Oh dear, oh dear ... we've not been keeping this up, now have we?!
Spring 2015, from a memory that is increasingly faulty, was the usual month in the yard with scrapey, scrapey and a bit of polish - nothing too exciting.
We didn't get back from a summer based in the Solent until Oct ... and then she sat quietly all winter in her berth. We didn't even change the engine oil - oops - due to family priorities.
In Spring 2016 we went to start the engine to do that oil change and the alternator had seized - almost certainly due to the salt water ingress from the raw water pipe back in 2013. So that was a hefty chunk of money to Beta Marine, and then as it was beyond our rudimentary engineering skills another heft chunk to Andy of Cam Marine who did a fantastic job.
Finally in July we bent our minds to servicing everything, including a masthead visit by Nic to check fittings, lubricate pulleys and give the wind cups a sever talking-to as they had stuck over winter. They are running again now, wonderful stuff that silicon lube, but the lovely people at Tinley Electronics .
It is pleasing how much simpler all these jobs seem when you are doing them for the third or fourth time. We made long lists for each day, and by golly we got it all done.
On 24 July we sallied forth into the Medway for a few hours to check that everything is working as it should, including taking in a reef in the main as the wind topped 20kn. Remarkably everything does seem to be working. Which means of course that the things about to break have not broken yet. The return into the marina was free-flow at the top of a spring tide - what a joy to simply glide straight through. We saluted Harry, Phil, Tony & Cindy who were in deckchairs on the foredeck of the larger of Tony's two motor cruisers.
So now we're ready for the off.
