The start of 2023 came in wild, damp and depressing, weather-wise. It also ended a very good year afloat aboard Whimbrel and I haven’t much to complain about.

2023 also marks a milestone for Whimbrel: she was ordered and largely built during 1983, forty years ago. There will be more of this later in the year.

A large job looms over us this year, well, as soon as the weather allows, for Whimbrel is to come out so that we can strip the varnish from her coach roof, sheer strake, transom and rudder.

However there is a glitch in all of this: I have been nursing a ‘poorly’ right knee for some time. To cut a long story short, at the beginning of December 2022 a knee specialist booked me in for a knee replacement – in two to three months he said…

I have ‘bone on bone’ contact in my right knee… Pain killers have been keeping me relatively mobile, if a little fractious at time!

So, I am hoping for as early a date with the saws as is possible for one can’t, or aren’t meant to, even drive for two whole months afterwards. Sailing? The ‘law’ is already being laid down…

Bloody Heck!

Knowing only a little about the procedure, I went in search on the web for some pictures!

A friend has advised me not to watch a video available on the NHS web site – quite frankly, I don’t want to know…

As the New Year ticked round, I popped down to the boat on a dry period during a miserable windy and dank week to remove Whimbrel’s main hatch and fit a temporary affair I made up some time ago. I have ‘spares’ for both.

It has a little work needing to be done and the outer surfaces will be stripped back to bare before re-varnishing. It has never been completely stripped…

Any way, after the poor weather during first few days of the new year, a window opened with a decent SW 3-4. It was due to increase later but after my return, so I got out afloat…

It was virtually windless in actual fact, but enough to make over the tide out of the creek. Dozens of Brent geese kept swimming across the boat’s bow, in the creek and as the moorings were left astern. I saw a Little Grebe in amongst the ochre-grey withered stalks of last year’s cord grass, hunting for its lunch.

The water’s surface was all but glass, but in the near distance a ruffling on the surface indicated greater breeze – there was.

There was sufficient wind to get across the Leigh Flats to near the Essex Yacht Club. I reached west to the cockle sheds to get a good slant back out to the Ray. Indeed, the breeze increased somewhat and Whimbrel clipped along in flat water.

A few short tacks soon had Whimbrel inside the Island’s marsh point where sails were stowed. On the way in, I tried to get at a wandering creek buoy which had lodged up against the saltings just down from my mooring a week or so ago.

Unfortunately, there was insufficient water and allied to an onshore draft, I abandoned the attempt. With a crew, I might have succeeded in hooking it clear! Hey Ho.

It was great to get out, but I missed my mate who was suffering from a bit of a cold…

Statistics from Whimbrel’s log show that 982 N. miles were covered. 45 litres of diesel were purchased and the boat was in use for 105 days of 2022. Seven different individuals have crewed aboard, plus usual two of course…