Carra Tidings

30th March to 4th April

Mags had come over to the UK early and spent Monday servicing the engine under Gary’s watchful eye. Tuesday Peter and Chris – who were due to take her over to Kiel for us, helped Mags launch Carra and take her round to the Marina. With it gusting over 60 knots in Carrick Roads I was rather glad not to be parking her! I arrived on Tuesday evening as I had been working in London. Wednesday – we put the last of the halyards on – but true to form it didn’t go smoothly – so I had to go up the mast as the mousing wire had come off the block. It was still too windy to put the sails on – so we spent the day doing boat jobs. This included putting on all the Baltic kit. Mainly the stern anchor and the anchor roller. By the time I was nearly finished it was getting dark and a moment of lost concentration and one screw went plop as it fell overboard. Next time we would use the bow ladder in anger would be in Sweden. By Thursday the wind had abated and we were finally able to put on the sails – though we did need to turn the boat around due to the wind direction. The next task was provision her for the big trip – Mags was in her element. We knew that this would be the last time for some time we would have a car – so we took advance of buying all the dry provisions we would need for the season. Also Carra was a convenient way of getting some British goodies over to Finland. When testing the nav lights – I noticed the stern light had gone so that had to be fixed. Before we knew it – it was Saturday before we had finished all our jobs. All that was left to do was a test sail.