From Glasgow to Troon (and first approach of China Blue)
China Blue being in Glasgow, Scotland, and me in south of France, meant flying up there, and due to Covid regulation, stay self-isolated for 10 days.
I was motivated.
I left home for Glasgow on July 14 and booked 10 nights in a cheap hotel. Now, I was going to buy her, unless she was broken in two.
It was not the case, nevertheless the boat was in a much worse state than in my expectations.
A lot of junk under the junk
It had been sitting on the hard for 5 years in a busy shipyard, totally neglected, mostly used as a storage place for a lot of stuff, most of it I’d call garbage.
To give you an idea, even the galley fridge was filled up with tools and miscellaneous bits and pieces. The interior was dirty and had been hastily painted, the floor like one of a mechanic workshop. 2 batteries out of 3 were dead, one of the 3 solar panels had been removed, most of the electronics stated in the original advert was missing or not working. The electric layout was a mess. All the sail auxiliary lines, parrels, lazy jacks, mast lifts, were of stiff and dirty 3 strands polypropylene rope. A new 52 meters halyard for the aft sail had to be bought. The original wooden tiller had been replaced by an horrible piece of scaffolding pipe welded on the original tiller mount.
The fridge
Still a seducing shape, in my opinion.
But the hull looked sound and strong, the engine was relatively recent and was running well. I saw all the defects, but was looking beyond them. There was no turning back.
The plan was to sail from Glasgow to Northern Ireland, then Eire, then Scillys islands and then France, down the Atlantic to Soubise, a little harbour on the river Charente, south of La Rochelle. The stop in Eire was to allow my wife Gina to join me, without having to undergo the 10 days self-isolation in the UK. Besides, being not retired, she could not stay with me for the whole passage.
Gina would not hear of me sailing solo to Dublin and insisted upon finding a crewmate, in which she proved totally wise. I put an advert on CrewBay, and half an hour later John and I were friends, sharing similar passions and philosophy. John is an English man of my age, living in York, north-east of England.
First splash after over 5 years on the dry.
We met in Glasgow a few days before casting off. He did at once prove being a valuable partner, skilful driver and wise beer selector. Later, when sailing, it became evident he was as skilful and strong at holding the tiller, while still very reliable in regard of the beer choices.
We left Clydebank on July 31, tide and high spirits on our side. This first leg was to take us to Troon, Ayrshire.
We were discovering the boat, motoring down the river Clyde in the grey morning, then raising the 2 sails as we passed Gourok and entered the Firth of Clyde. Stopping the motor was good, watching the blue sails filled with wind felt an achievement.
I had been dreaming about that moment so often. The weather got clearer and the coastline on portside was nice and peaceful. A guy on another yacht yelled at us “Nice sails!”, we were delighted.
First “wing-and-wong”!
As we approached Troon with the breeze on our back, I was wondering how to have the sails goose winged. Like if China Blue had read my thoughts, we saw the front sail gently move from port to starboard, and there we were, sailing “wing and wong” in the afternoon sun…
We believed the rest of the voyage would bring more and more enchantments, as we got to better know the boat…