spending money

I've always beeen very very good at spending money.

I'd like to share news of a few new acquisitions with you to prove a point.

Finally, we've done the deed, and ordered new sails. After much umming and arring, we've gone to Crusader. They were competitive on price (note - not quite the cheapest), but most importantly of all, they have a great reputation for delivering on time. We want the sails for our summer cruise, at the start of August, and would be very dissapointed in missing that.

We've order a basic set of dacron cruising sails, nothing flash. The only extra we've specced is a foam luff on the genoa to aid furling. Otherwise, nothing. The main has no battens, and we carefully avoided exotic materials of any sort. We can't wait!

We do have a few measurements to provide yet, but we are in the queue for a late June/early July delivery.

On top of this, we finally got fed up of the Plastimo Neptune cooker. It works fine, and there really is anything wrong with it, but their are two features that irritate us. Firstly the oven never really gets up to full baking temperature. We're keen on our food, and this is annoying. A casserole takes far too long. Secondly, the lock for the gimbals is unreliable. This could be sorted, but it would be another job on the list. So we've bought a Nelson Spinflo after good reccomendations. It has arrived, and seems to be a very solid bit of kit. We need to install it yet though. It is slightly taller than it predecessor, so will need a little work, but its not a huge job.

Last, but not least, the tender appears to have a slow puncture and over the course of a week between visits, has gone flat several times. It is tired anyway, and the oard need replacing. It has reached the stage where investment in it isn't worth while. So we've treated ourselves to a mini rib. Its 2.5m, with a solid hull, and will be delivered to the chandlery at Titchmarsh next week, where we will need to collect it. It should hopefully be a vast improvement on a pure inflatable.

So, as you can see, we're spending well at the moment!