I’d launched Silkie a fortnight ago but another hassle with another new forestay was followed by an excess of wind. All of which meant that I couldn’t sail until this weekend.

Arrived on Friday afternoon, bent on the sails and wired up the mast stuff. A surfeit of invites meant that I’d to pass on Moira’s retirement do on Dawn in favour of chilli with Bob on Merry Monster. This inevitably led to a lateish start on Saturday but this was OK since I was more or less resigned to a daysail in the light of a dodgy forecast for Sunday.

I faffed around nervously on Saturday morning and was eventually ready (or so I thought) by lunchtime. Power to the tiller pilot was intermittent (I seem to remember kicking the plug out of the cockpit socket on the last sail of the season) but I decided I could manage without. What follows is a perfect example of the mental equivalent of hardening of the arteries. (Readers with a low boredom threshold can skip the following blow-by-blow account of the problems of handling a small boat with no effective reverse in a confined space under the influence of a strong current.)

Can’t be bothered - maybe later.

Suffice it to say that I picked the wrong way to reverse, started the turn too early and touched Silkie’s bow to my own finger, stopping the turn and resulting in us being swept down onto the end of a finger opposite before I could get steerage. It was one of those more-power-might-bring-her-round-in-time-but-less-will-soften-the-impact quandries. @&$£! We hadn’t gone 50 feet and I’d clouted her twice!

Made it out of the bay without hitting anything else though the tillerpilot was proving very intermittent and I eventually resorted to using it just to lock the tiller. Raised the main with a cautious reef and noticed that the reefing lines were rove around the leech tension line. I’d rigged them with the sail on the boom. Tried to get some genoa out and despite carefully flaking down the furling line it managed to tie itself around the working genoa sheet in a new and wonderfully complex knot. With furling line pulling on one hand and sheet flogging in the other it took a moment to realise that I would have to cleat something off as I couldn’t unfankle them with my teeth. Maybe I was more hungover than I thought.

Finally got her sailing. A seal popped up astern and gave me a faintly amused look. We have a special relationship with seals because of our name and I started to relax a bit.

The rest of the sail was fairly uneventful. I tried her on various points of sail and discovered that the aft lowers needed a bit more tension. Some minor changes that I’d dreamed up over the winter seemed to be successful. The wind eased and I shook out the reef. By the time we returned I’d regained some confidence and sailed through the moorings before realising that I’d neglected to prepare any warps.

The current was now working for me in the final approaches (as an experiment I maintained steerage through the water while going backwards over the ground) and we came alongside as sweetly as kiss my hand. I stepped off nonchalantly, warps in hand, and hoped that no-one had noticed my departure.

Miles this trip 15

Miles this season 15 (s/h 15)