7. Remember Sunday

Our dreams of a sunny trip down to Spain had gone as quickly as an English summer. It was now nearing the end of October and we were still nowhere near ready to go. Our list of things to do grew longer every day but at least the pressure of finance had diminished.
I left the club to Gary’s competent management; it was part of the deal that my staff could stay on if they wanted to so at least they wouldn’t be out of a job. It would still take a few weeks for the lease to be drawn up etc. but essentially I was home free.
We drove over to Penarth to pick up our new scuba equipment and dive compressor, a huge expense altogether but something we’d enjoyed so much in Mauritius we thought it would be a wonderful thing to have onboard. I was a little surprised when the guy started up the compressor for us the first time; I’d driven bulldozers that were quieter! However he assured us that it was normal and the specifications of the unit were impressive.
Our dinghy was delivered along with the outboard engine.
We were the talk of the Marina because of it. Normally for our size boat, it was customary to use a 2 ½ to 3-meter dinghy and a small 5 to 10 horsepower outboard engine. We decide that as it was going to be our car, sport and workhorse we would upgrade the custom somewhat and we opted for a 4-meter dinghy with a 40-horsepower outboard. There wasn’t a single person who agreed with us except maybe for Alan who sold it to us. If I listed their adverse comments I’d have to write another chapter.
We rigged the unit together and took it through the lock that day. As we hit the open water it was apparent we’d made the right decision. It was Di’s baby really, paid for from the proceeds of her car. When she got behind the wheel of the remote steering her face was a sight to behold, the boat skimming over the waves at 30 knots in that crisp autumn wind, her cheeks were turning redder by the minute.
It wasn’t going to be an easy thing to manage that was for sure, we’d purchased an outboard bracket that we fixed to the stern rail but the panic soon set in when we presented the ‘Beast’ to it. The Beast weighed in at 140lbs and it was blatantly apparent that even the yacht builders had only ever considered a small engine too. We racked our brains and came up with a solution to mount a bracket on to the deck and lay the engine down so as all the weight would be distributed evenly. We rigged a strop to hang the Beast from the end of the boom for easy lifting and the system worked perfectly.
Nellie (The Inflatable) was an easier thing to stow and we simply rigged a few pad eyes to the aft deck where she could be secured and be accessible in an emergency.
We went out in Nellie as often as possible to run in the engine and even did a bit of skiing to test her out, she worked like a dream. Unfortunately I did a very stupid thing and fell of my ski and hit the water at speed. Stupid because I landed awkwardly and burst my left eardrum. This was now the third time and it was rather painful to say the least.
Murphy’s Law continually cropped up, something we were slowly becoming accustomed to. The liferaft was delivered with a damaged canister and had to be returned, the worst one was the toilet kept backing up and filled with water coming dangerously close to overflowing even while the boat was at rest, we didn’t want to consider the outcome at sea. We had paid extra to have a stainless steel holding tank fitted, which meant we could store the effluent onboard until we were far enough at sea to empty it legally and ecologically, It was this that gave us the problems and after a few changes in non return valves I sincerely hoped I had fixed the problem.
We had trouble fixing the stolen wind instrumentation and VHF aerial. They were designed to be wired up through the mast and whoever had stolen them had simply cut them off at the top of the mast, pretty easy when it’s lying down, somewhat more difficult to replace when it’s 45ft above deck on a cold morning. Di winched me to the top of the mast in the Bosuns chair and I tried to figure out how to reattached our new instruments.
I manages to ‘mouse up’ the aerial though the mast by a dropping a cord through the mast whilst Di retrieved it at he bottom and then attached it to the cable and pulled it through. The wind instrument cable proved to be impossible to pull through though and it begged a different approach.
One thing was for sure we were getting used to the process of going aloft. I would sort of half climb the mast whilst Di took the slack on the halyard (the rope that holds sails up) securing the chair. That way all I had to do was to check my weight and wait until the rope was taut so I could relax it worked like a charm and it was so much quicker and far less strenuous than trying to winch me up. I knew because that’s how Di had her first trip to the top of the mast.
Eventually we decide to fix the wind instrument cable to the side of the mast and set off on the well-worn trail to Cambrian Marine and explained our problem to Alan, as usual over a cuppa. We loved going into the chandlers, the smells of ropes and turpentine combined with Alan’s ubiquitous cigar smoke just seemed to strike a chord in our seafaring senses.
He came up with some self adhesive aluminium cable clips that would fix the cable to the side of the mast, not the most aesthetically pleasing solution but the only option left to us.
We went back and fixed them cable adding a little touch of two part adhesive to the clips as a ‘belt and braces’ measure.
That done we attached the SatNav aerial to the aft rail and we tested the systems to find, miraculously, that everything worked.

Di was busy arranging any other documentation we would need, new passports and export and rabies certificates for Ginge, a license for the VHF radio. This amused us as it took the form of a car tax disc that we had to display in the window; we had fun imagining a governing body out at sea with high-powered binoculars. It did bring to light that we didn’t have any radio qualifications but luckily there was an instructor living in the marina who examined us one evening and issued us with a license to use VHF.

