England

After a whirlwind tour of England, I am happily back in Berlin thumbing through my book score of the century:

A box of books for ?Ǭ£40, hand delivered from Bath by the lovely folks at the local English bookstore. I wasn't really sure what was in the box beforehand, so it was a bit of a risk. However, I am very happy to report the book Gods have looked after me: There are charts, sea safety books, day and coastal skipper theory books, yachtmaster theory, offshore sailing books... The list goes on. Very happy.

While in England, I naturally hopped down to the boat near Southampton, and slept the night on it. Being the airhead I sometimes am, I forgot my camera and had to use my cameraphone, but you kind of get the picture. I have a nice view from my boat and felt very happy sitting aboard talking to old sailors and scrubbing the teak stripping. The boat certainly needs TLC, but the fundementals are there, and she'll be great when I'm finished.

The location of the marina is on the river Hamble, in a beautiful part of England - As I walked down to the river, I wouldn't have been suprised if fox hunters rode past on horses... It was that kind of place. It's ashame I can't work from the boat and live there, but the time will come when I will have more than enough time sitting in a boat I can't stand up in.

Some of the repairs I noted were a replacement speed log and depth transducer. The speed log is a small 'water wheel' that sits beneath the boat to show speed, and the depth transducer is a small patch that hugs the inside of the hull and provides depth readings. Reports are that the VHF radio works, but the antenna is broken. I guess that means I'll have to haul myself up the mast on the bosins chair and take a look. I wasn't sure what to do maintenance wise, being a novice boat owner, but the teak stripping looked grey and mossy, so I scrubbed it all back and put two coast of teak oil on, and it came up nicely. I'm going to teak the rear of the boat if I can find some decking cheaply, and also put paint stripper on across the top-decking and repaint. I'd like to repaint the hull, but I'll wait and see what colours the sails will be and match it.

I will report back on the sponsorship scheme soon, I am still organising and figuring things out before putting it 'out there'. All I can say is, it's genius!

There are a few more photos on the Flickr page including one of me looking stupid. It's always impossible taking photos of yourself.

nick