Handover Day Two - Sailing & Oyster Owners

It's fair to say we were pretty excited this morning and woke early to get down to Fox's Marina in good time. Amazingly the sun was out again, although it was a bit chilly.

No sooner than we were on board the lines were slipped and Will expertly held Askari alongside the dock to demonstrate the handling, he gently took her astern and with a little bow thruster held her in the fairway before backing her out past a 62 foot Oyster and around the sharp corner and out of the marina entrance which was pretty shallow at this state of tide. Then Andrew took the helm and we motored down the River Orwell until we got a good angle to put the sails up.

Andrew's first helm

Andrew with John and Will

Carolyn raises the ensign

First view of the main sail

Carolyn's first helm

Then we tacked down the river and out paced another boat; which was alot smaller than us but in light airs we were pretty excited.

Close hauled and looking good

Powering along

Checking the sail trim 

Carolyn loves to sail downwind

We sailed out towards the river entrance and turned downwind to sail by Harwich and noted Trinity House who are the body responsible for all light houses in the UK. John took the helm and as we gently sailed up the Stour River Will demonstrated all the other systems, including the generator, water maker and radios. Then we rigged the spinnaker pole and sailed wing on wing directly down wind.

Testing the davits

The cover on the dinghy was neatly installed and we were curious as to how we would get it back on so thought we needed to test that the davits would take my weight, or perhaps a good hiding place!

John looking pretty relaxed sailing down the Stour wing on wing

Andrew enjoying having crew 

Our favourite point of sail

First glimpse of our beautiful cockpit table - referred to as 'the small car'

 We anchored up for lunch on the Stour in a beautiful spot with a view of the Royal Hospital School. At that point we told John we were delighted with Askari and were keen to take ownership as we were not giving her up now. So we signed the paperwork and opened the champagne!

John and Andrew celebrate our new boat

Carolyn and Will

After lunch we upped anchor and sailed all the way back to Fox's Marina, while testing the storm sails and ensuring that we had noted all the instructions correctly in our notebook.

Storm Sail Set Up 

Andrew took the helm and Carolyn was able to furl all the sails easily with the help of power winches! The sails are all amazing, we just needed to add a stop to the genoa to lift it up a little to clear the guard wires - fabulous job by Dolphin Sails.

Andrew then brought Askari back into the Marina and gently alongside, with only a little bit of guidance from Will. Then John presented us with the Blue Oyster Owner's flag  (to replace the grey commissioning flag) and a silver key ring.

Oyster Owners

We shared a beer as the sun went down and couldn't resist moving on board that night. So went and fetched a couple of our boxes with bedding and emptied our AirBnB cottage into the car, grabbed pizza then crashed into the comfiest bed exhausted once again but so very happy.