Forth Boyard

Driving along the waterfront on the approach to our Macwester’s mooring early on Friday evening, we couldn’t help but notice a strange fort-like object on the river. We were a bit disappointed to find out that it wasn’t some neurotic oligarch’s post-armageddon hideaway; instead it turned out to be two cylindrical supports for the ‘Forth Replacement Crossing’, the new road bridge being built further down river. Nonetheless it was an interesting addition to our local riverscape.

With the quizzical excitement over, we got down to business. We had firm plans for the weekend. Having made almost no progress with the depth log on our Malin the week before, I was keen to set aside some time to explore the issue further. After a quick prep session, we set sail for the Capernaum pier just five minutes away, and as planned five minutes later we were tying up.

Setting foot back on land our plans started to fall apart at the seams, as we heard about a club cruise to Port Edgar leaving imminently. Arms well and truly twisted, we sailed straight back out of the harbour and set course for the marina. Given that our plans had changed and we weren’t particularly well prepared, we thought that we’d lose one of our fenders over the side and then circle around a few times to re-capture it. After a well overdue and rushed meal, we enjoyed a late night with friends on board a Westerly Konsort Duo.

While some of our friends sailed on to Crammond the next morning, our Macwester Malin ketch and the Konsort Duo stayed on the pontoons in the sunshine in order to do some maintenance. Although the depth log wasn’t something that I was going to tackle while we were floating, I did complete the rig tensioning, and electrical work that were also on my list. It was a really enjoyable and leisurely day, yet at the same time I managed to score-off a couple of jobs from my list. In the process, needless to say that without a cloud in the sky, I managed to burn my legs, as I didn’t put any sun tan lotion on them [even although I was given the opportunity several times …so I have no-one else to blame but myself apparently].

We had a relaxing, lazy and uneventful sail back home, apart from avoiding ‘Fure Sun’, a large tanker bearing down on us near Rosyth on the Saturday night. We didn’t remain on board overnight as we had things to do at home. The following afternoon we were at a club member’s birthday garden party, with the garden backing directly on to the River Forth. It was fab, and yes …predictably I got even more crispy around the edges.

We made it back on board for Sunday evening and enjoyed a welcome cooler light breeze. Monday morning was still very settled, but as expected the better than average window of weather didn’t last the day. Although we didn’t achieve all the things that we had hoped to achieve, it was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

Our club regatta is next up.