19th to Lake Maleren

I was treating myself to a weekend breakfast of bacon and eggs but discovered that all my bread had gone off so prior to departure I went up to the Co op in town and bought a roll and a loaf. On return it was 0920 with the lock due to open at 0930. I had a bit of a spider’s web of lines out but removed them all and with the assistance of a chap from next door to stop my bow hitting his stern we were out in the basin and tagging along at, what I thought, was the back of 3 boats. I’d just tied up when another boat appeared astern so I had to let go and move ahead about a boat’s length. The lock was undramatic. It appeared to go from closed to opening at the other end without any real rise so soon we were letting go and moving ahead again. The lead boat going very slowly. I wasn’t sure why, the books said that the next bridge opened on demand but it appeared not to but to open in time for the next downward lock evolution so we mucked about, drifting and pottering in this section for half an hour until it opened at about 1005 and then off we went. My auto pilot was behaving oddly, with spurious heading changes and then gave up saying, ‘lost connection to the CCU’ which it’s done before and seems to need a fuse pulling out and putting back in again on the power input to the black box in the stern.  I’d just made the bed in the aft cabin, so it had obviously noticed this before deciding to give up. Once we were in relatively clear water I popped below, tore the bedding and mattress of the bunk, lifted the board to give me access to the fuse, pulled it out and put it in again and we’re back to normal.

Once pottering along the canal again we passed the Astra Zeneca building, a big part of the local economy and then a Swedish version of the Puffer passed us.  It was a hot day again with light winds from the North and I tied my umbrella to the boom as a small spot of shade for the cockpit. I wanted to stop somewhere quiet to take the genoa down to do some sewing on it and after we’d arrived in Lake Malaren at the top of the canal I went to an Island and dropped anchor. I prepared the halyard and pulled out the genoa, a 5 knot breeze backed it against the port shrouds, when I released the halyard nothing happened, I went to the sail and gave it a little tug and of course it came down out of control with some ending up in the water. Once sorted out I gathered my sewing kit and scissors and made repairs. The issue, again, is that the sailmakers put on a big sticky backed repair which looks lovely in the loft and for the first 500 miles but then the edges start to peel and slowly it destroys itself. I cut off the flappy bits and sewed the remainder of the edge to the sail. Once re hoisted I checked the furling line which tends to wear out, I think at the drum where the rope holds the sail on more rope on the drum beneath it when reefed. As it is a known problem to me I have a too long furling line and judged the time right to cut off 5metres from the end and did this re reeving it once done.

After this it was lunch time and I had a ham and salad roll for it. This was so good I had another one with bread slices. After lunch it was really hot  in the cockpit and I rigged some shade. The zip on the half of my tent that I was putting up appeared undamaged but, nevertheless refused to engage. After half an hour of faffing it gave up and condescended to work, I hope it’ll be easier next time, it’s the first time I’ve used it since the caribbean but they were fine there last year.

I then had a quick swim before doing the blog which I’d omitted to do earlier. I had the table out in the cockpit for the first time since Katharine left and a ‘holiday’ afternoon reading. Dinner was left over soup and rice muck do and I’m planning on heading into Stockholm in the morning to take my chances finding a berth in one of the two marinas there.