Off to Berwick upon Tweed

With all this talk of buying and selling boats you could be excused for thinking that we were experienced sailors. We learnt to sail in May 2015 after becoming members of the Berwick Sailing Club. I think I had sailed once before in a dinghy during a holiday in the Greek Islands but that was the sum total of our experience. And until very recently we had never been aboard a small yacht or had ever left the confines of the Tweed estuary.

Chuckle the Nordic Folkboat was berthed at Eyemouth harbour and she had been there since 2012. It's only a 15 mile trip from Berwick upon Tweed and we did consider leaving her there but in the end decided to move her onto a swinging mooring in the Tweed estuary. A couple of reasons for reaching that decision. Most importantly the mooring in the Tweed was free and she would be unlikely to suffer any damage unlike at Eyemouth where, rafted up to other bigger yachts,  her hull and deck were being constantly abraided from mooring ropes criss crossing her. To be honest, we werent too confident in how we would disentangle her from the other yachts in order to take her out and sail.

Moorings in the Tweed estuary are very difficult to come by. There then followed a lot of internet research on how to lay a deep water swinging mooring. Eventually we came up with this. 

 

It's a railway waggon weighing about 280 kgs with a couple of metres of heavy ships chain welded to it. From the ship chain runs 12 mtrs of 12mm galvanised chain leading to a large orange buoy and some very expensive mooring pennant with a yellow pickup float attached. My idea was the the waggon wheel would slowly sink into the soft mud and would take an enormous effort to move it. Just to make sure I also added a 40llb CQR anchor on a short length of chain. Sort of belt and braces job. One of the local fishermen was kind enough to dump the lot in our chosen mooring spot.

All we had to do now was to move Chuckle the Nordic Folkboat from her berth in Eyemouth to her new deep water mooring in the Tweed. It had to happen sooner rather than later not least because in a few days we would be paying visitor mooring fees of £20 a day.  

Fortunately there was a perfect weather window and so with a lot of trepidation we motored out of Eyemouth on a flood tide and after making sure we were well clear of lobster pots, turned south heading for home.  homeward bound

The entrance to the Tweed can be a bit tricky. There is a shifting sand bank at the entrance and with an ebbing tide with an onshore wind yachtsmen are warned against even trying to come in. But we managed and even picked up our mooring at the first attempt.

We buy a Folkboat

In April 2016 we acquired a Nordic Folkboat. She wasnt our first boat or indeed our first folkboat. The first yacht was a Hunter Europa which we bought in July 2015. She was ok but we lusted after an old wooden boat and the fibreglass Europa really didn't do much for us.

In a moment of madness I went on Ebay and put in an offer for folkboat which I had been watching for sometime and of course it was accepted - oops. We travelled down to Felixstowe to view our new purchase and were slightly disappointed in her condition. She was well equipped in terms of electronic gizmos but I reckon the previous owner should have spent a bit more time and money on the fabric of the boat instead.
But she was ours and all we had to do was to arrange for her transportation by road to sunny Berwick upon Tweed.
Now I realised it was going to be expensive but what I hadnt considered was the sheer logistics of transporting a boat 350 miles. I made three attempts to coordinate cranes, transport etc all at the correct tide and at each attempt something went wrong. Usually due to the boat transporter picking up an easier job and letting us down at the last minute.Finally I was so hacked off that I stuck her back up on Ebay and ended up selling her for a small profit.

As luck would have it, whilst all this was going on another folkboat came onto the market and this boat was based a mere 15 miles north of us!
Her name was Chuckle and she was the subject of another blog which I had been following for some time. She had been purchased in 2012 by a young couple in a fairly decrepit state to introduce their young family to the sea and to sailing and the blog both recounts the ongoing refurbishment and their adventures. Two adults, two kids and one dog spent 27 days on Chuckle exploring the Firth of Forth. No mean feat as anyone who has ever been aboard a Nordic Folkboat will testify.

Inevitably the time came when that family simply couldnt all fit together in the boat and she was reluctantly sold. The couple that bought her experienced very similar problems in regard to transporting her to Hull from Eyemouth as we did trying to get our folkboat from Felixstowe. There's a moral there - never be tempted to buy a boat which is miles away from your home port.

Anyway here she is at her berth in Eyemouth immediately after parting with our cash.

A proper boat. Clinker mahogany on oak frames with spruce mast and spars. Perfect.
She was built in 1954 by Harry Feltham in Portsmouth. The same year I was born.