A sad day that *** virus

[William_H]

Brought the boat home yesterday for winter. Not a big job 1.5 hrs from home to home with help from SWMBO. Could n't get my usual helpers involved. It has all happened a month too soon. That virus has closed the club down including the rest of the season competition. Now I am not in to solo sailing (not confident about picking up mooring alone) I have become habituated to just club competition for sailing with a great bunch of guys. (on my boat and the other boats) About 20 outings this last season. Did quite well I think in a small group of coats. So it seemed right to bring it home. I can at least amuse myself cleaning and maintaining the boat.
However what seemed to make it so much sadder was that the temp reached 37 yesterday hardly an indication of winter coming. Still it was nice swimming out to retrieve the dinghy left attached to the mooring. I have spent some time recently diving under neath scrubbing the old a/f down with wet and dry sand paper. It is quite difficult to sand down when it is on the trailer. Ho hum could be worse I havn't lost a job or lost on stock market or being curtailed a lot, much sympathy to all those who have. Sorry not particularly interesting to most of you and certainly a different kind of boating to many. Best wishes to all ol'will

 

[Seajet]

Ol'Will,

your posts are always of interest; I thought swimming to the mooring or sanding afloat was a bad idea there, with large pointy toothed salt water ' virus ' ?!

 

[MikeBz]

I suspect that most of us in the Northern Hemisphere would jump at the chance of only losing a month (or 2, or even 3). I would be surprised if we don't lose the whole season.

Our boat is at the back of a small yard (which, quite rightly, is closed), even if restrictions are lifted in June or July (which I doubt) I suspect a fair number of other owners will decide to skip the season leaving those of us in the back row unable to be extracted & launched. I'm envying the liveaboards!

 

[wfe1947]

Now I am not in to solo sailing (not confident about picking up mooring alone)t wishes to all ol'will

I hadn't picked up a mooring solo until last year (when I was 71) and doing it from the cockpit was a lot easier than I expected. Duncan Wells also has a good suggestion for leaving and solo picking up a mooring using a line going outside the stanchions and up to the bow passing through the mooring pendant. Explained in his Stress Free Sailing book. Using this method leaving is fine but I have had problems with the tender when coming back to the mooring.

 

[William_H]

Ol'Will,

your posts are always of interest; I thought swimming to the mooring or sanding afloat was a bad idea there, with large pointy toothed salt water ' virus ' ?!

Hello Seajet I am always amused at the awareness of Brits to the bities of Oz. I put it all down to documentary makers who love to exaggerate for the sake of their story. We try to make a point of swimming around the boat area almost every day and no sharks are not a concern. Now I don't blame brits for not being such keen swimmers considering the water temperature. I can tell you the down side of warm water is weed that grows on a/f like well weeds. When the a/f has almost been destroyed by my scrubbing I can see growth from one day to the next. Certainly a week is too long to leave it if I want the boat to go. Anyway yes much sympathy to those who can't get their boat launched.
By the by some people are aware of our beautiful Rottnest Island holiday resort off Fremantle. it is owned by the state government and has being taken over for quarantine for hundreds of passengers off a cruise vessel. All visitors and private boats kicked off. Despite that I am optimistic that we in west Oz will be relatively lightly infected by the virus. We shall see.
Also by the by my sympatthy and best wishes to my friends Boris and Charlie who have come down with the virus. ol'will

 

[Homer J]

I really hate to be the health and safety executive with clipboard mentality but did I understand correctly? Are you wet sanding the old anti-foul off the boat on the water with the old antifoul left to drift away?

I know I’m not without fault but is this a good idea? Is it not contributing to the destruction of the marine environment?

i will happily apologise if I have read the situation wrong.