Weekend Worrier

What a great weekend. Two trips onto le lac, both times with good wind. Learnt an invaluable lesson regarding the intracacies of roller-furling. Check it works or even how it works before loading family onto boat. Mucking about at the bow whilst the swabs are stripping the interior looking for biscuits and the first mate is impatiently basting in the cockpit is not a good way to start. However, we have now had two out of three headsails up and the overlapping genoa (non-furling) was a revelation.

On Saturday we were suddenly over-powered for the first time, so feathering the main to reduce the heel was the best way to keep the first mate happy. The swabs were down below at this point still searching for biscuits.

On Sunday we headed west towards St Aubin, past our Scottish mansion - ours because whilst we don't own it it it looks like a house we'd like to own and the lake does look like a lowland loch at this point - perhaps the Trossachs or Lomond - reminding us of our honeymoon. We sailed the whole way under the foch (gotta love that bit of German, although I think it is actually a genua, but hey don't let fact get in the way of a more emotive expression). Picnicking without the main up is another revelation. No risk of to life as the boat goes into an accidental gybe because one of the swabs has knocked the tiller over in a rash move to secure another slice of concombre. OK, I made that up. They were really after another biscuit.

Just before St Aubin we anchored up - another story of miscommunication with the first mate - and had the most wonderful swim off the back of the boat. Snorkeling, diving, floating in the danbouy (misuse or unlawful?). On the way back we put the swabs in the dinghy and towed them home. How peaceful. I even think I saw the first mate relaxing for a moment.

If only we could have secured a takeaway curry in the evening. Sometimes one's greatest concern might appear trifling to others. But when you've lived in a village of 600 that still has 4 curry houses within a five mile radius, to not find one in a town of 20,000 is genuinely worrying. Sometimes they just don't get it in la belle Suisse.

What are we going to call the boat...

New ambition for the Swissboat

Still need to apply for my practical test and summer almost over, tant pis. We had another covert sail (how covert two adults and three children might be is open to debate). Good one though, despite some rust in the sail hoisting department, where a badly located traveller caught under the lip of a badly tightened screw and started to lift the track out of the deck. It took numerous different tools (the right one, a simple screwdriver, had been left ashore) to free the offended screw whose nose had been completely bent out of joint. Once free of this impediment a fab sail and picnic lunch was achieved, followed by a swim at anchor off Pointe du Grain.

A second covert sail would have been achieved on the following day - perhaps the best sailing day on Lac Neuchâtel all year - had we not got some tidying up to do chez nous and a bbq planned with friends in the afternoon. A more ruthless approach is called for.

Still, two weeks in the UK at the Rolex Fastnet helped shape some planning for the future. For a short, possibly ghastly, moment I signed up for the 2011 South Pole Race (get your sledge out) until the prospective team leader's wife told him it was the Pole or his family. For a moment I saw hesitation in his response and a misty look of the snowblind about him, before reality hit home. So, I'm going to do the 2011 Rolex Fastnet instead and in the same week got an offer of a ride. Hence, the MTB is out and training has commenced. Hopefully, it will be more regular than this blog.