Off to the boat show
Carl has spent the last four days touring the Scottish Highlands on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. The NorthCoast 500 is a bucket list ride that Carl has now ticked off. He rode a lot more than 500 miles, that was just the route. Overall he’s averaged just under 400 miles a day for the last four days so when he got home last night he was whacked.
We are now packing again tonight as first thing tomorrow we are setting off for four days in Poole, Dorset, pulling in a day out at the Southampton boat show.
Poole has been a favourite place of ours for years, especially when our kids were younger, we spent many holidays down there when we had a touring caravan. It will be really nice to get back down there to see how the place has changed.
We are obviously looking forward to the boat show and will hopefully pick up a bargain or two in the clothing sections as we are booked on a charter in just a few weeks and need some new offshore coats. Watch this space.
We will be putting a video together from the trip so that should be online initially for a Patreon supporters a few days before general release. If you want to be one of the earlybird viewers then you can become one of our Patrons by clicking HERE!
Have a great week.
The wind picks up!
We spent the afternoon out on the boat. Today the wind was blowing a nice steady force 3 gusting 4-5 at times, so it was ideal for Jen to get a bit of experience in the higher winds. Although we shared the helming, Jen spent more time helming than crewing. The video doesn’t show the wind as being as strong as it actually was. We had a great day out on the boat as you’ll see in the video. Hope you enjoy it.
On a separate note we now have a couple of Patrons who have joined us so a big thank you to them. If you would like to join but not sure whats its about you can click on the link below which will take you to our Patreon site and find out what its all about.
Carl & Jenny
Big THANK YOU to our You Tube subscribers
As some of you know we are adding more videos to our fairly new You Tube page. As with all things new it takes a while for the momentum to build and getting the word out there to let people know about your channel. We are getting the odd one or two new subscribers each day but it is a lengthy process. So, if you have watched any of our videos and have not yet subscribed would you mind clicking the subscribe button please? It will really help us to get the word out as YouTube use the amount of views and subscribers in the algorithms to rank and recommend different sites. We put a bit of effort into producing something for everyone to watch and would really like to be able to get out to more people, so go on, do it, you know it makes sense 🙂 Also once we get to 100 subscribers we can claim a custom URL for the page rather than the jumble of letters and numbers.
To everyone who has already Subscribed we would just like to say “Thank You”. It makes the work really worth it.
We have also set up a Patreon page where people who enjoy our videos can pledge a small amount per video or per month starting at just $1.00, It doesn’t matter what currency you use normally as the site will do the conversion. As the Patreon is a new thing to us we are still waiting for our first Patron, we are excited to see who that will be. Whoever it is will be getting a big shout out on the first video following their sign up.
We love our cups of tea!
Well for anyone who knows us, they will agree that we do like our tea! I (Carl) like my Twinings Green tea with lemon, Earl Grey and i’m also fond of a cup of chamomile tea to finish the day off. I obviously like a normal cup of tea as well with a spot of milk.
So, being tea drinkers, we also get through a few cups and mugs. Yesterday, whilst browsing over the internet I found some mugs online where you can upload your own design, and have some made for you without having to order a silly amount.
I have recently put together a new logo that we are using on our Social media stuff which you may have already seen so i’ve used that with a bit of text and come up with this design. both images will be on one cup. Let us know what you think, we like them.
If you fancy having a go yourself and would like to know where to get them from, drop a comment below and we’ll be in touch.
Have a great day.
Carl & Jenny
Another day practical training for Jenny
We had no particular plans today, plan was to spend time chilling out in the garden, seeing as the weather was supposed to be “okay”. However we woke up and it was beautiful weather with a nice breeze blowing. Yep, you guessed it, perfect sailing weather. What better way to get some chillaxing done and forget about the stresses of everyday life than to get out on the water. A quick telephone call to the sailing club to double check the weather conditions up there and the sailing times and it was time to fill the flask, grab some fruit for lunch, pack the cameras and off we set. 45 minutes later we were waiting on the jetty to be taken out to the mooring.
Filming on board
We had a lovely day sailing, taking it in turns to skipper and film.  Jenny got to practice some stronger wind helming in the gusts that developed later on. She also got to navigate around a lot of other boats as there were a large number of Laser dinghy’s racing. All good fun, finished off by a perfect mooring manoeuvre 🙂
Hope you enjoy the video. Please, if you haven’t done already, visit our YouTube channel and click on subscribe. Once we get to a 100 subscribers we can claim a custom url from YouTube plus you will know when we publish a new video.
Carl & Jenny.
We get out on the boat :)
At last, the boat is back in the water, repairs have been done and it’s sailing time again. So as the weather forecast was given out to be blue skies, warm with a fresh breeze we decided to have another trip up to the sailing club to spend a few hours chilling out, out on the water, what better way to unwind and free up a bit of stress?
