Sat 25 Jun
We stood on the fore deck and stared at the anchor and asked the question “why is there no chain to be seen?”
We knew there was 30 metre of chain attached to 30 metre of rope. We knew the depth was 5 metre and the gauge on the electronic meter said we laid out 15 metre of cable. All correct for the depth and conditions.
A gust of wind suddenly blew across the water and skip’s cap plopped into the sea. Too late for the boathook as it drifted off. Fortunately a dinghy full of divers was passing nearby and came to the rescue.
Back to the puzzle of the extra long anchor rode because we were swinging about on a 45m arc and there were other yachts arriving all the time. Out came the extensive manual and an answer became clear. The electric windlass should’ve been calibrated so that the teeth in the gipsy counts out each link in the chain accurately. “Time out” to think !
Raised the anchor (45m) and motored in open waters to discover how the new yacht behaves in forward / reverse, start / stop and finally in circles. The RNLI were also out on practice in the bay.
And so back to the anchor… The auto-calibration function by laying out 6m through the gipsy solved the problem one hour later.
Time to inflate the dinghy using the electronic pump. Unbelievable… again we needed to read the manual! And one hour later discovered how that works!
We looked at the ship’s clock at 19:00 and thought we had lost 3 hours of time.
Resting at anchor ‘doing jobs’ and learning new ‘stuff’ was successfully completed. A meal was prepared of venison steak in an onion and red wine jus. Gently rocking as relaxing music played in the background.
A Day of discovery, until tomorrow “good night” zzzzz
Experience Sailing 