Spent most of today buying equipment for Olive. Her previous owner used her as a "country cottage" and she is a bit light on safety gear and sailing kit too.

She now boasts (or will do when delivered) a new liferaft and dinghy a danbuoy and life ring, and an auto extinguisher in the engine room.

For sailing she has a new auto helm from Raymarine, and a hand held VHF from Standard Horizon. I was going to buy a chart plotter but I have decided instead to use the Admiralty/RYA software on a laptop instead. This should mean that I can have a range of other stuff on the PC, particularly when I install my amateur radio gear and interface that to the PC. That will give me Weatherfax, Navtex and RTTY forecasts.

A few other cosmetic bits and pieces and a pilot seat on order complete the first phase of getting ready for sailing, (not to mention GBH of the bank balance).

At the moment Olive is in the care of Mel Skeet at Melton boat yard near Woodbridge having some bits of work done in preparation for her trip home to the River Tyne. We appear to have a problem with the propellor not allowing the engine to achieve full revs. It is going away to be re-pitched which shold help but I have a sort of feeling it will involve a new prop.

Looking forward to the trip now 250 miles up the North Sea should be a good introduction to a new boat.