At last – we are back in the water and have functioning sails and engine. So, what better than to go out and test them? From the Oxelösund Fiskehamn, we headed out around lunchtime and off out to clear water to test the sails. The sun shone and the wind blew – well intermittently! At times we had gusts of around 25 knots, but most of the time it was a force 4 gusting 5 – perfect conditions for a good sail. The boat felt much better than last year – more balanced (and faster) and this has perhaps to do with the weed growth which Oxelösunds Batvarv took off last summer when she came out of the water.
Everything seemed to work well and after an hour and a half or so, we headed back into Oxelösund Gasthamn and met up with Pat and Stephen. A quick supermarket stock up and a fruitless search for a phone shop finished off the afternoon. Ric has now replaced all the instrument panels and done the vast majority of the jobs, though the one casualty of the winter seems to be the battery charger, though we are still investigating this.
