Home at last

Marelle was built at Deacons Boatyard in 1965, although she is a McGruer design (and McGruer had their own boatyard at the time in Scotland). So it is rather fitting that she should reside back at Deacons, at least for the moment. We are renting a berth on Y pontoon, which is not walk-ashore, but has the advantage of being relatively easy to get on and off.

Marelle is long-keeled as are most classic yachts, but also has her propellor situated above, aft and slightly offset from the rudder. This means of course that she will not steer unless under way, and due to her left handed propellor and slight offset has a mean kick to starboard in reverse. She is also a lot bigger and heavier than our previous yacht, so is going to take a bit of getting used to I suspect! Although even Ben Pester who owned Marelle for nearly 20 years said that she was not easy to maneouvre in marinas.

We timed moving Marelle up from Universal Marina to Deacons carefully, waiting for high tide as the current gets strong in the Hamble at Deacons - the river narrows and curves around a corner here and can get over 3 knots. We also enlisted Martin's brother and his friend Jason to help with lines.

Leaving the berth Universal Marina went smoothly - we reversed out, from being port side to, and the starboard kick kept us nicely away from the pontoon. A bit of indecision on my part meant we went a bit closer to a post than is ideal on the way out - Martin took over the steering at this point and we just squeezed past.

I tried a couple of turns before we moored up, and we had a dry run too. A couple of people from a neighbouring boat kindly offered to take our lines, which was helpful as even though there were no boats at the end of the pontoon, Marelle did not seem to want to make a tight turn, and we ended up with quite a steep angle of approach as a result. Martin said afterwards that I was being too hesitant and should have had Marelle going faster, but I was quite reluctant to do this as I was very conscious that it takes a while to stop her once she has momentum.

We have an Avon dinghy already, but Martin decided it would be more convenient if we could get a dinghy that we can leave at Deacons and just dedicate to getting to and from Y pontoon, so after some investigation I found a Navigator 400 on eBay, and with some tactical bidding - waiting right till the last 20 seconds - won it for £98!! Bargain. It duly arrived from Germany after a couple of days, and so far we are very impressed. It is nice and big, has an inflatable floor and seats, and oars, pump and pressure gauge are all included as well as a carry bag.