Hoorn

We were all issued with a classic wooden dutch clog at the beginning of the rally at a lot of creativity has gone into painting them so they can be clearly identified as dutch or british. Bonitas clog- painted by Sian- is at the extreme left in this picture

Today the reason for this became clear as each boat had to tow a clog on a length of light line, and attempt to capture clogs of opposing boats. We set off for Hoorn in a light following wind, and sadly our clog was soon captued by the smaller and rather more nimble dutch boat Jan Blank.

Despite this disappoinment we has a pleasant sail to the ancient town of Hoorn.

The harbour was quite crowded, and we had to reverse into our berth, a manoever which seemed almost impossible in the crosswind. The situation was finally rescued by anothee yacht giving Bonita a carefully judged nudge on the bow, and we eventually settled alongside Hilda, the converted dutch lifeboat dating from 1922.

There was one more job to be completed: we had lost the masthead jib haliard while changing sail, and I volunteed to go up to the top of the mast to retrieve it. I was hauled up in a bosuns chair and eventually managed to catch the halliard with a boathook.