8th August

Osprey
John Bowering
Tue 8 Aug 2006 23:11
The final night for the crew on board was a mix of hard work ? packing up
the personal effects and the boat mixed with a party where the crew got
their own back on the skipper for all their supposed grievances. Needless
to say ? from the skipper?s point of view ? the crew were totally out of
control. Some of the photos will show how the crew overcame the skipper
and dressed him up as a lobster ready for the pot. Worse ? they
appropriated some of his underwear and hoisted it up the mast ? hopefully
the USA will not take offence at good quality underwear being hoisted
alongside their national flag! A farewell dinner was held at the Harbour
Side Café and afterwards the portable searchlight was put to good use as
the Skipper tried the retrieve his underwear from Rishi and Ria as they
hid around the shipyard.

In the morning it was time to demob the mast and all the crew took turns
in the bosuns chair ? Rishi calls it the widginator for some obscure
reason. He also took a great picture of the deck from the mast top and
some of the photos will be posted shortly. Aisha as usual was quite happy
working 65ft up in the air though her sister Ria did not quite have that
level of confidence. Having winched them all up the mast the skipper vowed
to buy a snatch block so that the windlass could be used as motive power
in future. Anish must be close to Bharats weight and the skipper is still
recovering from hoisting him up the mast the fix the radar reflector ? and
that was 5 weeks ago!

This morning we headed off for Boston at 0900. This meant the crew would
be at the airport early but would enable the skipper to drive back and
stop in Portland to arrange for Ospreys storage over next winter. Last
heard of the crew had negotiated the Department of Homeland Security and
were ready to board a British Airways flight for London.

Having dropped them at the airport the skipper suffered extreme withdrawal
symptoms on the 4 hour drive back to Portland ? the cause is yet to be
identified.