Julian Megson Sailing

Ragamuffin being launched in Bangor, North Wales

Last Saturday 25 April, Ragamuffin finally hit the water for the first time since I bought her in August last year. For over 8 months we’ve been working to make her ship shape and for a long time it felt like this day was never going to come. But now it has. It was an awesome couple of days for me from launching Ragamuffin on the Saturday, to sailing her around the clock to my home port of Fleetwood, arriving on the Sunday.

We arrived at the Boat Yard in Bangor at about 9:30am and in time to do some final preparations before the launch at 11:30am. We had only been there 10 minutes when some guy came up to us and said we could go in the water now if we like. I wasn’t really ready for that to be honest and I went from feeling quite calm to full on panick stations. But as we had a long sail back to Fleetwood, we thought it was better to be in the water sooner rather than later.

Before I knew it, 2 men had removed the two forward oil drums that were holding Ragamuffin upright – leaving only 2 drums either side of the stern – and they reversed in with a tractor and hydraulic trailor. In no time at all, Ragamuffin was on her way through the boat yard to the waters edge to be next in the queue to go into the slings. I didn’t really know what to expect because I’ve never done this before, but I imagined it was going to be some huge operation to get her in the water. The whole thing left me a little stunned. I just about had enough time to slap some antifoul on the areas where the oil drums had been before she was loaded into the slings and chucked in the water.

First job was to have a good look around for any leaks and to make sure the engine was running and cooling properly, then the slings were released. We tied up around the corner whilst we got ourselves prepared and to give my family, who had driven down to watch the launch, a chance to have a good look around the boat – she’s only small, it didn’t take long.

My good friend Duncan had kindly offered to help sail Ragamuffin back to Fleetwood with me (not much arm twisting required). So once he and I had got ourselves organised, we jumped aboard, bid farewell to those who had travelled far to see us off (or to make sure we left!) and cast off for a 24 hour sail back to Fleetwood.

Part 2 coming soon…