fine.

You can see the wet mark showing the difference between the ballasted and unballasted draft. The CopperCoat antifouling is brilliant, nothng but a bit of slime on it. But where the water touched the green paint or white boot top, green weed grew happily. I shall repaint the boot top with white antifoul over the winter, and maybe make it a bit wider.

Daisy G's shed is far from finished, so she will have to sit out for a while.