A VOYAGE DEDICATED TO STUART - BRINGING FINNROSE HOME
Finnrose
Thu 20 Jun 2013 18:20
for the voyage up to Antigua. Finnrose's wonderful volunteer skipper and
crew, who comprised of Stuart's friend and colleague Mark Hillmann, and his
friends Ken Mason and Ken Williamson made the long journey out from England
on Wednesday, arriving to a hot and humid Rodney Bay Marina around 4pm.
They immediately and impressively got to work on the technical problems
that had beset Finnrose whilst sitting in the Caribbean heat and humidity
for four months, no mean feat in temperatures of up to 35 degrees. Our
first outing in Finnrose was over to the boatyard on Thursday morning to
have her hauled out and the keel pressure washed and scraped -
unfortunately, there was a problem with forward gear, so Mark skilfully
steered in reverse to the Super Yacht Pontoon, where we tied up and they all
resolved the problem quickly. We then continued with the plan, and hauled
out; there wasn't too much growth to wash off the hull, and a completely
dissolved propeller anode was replaced.
Preparations continued and it was decided that we would be ready to leave by
Sunday 16th at dawn, so we cleared out with customs and immigration on Saturday
afternoon, had a trip to the Supermarket and got a reasonably early night.
We slipped the pontoon at 6am, and had a lively sail in a force 5/6 across
the straits to Martinique; the wind then dropped in the lee of Martinique
and we were forced to put the engine on for an hour or so, but using the
full sailing rig have now got under sail power again, and are now heading
across towards the lee of Dominica. We hope to arrive in Antigua tomorrow
afternoon.
