13th May

Osprey
John Bowering
Thu 14 May 2009 01:51
Another frenetic day has passed in a fervour of activity, but culminated in the crew relaxing in the Cat Club Bar. It all started at just after 0600 hrs, with the first job of the day being the attachment of the dodger on the windward side which Charles finished before 0630 hrs. This was rapidly followed by the unfurling and furling of the Genoa to ensure the furling drum had the correct wraps around it and everything was in order. After this the Boss, otherwise known as "John of the Chuddies" ascended the Mast, this delicate operation was controlled by Kuki on the windlass and Charles providing the muscle - it took a couple of attempts to get the halyard running cleanly but once it was all aerial work was done in about 20 mins, with the Boss returning to deck still intact. Next came a vitally important part of the day, Breakfast - bacon butties provided by our cook, Crazy Kuki. The Staysail was fetched from the storage locker, hanked on, raised & lowered and then packed in its bag on the foredeck. At this time Franklin & team from A&F Sails arrived to fit the pramhood over the companionway - and an awesome piece of cloth and plastic it is too! Next up was filling the diesel tanks and spare jerrycans, this involved the precarious operation of passing the hose & nozzle across from the quay and Osprey so that it could reach. Once full the jerry cans were strapped down in the highly sophisticated stowage rack created by John & Charles. The final major work for the morning work period was the fetching of and cleaning of the cockpit cushions - so now the cockpit feels habital.
After 7 hours a halt was called, and off to the Cat Club Bar for a well earned rest and some time to catch up on emails etc. This was followed by another meal from Crazy Kuki - egg mayo sandwichs, with Charles's being at least half the length of Osprey (Seriously, it was that big). Both Charles & John have been heard to remark that "they have never had food like this on a yacht before, and aren't we meant to be losing weight on this trip". Then the men decided that enough work had been completed to allow a small siesta, whilst Kuki went off shopping.
Later in the afternoon John got the watermaker up and running, and Charles was used as the guinea pig to check the final product - suffice to say he is still alive. Then it was onto playing with the whisker pole for the cruising chute - another new addition to Osprey. After a bit of head scratching, and reading by John, the men decided it was fairly straight forward and that the design did indeed facilitate easy deployment. It is now lashed in place along the port side, ready to be rigged once we hit the horse latitudes.
The final mission of the day was to try to sort out the boat laptop, which seemed to be playing up and not sending/receiving emails. A combined effort by John, Charles and his Macbook, with Kuki providing moral support in the form of entertainment, did seem to sort some the problems but the speed of connection here is proving troublesome. Then it was back to the boat for supper, another CK creation - frankfurters, onions and potatoes fried up with veggies - a huge plateful as the calorific intake was looking a little low for today.
The final installment of todays blog concerns the real commander of this motley crew, he was introduced yesterday and goes by the nom de guerre of "SuperCharged Ted" Whilst "John of the Chuddies" is on paper the skipper, SC Ted is the actual master - still overseeing everything from his now protected vantage point on the companionway. He is reasonably happy with the work completed by the said motley crew of John, Crazy Kuki and Charles whose contibution is the brawn.

Blog Entries

2013 2012 2010
Dec 2010 Aug 2010 Jul 2010 Jun 2010
2009
Oct 2009 Sep 2009 Jun 2009 May 2009 Apr 2009 Mar 2009 Feb 2009 Jan 2009
2008
Nov 2008 Oct 2008 Aug 2008 Jun 2008 May 2008 Apr 2008 Jan 2008
2007
Dec 2007 Nov 2007 Oct 2007 Sep 2007 Jul 2007
2006