A week, or less?, till departure....

Well! In the end the new engine IS the show model from the Southampton boat show. It arrived at the yard on Tuesday and fitting should be complete for a relaunch of 'Tin Tin of St Mawes' on Thursday afternoon.

Paul has completed the official vessel registration but found that he had to add 'of St Mawes' as the shorter name had already been taken.

Last week, I spent several days helping prepare the boat and getting hold of various bits and pieces for the voyages ahead. These included;

  • an extra fuel filter, 
  • ocean rated Dan buoy, 
  • 2 litres of sun cream, 
  • Tin Tin visiting cards, 
  • 4 x 20m mooring ropes, 
  • new seals for the aft lazarettes, 
  • fixing 5x 12v fans in cabins for the hotter climes, 
  • removing all the dry food stocks left over from our earlier 'Tin Tin Around Britain' adventures, 
  • removing the 35m of anchor chain ready for the 100m of replacement chain so that we have a chance of anchoring in some of the deeper anchorages we will be visiting.

Once TToSM is back in the water, we have to conduct sea trials to check we can still achieve 9knts under full power. The new engine operates at a max of 3000rpm as opposed to 4500rpm for the old one. This requires an adjustment to the angle of the propeller blades to get the best transfer of power from engine to water.

At the moment, we may be ready to depart on the 2nd but we are now looking for a suitable weather window to get us from Portsmouth to Brest so we may have to delay another day or so. The general course of our route after Brest takes us across the Bay of Biscay to la Corunna, then on down the Portuguese coast to Lisbon before setting off to the Canaries, via Madeira.

We should be there by early Nov. We will be returning to the UK to celebrate some birthdays and to attend an offshore medical course before starting for Cape Verde the first week in Dec and on to the Caribbean spending Christmas somewhere mid Atlantic!

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