Windermere

Meg is on Windermere for a week, we have rented a holiday cottage with access to the lake and a jetty to tie up to. I have had Meg registered for Windermere which unfortunately means adding registration numbers to her topsides, these are a bit ugly. Rigging and launch at Ferry Nab went smoothly. The slipway is wide with temporary mooring on both sides and there is space to store the trailer for the week. unfortunately it rapidly went wrong after launch. I've not used the outboard on Meg before, but it started after a few pulls of the cord and ran smoothly. I planned to motor down to our jetty and tie up for the night and so the main was lashed neatly to the boom and the Mizzen was furled. The oars were in the garage at home, what do you need oars for when you have 4 horse power at the transom? So 50 meters from the slip the motor cuts out and refuses to start. The wind rapidly catches Meg and starts to blow us across the mornings towards a Lee shore. Unfurling the jib gave a little control but without the mizzen it wasn't a lot. After a few minutes we finished up on the shore near the chain ferry. As it was 18.00 and raining there wasn't to many onlookers so hopefully I'll not be appearing on YouTube. After what felt like ages I got the motor started and I headed for our jetty without further problems. But lessons have bean learnt. Had I rigged the mizzen properly then I would have been able to sail out of trouble, alternatively had the oars been in board I could have rowed to a mooring or out into clear water. The rest of the week should bring some good sailing allthough I think our wet weather gear is going to get some use.