Monday morning, 9am and the back room in the Sports Bar is full of expectant sailors ready for the morning seminars. Today’s topics are provisioning, mental preparation and boat gadgets. Mia, the lovely Swedish wife of Andy, (who as a duo run the Arc1500 rally) gave us the benefit of her experience provisioning and cooking for ocean passages. Top tips were avoid alcohol and coffee, over-provision by 50%, expect to.. Read More
Sunday. We expected to have a few days to prepare, but our inspection time was booked for 10:00 am on Sunday, which was good, because it would give us the whole week to resolve anything that arose. In the end, Howard and Hope’s amazing commitment to the boat paid off, and we were pronounced complete, after a rigorous review by Lyall from the Rally staff. He took an hour to.. Read More
At 5am in darkness we slipped our mooring and motored out of the creek, following the navigation lights through the buoyed channel to the open bay. Chesapeake Bay is a major shipping area for tankers and container ships heading to and from Baltimore and other ports in Delaware and Maryland, serving the East Coast. They are generally travelling at 30 knots plus, so appear out of nowhere quite quickly. Since.. Read More
It’s amazing how everything just comes together in the nick of time 🙂 The new pool cover arrived, smart new sunnies and specs have been ordered, delivery to Rally HQ, and we’ve enough provisions aboard to cross the Atlantic west to east. At this point it must be said that the boat looks gorgeous with its smart teak decks, the result of months of hard labour by Howard, and everything.. Read More
Saturday 18 October The crew of Second Wind are all aboard, with a countdown checklist to get underway, heading south towards Rally HQ next Thursday. There is lots to do! The list includes fitting a new pool cover for the winter back at home in Downingtown, which still hasn’t arrived, and Hope needs new glasses, which her optician is reluctant to prescribe until her eyes have settled down, so there.. Read More
We had some fun over the July 4th weekend. Friday 4th saw the passing of hurricane Arthur with winds near us gusting at >35 kts. So we decided not to venture out and place a group of wedges around the mast instead (the rigger still has not returned to finish the rigging job). We departed Saturday morning in about 15-20 kts of wind and got as far as the channel,.. Read More
We had a great time! See you soon, Lots of love, Karen and William xo
Crew training would not have been complete without a man overboard drill, and we sensed the yacht owners were keen to try some of their new safety kit on live bait…. So Karen was kitted out with a full set of sailing gear, and inflated lifejacket, and jumped overboard, hoping to be rescued by the crew. The Life Sling proved its worth once everyone worked out how to use it.. Read More
Back in Worton Creek at the end of our travels, on a very hot night, we drove in the Saab convertible with the top down to Rock Hall. We arrived at sunset just in time for a very messy, and most delicious crab dinner at the harbour, a fitting end to a great trip!
After a day figuring out the eccentricities of the slightly asymmetric spinnaker, our last night was at anchor in the Magothy River nestled behind Dobbins Island, on a beautiful calm evening, with warm water to swim in from the boat, a meal on board, and a trip up the creek in the dinghy to explore. This is what makes  holidays afloat special.