De-gloving Incident !

I heard alarming news when I ran into one of my sailing buddies the other day!

Their partner had had a nasty de-gloving accident on their boat at the end of last season, when load suddenly came onto a rope wound around their hand. A painful accident that resulted in a lot of subsequent medical treatment, not a small amount of which was surgical.

Unfortunate and distressing - I don't know the details, but in any case would be hard to be judgemental, but two things jump out :

Firstly - wear gloves at any opportunity, but absolutely always when dealing with mooring or anchoring. We try to do this on Annabella, but  it's always when the action starts to hot up that one is tempted to take short cut and give the gloves a miss. We have tried to overcome this by having a lot of rigger style work gloves in the cockpit pockets and lockers. At less than £2 each its not expensive. So far so good.

What if we had that accident at sea ? If there was any luck in the original incident it was that it happened on the pontoon, so medical attention was very prompt.However, you wouldn't have to be very far out to sea for attention to be two, three or four hours away. And off shore !

We will find out what the first aid would be + update the post as soon as we can !

New log book on the way:

So - we used up all the store bought log book, so I made us a new one. You can have a look at it here:

http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/8120511-sailing-yacht-annabella-log-book

They are exceptional value if you happen to have a sailing yacht called Annabella - or if you just want to follow our adventures!

...at last, the new cockpit table

Now, where's the ice and the lemon...

10 and 11 July - Postscriptum

After most of the crew took to the road, other Dave helped me take the boat back to her mooring.
We hailed the club launch on VHF channel 37, and they took other Dave off - now he was going his way too.
Katie, the launch driver asked me if I was coming ashore, I said, "No, not quite yet, I'm going to tidy up and straighten out a few things. I'll see you in the bar later."
Well, mid-morning on next day I was woken by someone gently tapping on the portlight with a boat hook. Katie again, " You weren't in the bar last night and thought we'd better check on you..." I'd slept the clock round, but felt happy and secure that the launch crew had been watching over me after all.

There is a a tremendous feeling of satisfaction in skippering a successful passage, even if it is only
600nm. Annabella may not be a big boat, but she went there and came back in the same number of pieces with which she set out and a happy crew.
**
Whose coming next, wherever we're going ?

Sailing is replete with metaphors, but this one will remain with me for a long time. As we came on to the north-south pontoon a seal (small dark spot - middle of the picture) appeared and cruised round, taking an inquisitive interest in everything. I asked someone if they came up to the marina a lot, "...never seen it before." they replied.

10 July - Landfall

Hoorah ! We're back in our home port, 

The boats cam back ok and so did the crew - they're safe and sound and still talking to each other !

What a crew and what a passage !
**
Wihtin a few minutes of this photo we all go went our separate ways,
By night fall were hundreds of miles apart.
Will we meet again ? Watch out for part 2 ?

The Sail Making Box

We've had the sail making box to carry out some minor repairs.

Just replacing some press studs on the halyard bags..

New year, new season, new plan

With the turn of the year its also time to start planning for the new season.

This season we're hoping our long cruise will be to meet up with one of the first mate's friends who lives in the Scillies. Time to start planning the trip now!