01/09/2008 - Lord Nelson

We sailed from Hartlepool at 09:00 into a wind that varied from South to Southwest – just the directions that we didn’t want because they came from the direction that we wanted to travel.

We had two visitors on board who were to be dropped off at Scarborough. This was accomplished via the dinghy and while we were idling in Scarborough Bay we had several day trip boats circling around us giving the tourists more than they had expected when they set off on their jolly. Once our visitors had departed we continued our three day journey to the Straights of Dover – at least that is the plan, with as much sailing as possible but hopes were not high considering the wind direction.

During the morning and afternoon we have tried several times to set the topsails but with little success. This resulted in a lot of sail handling but culminated in having to settle for using some of the staysails and by 20:00 we were on full power from the engines with two staysails struggling to keep wind in them.

A number of the more adventurous crew members enjoyed them self’s climbing to the very top of the main mask.

The weather is getting worse and there is likely to be quite a bit of bumping and banging during the night – hey ho.

There was a partial red sunset so let’s hope the Sheppard’s are correct and we do not get too much rain tomorrow.

One of our first time voyage crew commented that “this is fantastic, a steep learning curve, but lots of enjoyment and fun.

The food excellent with the cook doing amazing things in a galley that has been anything but still.

We will sign off now as we are on watch early in the morning so those of us who are not sea sick are going to the bar.

Update By: Alan W/L, Ken, Clive, Cheryl, Ian, Libby, Andy and Rob