It doesn’t matter whether you own a car, bike or yacht, the feeling in your stomach is the same when you return to where you left it …. and it’s not there any more!!!

It’s not like leaving a car in an unfamiliar city centre, it’s a local marina and I know where I parked it. After what seemed like hours but was actually about a minute I saw the distinctive Rutland wind generator spinning happily…. the marina had decided to move us to another berth without letting us know. We were told this was to be our permanent berth but when I turned on the instruments it became clear there was less water in the new berth than the old one, so a quick chat with the office followed, especially as we’d just received the invoice for 2016-17 !!!

We had to make the decision to put the winter cover on Silhouette despite valiant attempts to go sailing before the end of the year. Unfortunately the winds have been relentless blowing force 6 – 9 with gusts over 50 knots regularly. The cover was in 3 parts with zips and attaching points everywhere, but what a clever piece of kit. We had to remove the lazyjacks and the mainsail from the mast track but the cover goes over the boom and runs from the bow to the stern allowing full height in the cockpit.

The good thing is fresh air still runs through the decks and we can work on cleaning the teak in all weathers along with polishing the top sides without getting wet. We will arrange for Silhouette to be lifted out of the water in early February for a month so we can antifoul, check anodes and the rudder bearing which was the only thing our surveyor mentioned, and by his own admission he was being picky so it may well be fine !

We always knew buying Silhouette at the end of October meant actually sailing could very well be unlikely, but we have and will continue to use the time wisely to get to know all her systems so when we “splash” in March the fun will begin without worrying which raymarine alarm sounds, such as the Raymarine smart controller sounding because Ian switched off the power supply to it !!!

So that’s all for 2015, here’s looking forward to the start of the new season and the adventures begin.

Happy Christmas !

 Today was quite possibly the best day weather wise the 1st November has given for years. What started as damp and foggy soon turned into pure sunshine and really warm. I decided this meant it was the ideal opportunity to see how the cockpit bimini looked with the side panels. The whole cockpit gets shaded and works brilliantly but I think there needs to be some kind of see through area so the mainsail can be seen when sailing. The side panels look odd but I guess they do their job of keeping the hot sun out whilst allowing the cooling breeze in as the early and late sun is low in the sky.

I make no apology for copying the next few words as first seen in the greatest blog ever http://www.beyzano.com but …” we have our very own stupid locker”!!! The bathing platform has a locker built into it which has a hole through the hull and allows sea water in as soon as weight is introduced in that area. It is self draining but I just can’t see what use it is…. perhaps somewhere to put diving equipment or a place for more beer 🙂

Oh and following on from the last entry….. I got to push more buttons too, what a great day !

Today we signed the handover documents and we are now the proud owners of Silhouette. We arrived at Sutton Harbour where we were met by James Christian from Ancasta. An hour later he left us to admire our beautiful boat. We couldn’t wait to start opening lockers and begin putting stuff away. We bought a new 2.9 metre inflatable and stowed in in the starboard cockpit locker…. well we actually watched it disappear into the depth of the locker, damn she’s big !! Being a guy that loves pressing buttons, I made the mistake of switching on the E120 watching it come to life showing the interface between radar, chart and AIS. Caroline quickly chastised me and told me to switch it off and help stow belongings…. Guess she’s skipper today!

September and October have been remarkably settled weather wise with very favourable winds making the journey from Plymouth back to Poole a tempting prospect. Then the weather gods decided it was time for an autumn change and positioned a very menacing low pressure just off Lands end. We had to make a decision and it had to be based on the fact that weather windows were getting fewer as autumn started to appear and our lack of available time from work. So we decided to get Halcyon Yacht Delivery to bring her up for us. The chosen skipper Andreas Fech has decided on an overnight trip Monday/Tuesday of this week. It looks like he’s going to use the edge of the low to catapult Silhouette up the channel before the gales hit later in the week. Their reputation for care was well researched by us before giving them the job.

So she should be in her berth on Tuesday….. hope so as I’ve got more buttons to push 🙂

This is the first time we saw her…… WOW !!!

She completed a very successful Atlantic circuit in 2013/14 with a husband & wife team together with their 2 young daughters. Fully equipped with almost everything already on board, she is ready to go.

Both Caroline and I had travelled from coast to coast looking at tired boats “that had never been chartered… honest” before seeing Silhouette on the Ancasta Plymouth books. Whilst we must thank the previous owners for selling to us, we must thank Kevin Macdonald of Ancasta for his assistance and patience in bringing it all together.