With Susan J, and now Minstrel returning to their berths on the south coast, all the Round Britain boats are now back home. Paradoxically, the best of this summers weather seems to have come in the last couple of weeks, although without much wind. We may have a few day or weekend sails in what remains of the season but nothing I hope too adventurous.
We have had a marvellous time going round Britain with the Gaffers, and have been made very welcome all around the coast. Where possible on this trip I have tried to visit harbours that we havnt been into before, and with Bonitas limited manoeverability under motor this is often a stimulating experience. I am grateful for my many long suffering crew - 12 this year- who have helped make these visits less dramatic than they might have been and made the whole voyage possible.
In several places, not just in south coast ports, there were piles of these leaflets in the clubhouse or harbour office. I wasnt sure if I should be pleased they had used a picture of a gaffer to enhance the visual effect, or maybe there is an implication that traditional rig might in some way be more suspect. The combination of a 'sugar scoop' reverse sloping transom with gaff rig is definitely unorthodox. We saw lots of Border Force patrol boats on our travels but none of them showed any interest in an elderly gaffer slowly making her way round the coast