Recent content by Spirit (of Glenans)

Yes. Since 2021 ferry services between Ireland and the UK have decreased by approximately 50%, while those to mainland Europe heve increased fourfold.

To my mind, motoring with the mainsail up, but sheeted in firmly, to damp the rolling, is much more comfortable.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest.

Concern regarding the hole in the ozone layer and consequent UV-related eye, and skin, damage was just becoming generally discussed in the media around the time that our kids had finished coming on holiday with us. We decided we should stop having sun holidays on the beach, and looked for some...

I wondered how long into this thread it would take before there was mention of AMD. It destroyed my father's eyesight, completely, by the time he died, in his mid-eighties.

Propellor chewing on a plastic bag/ clump of Saragasso Weed?

As do I. Sometimes I enter a Lat -Long position from GPS, sometimes one derived from a Three-Point Fix and sometimes a Bearing and Distance -Off from a Charted Object. That's what I was trained to do. Keeping a log with observations of where one has departed from and where one has arrived, and...

Register with An Post's Addresspal service. Works well for purchases where the vendor does not ship to Ireland due to laziness in getting to grips with Customs regulations. Works even better if the vendor offers free UK delivery. You can have your parcels delivered to an address in Hatfield...

.....and take a course, or three, at a sailing school. (a).You will learn how to use the boat much more quickly with professional tuition, rather than in a bumbling self-teaching process, and, (b), it might save your life.

Well they know now :)

The only seamanlike way to set up the boat for reefing is to either luff up or heave to, the latter being the most sensible option for the singlehander without an autopilot. I've read a lot codswallop on this thread about reefing while sailing downwind. It is actively discouraged by any...

Winching the sail down!! Duuh!!

Pulling down on the leech will stretch it. The luff is constructed differently and is designed to withstand tension. It is standard procedure, as taught in sailing schools to haul down the luff first and secure the tack to the reefing hook, ramshorn, or whatever, then with the boom supported by...

Hauling down on the leech of the sail will stretch it prematurely.

Many years ago I had an ancient Opel (Vauxhall) Kadett which gave frequent starter-motor problems. To remove the starter necessitated first removing the adjacent engine mounting. To support the engine I used a bottle-jack. Didn't do any damage whatsoever to the sump.