At the time there were many government systems that didn’t allow for the idea of sailing out of the UK. We almost had to educate them into seeing that sailing was a form of transport that allowed us to leave the country. Even the Customs and Excise were hazy about the VAT rules concerning yacht equipment and export. Luckily we’d done our research with this too and we breezed through that one. Basically we reserved the last hundred pounds payment to Westerlys until it was time to go, that way we avoided paying VAT on Chamarel as the rules stated you had to leave the country within a week of purchasing the yacht. Something that would have been out of the question if the weather turned against us.

We’d made quite a few friends in Swansea along with the Marina staff who were so helpful. We traded bottles of booze against medical equipment from a couple Joy and Andrew. We also traded a few laughs too although it wasn’t that funny when one evening after a couple of bottles of wine Joy slipped into the freezing water of the Marina as we were leaving to go to a restaurant. Luckily we dragged her out unscathed, handbag first!
We met a couple, Will and Sarah, who also had the same plans as us and actually wanted us to leave and sail in tandem with them. Something that was a bit pointless really as our yachts were completely different, which meant that we would soon be out of sight of each other. They left on the last day of October to the music ‘Gonna Get Along Without You Now’ blaring through the locks speakers. Our turn soon.

We had one last hiccup in that we didn’t have a third crew, which we needed to comply with our insurance policy. We’d contacted a few friends but nobody with the experience necessary was available. We had one local guy apply for the job but as I had to help him onboard due his age just for the interview we decided to keep looking. I tried some of the ‘professional’ yacht skippers from the sailing magazine adverts but didn’t get any joy.
One lady answered the phone and exclaimed “What! You want my husband to crew a 34ft yacht across The Bay of Biscay in November? You must be out of your mind,” and with that she hung up.
Hmm were we out of our minds too?
Finally we met up with Peter who was a Yachtmaster and he didn’t think we were completely crazy, two bonuses already. We agreed on a price for the trip and left it at that. There wasn’t much else we could do, as I still had to finish a few things back in Cheltenham before we could cut all ties to shore.

We were finally ready to take Chamarel out on her maiden voyage on the 4th November. Steve took us through the lock, as it was still all a very new experience for us. We’d had a storm the previous couple of days so when we got out into the bay the sea was very lumpy so we couldn’t put up the mainsail. We managed to get the Genoa out (the fore sail) and we motored around for a while. Ginge was not in his element and made a bit of a mess down below, not the best way of spending your inaugural trip, what happened to the champagne now?
Di took Chamarel back in under Steve’s supervision and managed to berth her perfectly the first time.
There was a little problem in that we’d put so much equipment onboard that Chamarel had settled into the water well below her intended waterline. “That’s not a Westerly Seahawk” the lock master laughingly exclaimed “That’s a Westerly Seaslug.”
Hurt and offended we decided to haul her out and raise the water line by repainting it a further nine inches up.

We had a flurry of visitors to the boat before we set sail, all wanting to see what we were letting ourselves in for.
My Mother and Aunt Una, Lyn’s brother Keith and his fiancé Christine, Di’s sister Roz and kids, her brother Peter and even her Mum and Dad.
When Di had first told her Mum about the boat her response was “But where are you going to keep it?”
“Ah” said Di “that’s the other thing we have to talk about.”
Her Dad was completely enamoured with Chamarel and even wanted to stowaway.
Mark arrived one day with his wife Melanie and we went out for a sail, well a motor around Swansea Bay anyhow. They stayed the night onboard back in the marina. Mark and Diana wanted to go clubbing but as you can imagine it was the last thing on my mind. They went off leaving Melanie and I to croon our way through the Beatles Book accompanied by my guitar.
We were all feeling a little hung over when they left the following morning only there was no respite for us as Lyn and our other friend Karen, turned up only an hour later.
It was a beautiful day though so we took Chamarel back out through the lock and actually managed our first sail.
Steve was out sailing with another Seahawk so we fell in alongside and had a little ‘race’, even with all our extra weight onboard Chamarel kept up alongside the similar vessel that was empty, so we were quite pleased to say the least.
Theoretically, the longer the waterline the faster the yacht. So at least we had done something right by lowering her into the water.

Saturday November the 12th and we drove back to Cheltenham together. The day had finally arrived when we would say goodbye to the club and all our friends. We met up in the wine bar and were surprised to see it packed to the gills with all our friends and clients. Di had arranged for Lyn to buy me a ‘Last Night of the Prom’ tee shirt and we started the party there and then. We all poured into the club around 11 o’clock and were amazed to find it absolutely packed to the gills.
We were quickly running out of glasses and for the first time in four years I even served behind the bar for a while. I left the door in Gary’s capable hands as the last thing I wanted that night was any hassle on the door, those days were over.
We were still kicking people out at three in the morning and when they finally disappeared, Di and I sat with the staff and did a little reminiscing over a couple of bottles of Champagne. In true tradition we threw our empty glasses into the fireplace and left to get our taxis.
We stayed at Mark’s house that evening and after a good old English breakfast we went back into the club to clear the safe out and say goodbye to Gary. He had been at my side for three years and it was tough to say our final farewells.We locked the door for the last time, November 13th Remembrance Sunday certainly a day for us to remember.