Crossfields conference in Arnside

Bonita is resting peacefully in her mudberth, but D and I went to Arnside at the weekend for the 4th  Crossfields conference. These have been held alternate years and are an enjoyable occasion, though this year the journey there by rail was a bit disrupted due to signal failures, train delays, diversions, cancellations etc. However sailing in old boats equips you to cope with this sort of frustration and we got there eventually. 

It was good to meet up with people and hear encouraging stories of boats being restored and bought back to life.  Bonita is the oldest Crossfields built boat afloat, and I have talked about her at previous conferences. However this time I talked about Pacific Moon, a yacht built by Crossfields in 1913 and which sailed to the South Pacific in 1931-2. She is the subject of a book 'Thames to Tahiti'.

Now out of print, it is nicely written account of the adventure and deserves to be better known. I had done some research and found out a bit about her voyaging after Tahiti, but her final resting place remains unknown. The picture below from the book shows Pacific Moon at Tahiti with the owner, Sidney Howard in the hatchway.

Under cover

November is the time to put Bonita away for the winter in her nice cosy mud berth. Even with an exceptionally warm November, the wetter shorter days and frequent strong winds add to the general wear and tear and there are not many good sailing days.  So on Friday with help from Allan and a very high spring tide we motored the few miles up Faversham creek to the boatyard.

Bonitas old winter covers were over 40 years old, and had given good service. Winter covers of course dont get degraded by sunlight much but get plenty of wind and rain. However the old ones had aquired many patches and were no longer waterproof despite the application of a compound that was claimed to repel water.  So, maybe time to invest in a replacement. I went to the excellent Wilkinson sails in Faversham and spoke to Cindy, who made the previous covers.

The picture shows the fine new covers in place, a definite improvement. Cleaner, better fitting and waterproof, and now you can tighten up the lashings without worrying about the risk of tearing the material. But will they last as long as the previous ones? Well, maybe they will.