Froo Gal (Frugal) Guide to boat renaming ceremony

Froo Gal (Frugal) Guide to boat renaming ceremony 

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We renamed Froo Gal on the paperwork a few months ago, but this weekend, involving a short shakedown sail and overnight stay on the hook, was the first sail on the boat with the new name. We had to rename her properly, Froo Gal style.

We had just dropped the Hook at our favourite overnight spot. The sun was bright with shadows lengthening. We looked up how to conduct the ceremony (Google is our friend): http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/rename.htm (or http://www.frugal-mariner.com/Renaming.html)

We made some money saving changes to the ritual, as you would expect from our frugal crew:

Prosecco is much better value for money than Champagne; a copper penny is cheaper than a metal ingot or specially made tag; and the ratio of drink offered to the gods versus consumed was adjusted accordingly (Poseidon/Neptune would understand as we only had one bottle and would not wish to upset Dionysus/Bacchus). A coupe of bottles of wine later the crew agreed that the ceremony had been a very successful, albeit slightly abridged. A great end to a great day.

Earlier in the day we spotted a couple of sea-going eight-man open rowing boats. Later we discovered, as regular readers of her Turf to Surf blog that it was Tasha and friends training for a round the Isle of Wight race. Good luck Tasha!

Overall during the weekend, we re-rigged the reefing lines, re-fitted the new and repaired battens, collected our new prop and got away from the dock on time to enjoy a sunny day in gentle weather -- not bad for early March, given the Atlantic lows rolling in from the west to the north of the UK. We even dodged the drizzle, which began to fall as we jumped into the car at the end of our trip.

Measure Twice, Cut Once!

Measure Twice, Cut Once!

... an American friend of ours says that the British always measure twice and cut once and Americans measure once and cut twice. He meant that the American government and industry research and development organisations had more resources at their disposal and as a result could become complacent and wasteful, whereas the British, with relatively modest means, were better stewards of their resources (frugal you might say) and as a result could be more innovative. It is an attractive theory, but there are more Apples in the US economy than from British stock. But perhaps that is not just about our nations' engineers, but something to do with investors, financial regulation, business culture and access to large markets.

What has this got to do with a sailing blog you might ask? Well, this weekend Froo Gal's co-skippers took advantage of the spring sunshine to tackle a few of the per-season jobs on the boat. We secured a bracket, cut, whipped and attached a line for the snubber and reattached a bungee cord to the anchor locker lid, replacing the attachments that had corroded through. And we 'invented' a new job. We noticed that the bungee cord attaching the bottom of the cockpit tent was beginning to perish. It did not need replacing immediately, but the sun was shining and it would be a pleasant and quick task to perform in the sunshine. We removed one of the loops, measured it once, did a quick count of the number of loops and set off for the marine chandlers. We bought 4m of bungee, had a leisurely lunch and returned to complete the work. We ran out of bungee about half way through, doubling the time it took to complete the job, by requiring a second trip to the chandlers. Whilst this only lost us half an hour and cost us no extra on this occasion, it served as useful reminder to measure twice and cut once, rather than being ill prepared and making work for ourselves and others. In doing so we can be more frugal boat owners.

We now just have to replace the prop, fit the mainsail battens, route the reefing lines and we will be ready to sail. Let's hope we have ordered the right replacement prop (we did check in two independent places)!