Teal sails again

Where to start ! Its been a big weekend.
A great one at that.
We registered Saturday morning and went out in our horrendous dinghy to get the mainsail sorted and re-torque the engine head and reset the tappets. The wind was over 20kts so dropping the mooring with an untested engine was a bit worrying but we went and rafted up next to the newly restored Guillemot which
had just arrived from Hegarty's.
We got a great reception with Teal and after chatting for a while we headed back out to the mooring with the intention of maybe just sailing her under mizzen and staysail. As it turned out we ended up having our first sail with a reefed main, mizzen and staysail. We sailed off the mooring and had a blast, delighted with how she sailed.
Sunday morning we had another quick re-torque of the head bolts to be sure to be sure and again went ashore. The festival activities were well under way so we relaxed for a few hours before deciding to have a go at the harbour race.
Ken's wife and daughter thought they might get out for a relaxed sail with us but they arrived just in time for the start so we gave them a trial by fire.
We had a go with under Main, mizzen, Staysail and Genoa so there were plenty of ropes and short tacks.
Teal behaved flawlessly and was very forgiving of our mistakes. We managed the to get her through the start line and the finish line but did miss one windward mark being too lazy to try tack back to round it, It was just for the hell of it anyway.
Monday morning we motored out of Baltimore and out South of the Kedge were we picked up the lightest of breezes and coasted along east through the Stags sound. It was absolutely blissful, Sunny morning, ocean was like glass, a fin whale passed by for a look and a few modern yachts motoring by taking photos.
The breeze disappeared after passing through the sound and tide alone wasn't going to get us back in time so unfortunately we had to motor the last 6 or 7 miles. We arrived in Union Hall in misty rain and picked up Ann Again's mooring. Thats the next job, getting Ken's old mooring out, beefed up and set in deeper water.

A big thank you for all the kind comments over the weekend and to Tim Cooke of  http://ilur.tumblr.com/
who sent me some fantastic photos of her under sail on Sunday. He will have posts about the weekend in a few weeks time. Well worth a look.

We were awarded this beautiful hand painted plaque for best Newcomer

Teals bow cutting the water once again 

In Union Hall at last