Crew's Log: Stewart, 31/05/11

After a frenzy of emails and shopping and arguments with train companies, my son and I are ready to head for Portsmouth to collect my brother's new yacht, Catweasel. She's being moved from her previous owner's mooring at Hornet Sailing Club to the slightly less glamorous but, Hornet being a Forces only club, infinitely more available Wicor Marina at Fareham. All being well and good, all should be well and good, however my record aboard Catweasel does not shine like a beacon in the night...

Erroneous action the 1st, day 1 - Catweasel runs aground:
Yes, I was at the helm but no, it was not my fault. No seriously! With Lewis Hamiltonesque misfortune I was a victim of circumstance and blamed by those who should know better. All I did was turn to starboard - the mud shouldn't have been there! It turned into me!! Stupid mud. It didn't make no never mind though, as we managed to "kedge off" - something that I learned by observation and participation to mean "send the idiot who got us into this mess down stream to drop the anchor directly over a submerged power cable so we can winch ourselves off the bottom". If I'm honest, I'm not 100% sure the involvement of the power cable was intentional but then I'm only crew, and working hard on maintaining my blissful ignorance.

Erroneous action the 2nd, day 2: Catweasel catches fire:

Yeah, so this one was my fault. I lit the meths stove while we were motoring and forgot that I needed to unlock the gimbals. What was iffy while motoring became damn near disastrous when we raised the sails and headed into the Solent. Thankfully Philip, the previous owner, was aboard to save the day. He's probably wondering what his baby is going to suffer at the hands of her new crew.

So that's a howler per day aboard and tomorrow will be day 3, unsupervised, apart from by Tom the cabin boy, in one of the UK's busiest harbours. Tim, it has to be said, is a tad nervous.