Laying up weekend 2012 - day 2

What a night

It rained, it howled and it was freakin' cold! The fan heater was running most of the night otherwise it would've been damned uncomfortable.

What with the weather and Tony's snoring I didn't sleep much. Oddly, Tony reckoned he didn't sleep much either so I dunno where the snoring was coming from!

We surfaced to a dry-ish but still painfully cold morning and head up to the Roundbush for breakfast. We were a bit early but they opened up slightly before nine and we scoffed a decent full English as always accompanied by the new large size mugs of coffee. Most excellent.

Back to the boat and the first order of business was to set up the new multi-function ladder I purchased last week. That sorted, we set to lifting the engine out and emptying the engine tank into the jerry can. After that excercise, we dived back down below for a while to warm up whilst a rain shower blew through.

Whilst down below, I pulled the main batteries out of the bridge deck and removed the VHF radio. We also disconnected and removed the depth/log readout display. The previous display, and the old steam driven VHF, failed to survive last winter so this year it's all going to be stored in the warm and dry at home. We lashed the display cover over the hole on the bulkhead to stop the wet getting in to the electrical locker.

With the rain having passed over for now, it was back on deck to stow away all the mooring lines and fenders left out from our last visit (when, you'll recall, we left her moored on the pontoon ready for the lift out). Then we removed the mainsail cover and detached the mainsail from the mast and boom. As another rain shower now decided to arrive at the least convenient moment, the main was bundled down into the cabin to keep it dry where I managed, with a bit of a faff, to bag it up.

After another warm up, we loaded everything into the car. The last order of business was to remove the sprayhood, shoving that in the car as well as it needs some attention with the needle and thread, before lashing the cockpit tent over the hatchway to keep the weather on the outside (the hatch tends to leak in rain if the sprayhood isn't up to keep the rain at bay).

The one intended job I forgot to do was to remove the blanking cap off the log impeller tube under the cockpit floor. With no bilge pump the well will fill up with rainwater but it's no big deal - she's not going to sink anyway!

We were more than happy to hit the road towards Felixstowe nice and early in the afternoon. The engine duly delivered to Seamark Nunn for servicing and winterisation, we then headed up the A14 towards home. We won't see the engine again now until the spring as Seamarks do a very good deal on storage over the winter and I've no definite plans for any visits to Fambridge over the winter.