getting the ship:s papers
After motoring to the beautiful Clareville Beach, I found the waters calm and silky dark. Slow skidding cumulus that reeked of showers, hung without menace. The lovely Barry Marshall (previous owner) arrived with a bag of ship's papers which provided a potted history, receipts, manuals and registrations. Generously, he also passed on a porta potti, boat hook, auto bilge pump, two headsails and a spinnaker. The headsails felt heavy and crisp, were labelled North Sails and are possibly unused. I also became the caretaker of the yellow surf ski. I'd seen Barry, who paddled across Bass Strait calmly paddle this as a tender and as he told me the lock code, extolled it's virtues and how easy it was "to stand on to get onboard ". Of course I couldn't wait to try out the new tender in order to check on on Jack Sprat so off we went with se new chain plate fittings and little else. As we arrived at the gunnel Barry's words came to mind as I shuffled and jerked, g...