Rocking and Rolling Round the Island

For Jonah, Calypso, Hattie (Jonah's cousin) and me it was our first Round the Island race and according to the veterans it was the toughest one they can remember. Not sure if that was supposed to make me feel better as I spent most of the time round the back of the Island wishing I could die. Genuinely I think seasickness is up there with childbirth, and similar in that at the time you think "Please remind me never to do this again" but shortly afterwards you think "well, that wasn't so bad really". On the plus side, it was great to see Calypso really pushed and know just how much abuse she can put up with - I actually mean 'hear her pushed' as I was horizontal with my eyes closed at the time that Jeremy, Simon and Fiona were bracing themselves in the cockpit, Kit was battling with the spinnaker pole and being hoisted up the mast to retrieve halyards and the boat was rolling her way down past St Catherine's. Fortunately we had a very accommodating cameraman on board called Harry, who managed to film as well as help during the crisis points. We came a very respectable 23rd overall and 12th in the IRC class but the great excitement of the day was that Nick Rogers aka Uncle Stru won the race and the Gold Roman Bowl in his little Contessa 26 (built in 1968 by Jeremy). 3rd and 4th were big corporate boats, so it really was a triumph. At one point we nearly lost Jonah over the side during a particularly enthusiastic tacking manoeuvre but despite this, and feeling a bit queasy himself, he hasn't been put off and is really looking forward to more adventures in Calypso.

All together now

That's the great thing about going cruising - we're all together - hectic schedules are forgotten and there's plenty of time to pickle around. On this little cruise we took our scow (pictured) and we all had a chance to sail and motor her around. There were swimming competitions with some friends (Maya was the first one to brave the cold water of the river) and plenty of fishing; Ini caught a huge mullet which he returned to the sea. We're still working with the boys on the concept of tidyness and not getting ALL your clothes soaking wet and thick with mud on the second day of a cruise, which does jeopardise the whole "happy to be together" vibe - but I think we're getting there!?

Hybrid hiccups

Calypso is fitted with a very exciting piece of kit - a diesel electric hybrid engine from Hybrid Marine . The idea of this is that we should be able to use the electric drive for most of our motoring needs - silent and pollution free, with the large bank of batteries necessary being topped up by a number of different methods; the solar panel, the wind turbine or the propeller when the boat is sailing. The generation from the propeller is fairly experimental on a sailing boat and we've had a few teething problems with this side of things. With too little pitch (that's the angle of the blades, in case you were wondering) the regeneration mode simply didn't work, too much pitch and the regeneration mode worked fine, but the engine stalled when being motored in reverse. So, last week Calypso was hauled out of the water once again so that Darglow, the propeller manufacturer could change the pitch again. Hopefully by trial and error we will find the perfect compromise between propulsion and regeneration.

Fingers crossed!

When the cat's away.......

For various reasons too complicated to explain I ended up stranded in Portsmouth recently and Kit decided to come and collect me in Calypso. It was the end of an Easter holidays of beautiful weather and Kit and the boys, including Sweep the dog, set off via Newtown Creek on the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth Harbour to pick me up. My absence meant that the boys had to rise to the occassion; ten year old Jonah steering, Inigo (8) on ropes and fenders and the five year old twins on the bow on lookout as they negotiated their way up into the busy naval port and across the shipping lane. The marina in Portsmouth is right underneath the impressive Spinnaker Tower and in the middle of a busy shopping centre. I arrived by train and found the boys roaring up the pontoon to meet me, followed by Sweep. I had been away for quite a few days and they had taken the opportunity not to change their clothes during this time. They looked SO out of place in the middle of a city centre - filthy, sunburnt but so happy, and very pleased to see me. Before taking them off for an ice cream I asked them to clean up a bit. Turns out that Kit had taken the risky decision to get them to pack for themselves which meant there was an excess of teddies in Rex and Kai's cupboard, fishing tackle in Inigo's and books in Jonah's - but no clean shirts. Cleanliness is overrated anyway!
(Kit didn't pack the camera - this is picture of clean boys)

Is it worth it?

