The intention from the start has been to store and sail the boat out of Lymington Town Sailing Club which we have been members of for some years.

Since contacting them in December 2020 about swapping our Spitfire Catamaran out to use the space for Skippy, it has been extremely slow going.

Weeks between emails and then unhelpful replies – it has been very tedious to try to make a small change.

I’ve no idea why it is being so difficult.

We simply need to swap our very narrow space (that the cat fits into fine) for one a few spaces down that has the same size boat but has 2 feet spare on either side (we have about 2 inches each side) and is also significantly longer as well as being nearer the entrance.

We have moved the Spitfire back home so the space is ready to have the other cat moved there and we can then sort the cat for picking up next week – John the purchaser is coming down from Scotland to collect it!

I went down yet again to the club and no-one was available but I find that someone has already dumped a random trailer in our space – what the fuck! This really is taking the piss.

I’ve measured out the space and Skippy will fit in perfectly but it all seems a bit too difficult and I suspect I am going to  shafted here, so I start looking around again for other options.

I check out Mudeford / Christchurch where we sailed from prior to LTSC but for some reason “There is not enough space for such a boat” even though there are catamarans stored there that are wider and just as long with their bowsprits.

Marchwood Yacht Club at the top of the River Test in Southampton unfortunately only allows monohulls – a shame as it sounds like a great club where everyone mucks in.

I look further at Calshot where we are planing on doing our initial test launches from as the ramp there is very wide – I want everything as easy as possible as this is going to be very different to anything we have previously done!

Contacting them, they are really responsive and say they can let us know next week as they are just reviewing their spaces for the new sailing season.

Sounds very hopeful!

After all this, if we end up with nowhere to store Skippy that is going to be a real pain in the balls….