SFPB

When you try to do big stuff on a tiny budget, it sometimes goes pearshaped. Instead of a Big Mac in Campbell River, I’m drinking coffee at midnight in a motel room in Nanaimo with a friendly octopus and boat bits all over the floor. Bobbles is 200 metres away en deshabille. We set off on this gig without having a chance to sail her in heavy weather, else we might have found the problems earlier. I was concerned about both the rudder and the centreboard but never got to test them and here we are. We had intended to shorten the boom as well and that would have helped with reefing but my original reefing arrangements also need modification – really easy now we have tried things in anger. It wasn’t too bad out there, and Bobbles was romping north, even with a lot of water in her bilge. Wonderful sailing in robust conditions until the ExaminerShe who asks awkward questions of the crew and tests them with difficult tasks. cracked her whip against her boots and took over. The plan now is to fix what we can, modify the centreboard arrangement by making a daggerboard which will be much stronger and then, depending on how long that takes, keep going north or have a picnic sail south with a boat full of medicinal compound instead of water. ConsultationsA regular engagement with alcohol. One might say this whole epic is a Consultation with a bit of a sail round it. See also Conservation Mode; Linear and Parallel Methods of Consultation along the way in some of the World’s best cruising grounds. Watch this space and thanks to all y’all who checked in with commiserations. It happens – just a pimple on an elephant’s bum in the great tapestry of Life, the Universe and Everything. We have our towels.