After a pretty disappointing winter, where weather and work conspired against us, we are determined to have a much better sailing season this year! This will be helped by the untimely business failure of Graham's employer, Remit Zero, after a full-on year, but that's another story.
Our sailing started with old friends Barbara and Steve joining us for a long Easter weekend to celebrate Graham's 60th.
There's a short video of our first sail here
A week or so later, we were back aboard in horrible, cold and wet weather to sail west beyond Salcombe to rendezvous with Fergus and the crew of Sterna as they returned to British waters, at the end of their amazing Ocean Globe Race.
We felt very sorry for them as the prevailing south-westerly winds had been replaced with on-the-nose easterlies, making their progress towards the finish in Cowes a slow and frustrating process. However it was great to sail alongside them and to be able to share weather information.
There's a video of the encounter here
As they continued to beat into a failing breeze as evening fell, we diverted into Salcombe for a peaceful night on a mooring, only to find that the following morning Sterna was only 12 miles away, having been becalmed for most of the night!
The two trips out clearly indicated that, after a winter afloat, Maunie's bottom was pretty weedy and that she was in need of a good scrub. We picked a suitable tide a week or so later and put her onto the Dartmouth scrubbing grid for a clean and polish.
This was also an opportunity to film a short video for the Vancouver Owners' Association; they are putting together a documentary about the history of the Vancouver yachts and wanted an owner's perspective. Our contribution is here
So we're now planning our next adventure - Ireland beckons, we think.