Dawn at Harwood

Well after dawn but still quite early Rod King arrived in his work truck with an air compressor. He demonstrated how easy tasks such as attaching my new mast plug look when done by a skillful person with the right tools. He went on to consider why it was so difficult to attach the mast to the deck and saw that it was slightly out of whack. So of course he took it to pieces and put it back so that it sat properly for the very first time. Many, many thanks Rod.

With the mast fixed it seemed only proper to rig Little Dragon and head off for an afternoon sail. Noela and her friend Peter arrived but the wind didn't. We sat on the clubhouse deck and waited and waited. Eventually a gentle breeze ghosted up the river and off we went. It was only forecast to get to 8 knots but it did better than that. We reckon it reached 14 knots and we got as far as the Goodwood mark and back.

Altogether an excellent day.

No sailing for Little Dragon at the Annual Regatta

15 February 2015

Eve and I headed down to Harwood looking forward to the Annual Regatta. Although we weren't racing we intended to be spectators and accompany the fleet to Iluka and back. Unfortunately when we tried to raise the mast it just wouldn't go up straight. Odd as it is something that I have done without difficulty every other time. Not sure exactly what happened. The lug on the mast plug fractured so we couldn't attach the mast to the mast step on the deck. We could have launched and motored but that didn't appeal to either of us.

Fractured mast plug

Such a shame as it was perfect weather and a SE breeze of around 10 knots possibly up to 12 knots at times. Instead I busied myself with shore duties. The smooth running of these regattas relies totally on the hard work of BRSC's small membership.

Thanks to Rod for drilling out the old mast plug so that I could order a new identical one.