Lovely Lowestoft

We really didn't expect anything good from Lowestoft, having only ever visited by land before, but we had a lovely gentle sail there from Southwold and a good berth in the somewhat bouncy Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club marina, which has a very nice clubhouse and facilities including a fairly accessible shower - a pity it's right in the middle of the gents' facilities, but as I gave Sam a shower at lunchtime on a Friday things were pretty quiet. We walked along the promenade anjoying the views and sunshine and generally being more impressed with Lowestoft than we expected - it was clean and well cared for and even the shops were better than I thought.

After we arrived on Thursday Alex and David caught the slow train from the station, just five minutes away, to get back to their car at SYH via Ipswich. I decided that my tooth was gradually improving enough that I didn't need to rush home to see my dentist again.

One problem was that one of our two halyard winches - the one we use to raise the mainsail and also get Sam on and off the boat - was only working in one direction and I couldn't even work out how to remove the cover. Barient apparently supplied them with a patent tool, long since disappeared. Fortunately Guy was able to drive up after work (he lives only 10 miles away) and take a look. He stripped down dozens, nay hundreds, of winches at Sailing Holidays, and was able to open the winch by jamming it with the halyard on the primary (jibsheet) winch, then open it all up. The problem was a tiny broken spring right at the base. Sam had given me a hard time for not servicing the winches properly, but in fact they looked pretty good inside with no signs of corrosion. After considerable cogitation we managed to swap over the pawls and springs from the other winch, so at least the winch we use most is working ok.

The rest of the day was taken up with a shop at Asda which is 10 minutes' walk away, and generally trying to prepare for sea. The forecast was far from brilliant, with strong southerlies on the Friday and Saturday adding to the bounce in the marina. I decided, with considerable misgivings, that the best option would be a dawn departure on Sunday with a westerly wind dead astern. The forecast was F4-5, occasionally 6. Sea state slight to moderate. I don't like moderate much (it's not very moderate in a 10m yacht) but it looked like the least worst choice.

On Saturday morning I thought I might try a very gentle run - the first for two weeks as my tooth had been so painful. I was amazed to see so many runners around, then realised I was running through the middle of preparations for the Lowestoft Park Run. I wasn't up to 5km so I ran off to Asda to get croissants and a Saturday Guardian.

Ben and Anne arrived at 2pm on the Saturday. They were delighted to hear that they wouldn't be sailing until the next day, and as they had plenty of time to explore Lowestoft, they used it by going to sleep for the rest of the afternoon.

The RN&SYC seen from the promenade

Southwold with Alex & David

Southwold is the nearest seaside to us in a straight line. Many times we have leant over the harbour wall looking at the terrifying current rushing in through the very narrow entrance (the entire Blyth marshes drains through one rather narrow gap) and thanked the lord that we didn't have to get in there.

Times change, however. Alex and David had a few days spare to sail with us after the August Bank Holiday and we thought we might venture into Southwold if the weather looked favourable. From there we would go the further 11 miles to Lowestoft and the perfect jumping off spot for a North Sea crossing to IJmuiden with Ben and Anne.

Since July I had been bothered by toothache. It was originally diagnosed by my dentist as a gum infection, then a severe gum infection with antibiotics, then an infection under a tooth which resulted in root canal treatment. The pain eased for a few days, then came back worse. On the Thursday before the Bank Holiday I saw my dentist for the umpteenth time and she told me the tooth had split vertically and would have to come out. Naively I hoped this would end the pain. It didn't, however, and by the holiday Monday I was still on a combination of ibuprofen and paracetamol four times a day, with a very swollen jaw. Nevertheless with a good forecast (sunshine, no wind) I was determined to head off to Southwold.

I had discovered from the East Coast Pilot that at neaps you can get into Southwold at low water slack, which was much better timing than HW as it was at 2pm, and also meant we could carry a fair tide all the way up the coast. I was in Southwold on the Friday (fetching and carrying a caravan to Maui Waui for Guy) and checked with the harbourmaster, who said we should be fine, with at least 20cm to spare....

So we left SYH at around 8am on Tuesday with hot sunshine and murky visibility for a long motor past the Deben, the Ore, Orfordness, Aldeburgh, Thorpeness, Sizewell and Dunwich. As Alex said, we have visited all of them by land but might struggle to get them in the right order! The new and very expensive Raymarine EV-1 autopilot behaved beautifully and the entrance to Southwold harbour was completely benign. We did at one point see just 0.3m under the keel in the river, but there was no current at all and we were directed to a very peaceful mooring on the south side of the river - completely hopeless for getting Sam off, as the pontoon and walkway made Heath Robinson constructions look firm and logical, but a lovely place to be apart from the mosquitoes.

We were very social during our stay - we entertained Guy, Kai, Ivy and Jenson to a barbecue on the Tuesday evening and David's brother for fish and chips on Wednesday. All in all a pretty successful visit, and we were even able to fill up with white diesel at the fuel berth on the Thursday morning as we left.

Summer update

July and August are my busiest times on the magazine so we didn't do much sailing on our return from Boulogne. I did however manage to get Ollie from Seapower to fit the new Raymarine EV-1 tiller pilot, which I bought at Easter after years of putting up with the Autohelm ST2000, which is not big enough for the boat, steering an S-shaped course and being useless in a following sea.

I'm not entirely convinced by his work. In the course of doing the electrical work for the new engine, and then fitting the autopilot:

• both house batteries failed, see previous blog entries
• the fuel gauge and depth gauge both stopped working and had to be remedied
• the GPS corrupted and lost all charts on the plotter and on the SD card
• the log display died (although to be fair it was on its way out anyway) and the "true" wind reading was no longer available, which may be as a result of the log, although as far as I know only the display was affected
• the electric bilge pump was disconnected
• the range of the VHF (and the AIS, which uses the same aerial) seems to have been reduced to around two miles
• the tiller pilot was set up the wrong way around so that as soon as you engaged it it went into a spiral of steering the wrong way and trying to correct itself by steering further the wrong way. so it turned you in very small circles.

Some of this is down to chance and/or an ageing boat and equipment, but it seems surprising that so much has gone wrong. Garmin told me they had never heard of all the charts on the plotter and the SD card corrupting before, although updating the software and reimporting the charts has fixed that problem.

Fortunately we had a day sail with our son Ben and his partner Anne in July where we managed to diagnose and fix the tiller pilot problem, and also had a very nice sail to Wrabness and back. As a result they have agreed to sail to the Netherlands with us in September.

In the meantime Sam and I spent several weekends on board, not sailing but just enjoying being on the boat.