It was meant to be fun. Fleur was still on her mooring on a grey, blustery, spitting-with-rain sort of day, when three men and a dog called Charlie, took her to sea. Well, truthfully, for a turn around the Bay. Down wind in the southerly was good. Then, caught between a tack and a gybe, we chose the former and got the latter. After a brief pause for recovery we went off in search of the Treasurer’s Hat that had been swept away in the flurry. The skipper was bringing it up nicely on the port side, the Secretary on the foredeck poised with the boathook, when a sudden twitch in the wind pushed it to starboard. Forsaking the helm for a second, the skipper made a lunge over the starboard rail and plucked the hat from a watery grave. Success- at the price of a second involuntary gybe. The dog sniffed in disdain- but it was meant to be fun Charlie, it was meant to be fun and it was. Only when we were safely tied up back on the pontoon did we find that the bolt securing the mast to the tabernacle had lost its nut and was part way through a bid for freedoom…