Heavy persistent rain, mist, cold, winds and general all round gloom has stopped us from sailing Yves in our initial phase of getting to know her on the sea. It looks pretty set like this for a few days. Arse.

Will, my nephew, and I (Sacha) up the main mast. Once you get to the cross trees at the top of the ladders, everyone on deck looks very small and a fall would be fatal.

A lovely sunny day today but quite some swell outside the Plymouth Breakwater. Here we are crossing behind another sailing yacht.

Lotty was very seasick… Next trip out she will need to take her anti-sickness remedies. We took Bill, our wonderful boat engineer and we made him feel sick too.  Hector and I were fine, he must have my sailing genes.

This is midnight in Sutton Marina, surrounded by the historic buildings that make up Plymouth’s Barbican, which are mostly bars, cafes, pubs and restaurants. Every night we have live singing wafting across the water from one of the outside bars and this can be accompanied by the sounds of fishing boats unloading from the fish quay about 100 metres away. All added to by the gentle creaking of mooring ropes, the wind in the rigging, fishing boats arriving and leaving and the general hubbub of the Barbican’s busy night life. For a light sleeper, this could be a challenging place to be… Good job we’re all too knackered to care!