Slender Delta in Bangor

Just a short late night note to confirm that Slender Delta has in deed moved more or less according to plan from Killyleagh to Bangor during the course of Wed 26 May. We started in great spirits at 1105 and motored on towards Portaferry and the Lough narrows. A jolly seal greeted us on the way down, just a few yards from the boat. The sun was shining.

The dreaded narrows was passed at exactly high water and we were looking forward to hoisting the sails. That wasn't to be however. The wind was against us, expected perhaps, but sometimes it changes in your favour. Well, this time it did not. Also coming out of the Lough the sea was pretty choppy with big waves and to dampen our sailing expectations the wind picked up to about 30 kts mean speed, more in gusts. Certainly quite a bit more than in the forecast. Musto's and Prorainer's gear was put to a good test and they passed with flying colours - a definite off shore gear weather. Waves estimated about 4-5 metres at the highest.

Needless to say, after helping the engine with jib n:o 3 we accepted that whereas speed was a lot greater, between 6-7 kts, we couldn't go a straight line. Chef, whose lovely sandwiches went down well couldn't eat himself and admitted his sea legs had been left home.

We hauled ourselves a bit closer to the shore, which in turn required more careful navigation. It helped weatherwise, though. The weather was beautiful throughout but due to the aforementioned circumstances we decided we'd do a lot of sailing later, not today. The heater and the fridge were tested properly and found working very well. The Ebersprächer diesel heater is hard to beat!

All sort of useful observations were made and in all chief engineer and I thought this was a great exercise, although it took the whole of 10 hrs before we were safely moored into the impressive safety of the Bangor marina, who charged us 45 pounds for two nights. As sometimes happens when sailing, everything worked!

Friday night...cannot wait