The Jorney Home

The boat was at the Eversons boat yard in Woodbridge, I live in Oxford that's a bit of a long trip.
As I wanted to do a major refit I decided to take her home via the Thames to be moored near Oxford.
Before we left I needed to change the fuel tank As it was leaking into the bilges.

This rusty lump was removed by the yard and replaces with a new vetus plastic tank. being translucent you can see the fule level and any muck that may get in.

The day before we left she was craned in.

 Now sitting in the river Deben ready for departure.

 The first day of our trip was a slow motor from Woodbridge to Felixstow Ferry. I was crewed by Ray an old sailing friend. We gradually got the feel of the boat before taking her out to sea for the first time.

We got up with the dawn to take advantage of the rising tide to take us down to Brightlingsea.

The wind was right on our nose, so our first sail was a slog beating into the wind. Suprisingly the Swin Ranger managed a respectable 45 deg to the wind. Not bad as I managed to jam a novelty windsock into the main halliard  sheave at the top of the mast, and had to sail with a baggy main.

This is the naughty windsock just before we hoisted the main:-

Note the string around the halliard.
After a couple of hours slog we started the engine an motored the final approaches to Britlingsea.
We spent a very pleasant night on the pontoon.

The next morning we again started with the dawn making for Queenborough.

 Not a breath of wind did we get all day very hot!
We passed the SS Richard Montgomery, I'm sure a few bits have fallen off since I last went by.

We could not raise any one on the VHF at Queenborough, but finally worked out which were the visitors buoys.
That evening we enjoyed the natural beauty of the sun dogs:- 

  To be continued in Part 2: