Vale Edith Worrall

Seen here on the aft deck of Crystal Blues, Ley's mother "Edie" was always an enthusiastic visitor and loved her fishing - she spent countless hours on board trailing a line in the water.

Married to husband Raymond for  an impressive 65 years, she was cheerful, optimistic and delightfully opinionated.

Edie and Ray traveled widely around Australia, often meeting up with Ley and I in Sydney or on the Gold Coast when we were sailing the Australian coast.

Advancing years did limit her mobility, yet one of my fondest memories is of Edie boarding Crystal Blues in her own unique way. Standing on the dock, she rolled her body under the life lines and ended up flat on her back on the side deck - mission accomplished, she said it was easier than climbing over the wires. The tricky bit was getting her vertical again !

Following Ray's death some three years ago Edie continued to live at home alone.  A little frustrated with life and the world, if anything she became more opinionated, but continued to enjoy her grand children and growing numbers of great grand children.

She passed away on March 10th at 92 years of age, after a short illness, with both Ley and her sister, Sandra, by her side. She's finally dancing with Ray again.

Cape Town Clean Up - We're Traveling Home

We're leaving Crystal Blues in the marina at RCYC here in Cape Town and traveling to Australia to be with family for a few weeks.

In fact Ley is already home in Melbourne, and I fly on Qantas tomorrow.

I have been shutting down systems, pickling the water maker etc, and have removed most of the lines from the deck.  These have all been laundered as you can see in the photo here.

Cape Town has very clean air, except when the South Easterly blows, bringing with it the dust and dirt off Table Mountain.

Stack Packs R Us - The New Main Sail Bag Is Finished

It took almost 5 days of solid work, but the new stack pack is complete and fitted to the boom.

Ley is seen here, proudly inspecting the bag, which was completed just 10 minutes before she departed for Cape Town airport - she's off to Melbourne for a while and I will follow in a few days time.

The bag was made from gray Sunbrella with black mesh inserts made of Serge Ferari Stamoid mesh (and isn't that material expensive...).

The bag is stitched with Tenara thread made by Gore (of Goretex fame) in the USA. The thread will certainly outlast the fabric, as we proved with the last main sail bag, where the fabric eventually disintegrated but every seam held.

Our sails are also stitched with Tenara, which we believe has a potential life of 25 years - if only the fabrics could last that long.

Thanks to Royal Cape Yacht Club for providing a great working space for us - most of the job was cut and sewn in the Regatta Function Room at RCYC.