Is it just me, or do most people sometimes resent their boats? For me it's not hours I spend fixing and tinkering but hours my husband Kit spends and I therefore spend looking after the kids on my own. And, (I confess) at the end of the winter I was beginning to wonder if it's worth it. Last weekend I was reminded of 'what it's all about' during our first trip of the season. We had a great friend Jonah Gouin (our son Jonah's namesake) visiting from the US. Kit, Jonah and I have had some great sailing adventures together in a previous life, filming and researching whales and dolphins in some incredible places around the world. Life is a little different now, for us not so exotic and for none of us so carefree but at least we can still get out on the water all together and have some adventures - and that is priceless and yes, I think it is worth it. (Someone please remind me next winter)!

In again, out again

One of my favourite green alternatives on Calypso is the antifoul - or 'foul release' if I'm to be precise (see Building Calypso). So, when we pulled her out of the water last week we were all really intrigued to see how well it had worked. At first glance she looked pretty much like any boat which has been in the water for six months, but the difference is that after a light spray the paint looks shiny and new. Apart from a few minor war wounds from our eventful weekend at Newtown Creek (see earlier blog "Solent Adventures) she looks absolutely like she was painted yesterday. The manufacturer Hempel say that this new product (called Hempasil X3) should work well for a good 10 years, in which case this is a very, very exciting development - imagine no more copper leaching out into the water, no more annual scrubbing and repainting. Amazing.

Round-the-Island - Calypso gets there first!

I should make clear this is not first to the finish but first to enter the 80th Round-the-Island Race - an epic yacht race of 1700 boats who make the annual dash, 60 miles around the Isle of Wight.
I've never taken part in the RTI race but other members of the Rogers family have won the most coveted RTI trophy, The Gold Roman Bowl, three times in the old family boat, Rosina, so the pressure is on! People assume that because your surname is Rogers that you are genetically modified for sailing. Of course, I'm not a real Rogers, I was born on a farm in a land locked part of the country and had no idea about boats until my late teens. It's true that since then I have got quite a few miles under my belt, but somehow, I still feel like a bit of a fraud.
Anyway, it should be an exciting day and hopefully if we do really badly it will be put down to the weight of the hybrid engine, or the extra batteries, and not the dilution of Rogers genes on board!

Eternal sunshine in a muddy creek

There's been a variation on the "would you rather" game in our house (eg. would you rather eat a spider or have one of your legs chopped off - or some such gruesome thing). The new one is "what's your worst day ever"? Worryingly, Rex never misses a heartbeat in his answer - it's "The day we went on Calypso" - We thought it was time to instill some happy Calypso memories to try to dislodge the traumatic one and fortunately managed to pull off a near perfect winter weekend trip to Newtown Creek on the Isle-of-Wight. It was one of those fairly non-descript winter weekends when the forecast wasn't great and the sceptre of trying to persuade the kids that they'd love to join in the rugby/hockey/sailing class was looming. So we packed everyone up and did the nuclear family thing, just us in our floating home. The great thing about Newtown in the winter is that there is no problem getting a mooring - there's no one there other than the occasional sail training boat and thousands of birds. We took the dinghy ashore and walked the children the long way to the pub at the top of the river - enjoyed a delicious lunch and walked back just as the light was fading. Fading light and falling tide saw a family of six (plus mildly neurotic collie) enjoying the spectacle of huge flocks of birds swooping close overhead. No one except the birds were there to watch the spectacle of the same family being dragged rather desperately by a grunting father, up to his thighs in mud as the tide finally left the little creek we'd decided to navigate in. The children loved it, laughing at Kit as he became more and more covered in mud. The grunting and muscle power paid off and we made it back to Calypso for pasta and a film for supper. Next morning we managed to fit in a full morning of fossil hunting on the beach before setting off with the wind and tide behind us for a beautiful sail home. Maybe I should suggest a game called "what's your best day ever"? Sadly the answer would probably be something like "going to Paulton's Park". Perhaps I won't ask!