As you will see in the video, the conditions couldn’t have been much better. We arrived half an hour though before the safety boat driver was due a lunch break and as that was the only safety boat out on the water (Severn Trent Rules) we could only sit on the mooring until he came back an hour and half later. No problem, it gave us a some time to have a cup of tea, chill out and sunbathe in the cockpit.
We eventually set sail and had a great afternoons sailing. We had a couple of incidents, Jen almost went over the side! The video doesn’t make it look as close as it actually was and if I hadn’t have grabbed her she’d have been swimming lol! The other incident, which we didn’t get on film was when the starboard jib sheet came detached from the jib just prior to tacking. We were getting close to the shoreline as Jen was frantically trying to tie it back on, we needed to tack to starboard. I brought the boat to a neutral position as the wind was starting to get up a bit and I didn’t want her getting knocked overboard. I furled in the jib using the roller reefing while Jen tried to tie a bowline back on, We were getting into very shallow water now and the depth finder was showing just over half a metre underneath the boat! We got it sorted and I steered us back into deeper water. It was the subject of a laugh afterwards, but a bit nerve racking at the time. Good experience though and as they say, “character building”.
Hope you enjoy the video, and if you do please subscribe to our You Tube channel.
Carl & Jenny.
Latest video now online
We had a drive recently up to the sailing club to see if the boat (Parker 21) had been put back in the water after it was damaged during the Isle of Wight round the island race. It was late in the afternoon but the boat was sat on its mooring, but it was too late to go and have a sail. So we planned to go and have a chill/de-stress day pottering about a few days later.
The weather forecast was for light to moderate winds but probably wet. Well the day came around and as you’ll see in the video, it wasn’t the most ideal of sailing weather….no wind at all and throwing it down with rain!
So, we battened down the hatches, and had a theory training session.
Please have a look at the short video we’ve put together and if you like it give it a thumbs up, and if you’d like to follow us on our journey from novice sailors to liveaboards in 2017 please subscribe to the channel.
Hope you enjoy it, Â now off for the morning yoga and meditation session.
C & J
Learning all about tidal diamonds
This afternoon Jenny’s studying was all about tidal diamonds. A little bit heavy going at times but by the end of the lesson she had grasped it.
I was watching over to make sure the workings out was correct which to be honest was a good bit of revision for me as its been quite a while since I’ve had to put the theory into practice as the majority of our sailing over the past couple of years has been inland!
We are both looking forward to putting into practice what we are studying.
This week we have been watching the Cowes regatta live racing via Livestream on our Roku tv box and also the sailing in the olympics. I have also enjoyed watching the windsurfing racing as a few years ago we were both into windsurfing in a big way. So much so that I even had wave boards on the half landing at home (before we were married and shared a house lol).
C & J
Cowes regatta starts today
For many years now we have followed yacht racing, from The Whitbread round the world yacht race as was, through to the racing machines of the Americas Cup, but one we have attended a few times has been the Cowes Regatta on the Isle Of Wight. It probably started when I used to work over in the Isle of Wight back in the early to mid 80’s and carried on when we used to holiday down there as our kids were growing up.
Nowadays we get to follow it online using Cowes radio and a great app for iOS, Livestream which broadcasts live video for the whole week. (See the pic above for a screen shot).
Well the regatta was supposed to have started at 0930 this morning but there has been a 2 hr delay due to a lack of wind! If you fancy following it download the app (it’s free) and search for Aberdeen asset management and start watching. And if you have Apple TV you can watch it on your big screen using AirPlay.
Get the ice ready and your preferred tipple for some great racing action.
C &J
Passage Planning – Collision Regs – Symbols
The postman has been 😀
Three more books have arrived to help out with our planning. The first two, the symbols and abbreviations and the collision regs we already have but our copies are a few years old so we thought it best to update them. Not a lot of difference apart from the prices!!!
The third book, Passage planning is a new one to the collection and I’ve already started reading this one this afternoon. The weather outside can’t decide what to do today, so I’m swapping from being sat outside in the sun, to being sat inside watching the dark skies and showers. Looks like some clear skies coming so once this post is uploaded I might be back out there reading the book.
I had the privelidge this morning of passing on some filming tips on one of the Facebook pages we are members of. It’s always nice to be able to pass on a bit of knowledge to someone else, I’m pretty sure that there will be some questions posted by us in the months to come so it will be nice to get some answers in return. Instant Karma!
No studying tonight as Jenny has a meeting with the girls from her netball team along with a meal so it’s a night in for me, ideal time to read more of the books.
Our food and drinks kitty has been paid today for our charter in October. There are 8 of us chartering two boats 4 on each, and will be leaving Plymouth on the Monday for a five day sail. Destination to be decided once we get a bit closer and have up to date weather forecasts. We are expecting a bit of rough water though 😳.
C & J