1st leg Buochs CH to Dublin IR, Tuesday 18 November 1014

November 19, 2014

Urs ferried the a/c on Sunday 16 November from Locarno to Buochs. As a result of the heavy rain one of the generators did not work, a generator which was anyhow close to the end of his life. Urs made a VFR flight and arrived in one piece.

Locarno: escaping from flooding

Buochs: sunny and dry

On my mother’s birthday (mind you 92 years and good for 10 years more to come), I arrived at the Pilatypus Factory after a short lunch at Mirage in Stans meant to relax a little bit (..).

The engineers had started already to replace generator 1, so I pushed them to replace also generator 2. That was not an easy task, since they were extremey busy with other a/c whilst the generators should live about 300 flight hours more. I sticked to replacement of 2 generators with the argument that life is not only too short to drink bad wine [Patrick de Koster], but also to fly with old generators in the winter over the Atlantic.

Then we had un expected problem with the updates on the Apex. They did not match somehow so we needed Professor Doktor Huber [PDH] to solve the problem. He did not manage it to my surprise though he kept working on it within the dark hours until 7pm.

The next day he was informed by INDS that they made a mistake (well in other words since they will never admit anything like such a thing. After all they are sitting like Zeus on the Olympus .. etc (the reader may guess what I would like to write here. I even wonder how long INDS must have been aware of this.

Once PDH knew about it, he reloaded the previous Worldwide data base. So we had all more or less in order and we could depart at 1130 local time [LT] but only after we filled the coffee thermoscan. Some of you will now get worried that I will talk in all blogs about our coffee, but I will restrict myself not to overdo it.

Pilatus: Markus Huber helped us the find an appropriate Honeywell software solution

Our flight of 3:30 was nice and easy.

PH-PNG on the way to Dublin, anywhere over France…

Dublin Watson Airport

In Dublin at Weston Airport we had an unusual warm welcome. Well unusual for Europe, but not the USA where we sometimes believe we arrive at a five star Hotel instead of a local airport. After we took fuel and prepared the a/c for her sleep, Laura Dillon who crewed WINSOME on the Rolex Middel Sea Race [RMSR] only three weeks ago, picked us up and drove us to her parents’ house for a very nice lunch served by Breda (Laura’s mother) and Laura.

late lunch with Laura’s Mum

Then Laura allowed us just one hour. For me to do my opa-nap, for Urs to read his emails. We stayed at the King Sitric, which is a friendly hotel and restaurant, ran by Laura’s sailing friends.

That evening we were welcomed at Howth Yacht Club by the President of the Irish Association (David Lovegrove), the Flag Officers of HYC (Brian Turvey (Commodore), Joe Carton and Richard Kissane (Rear Commodores), David Sargent (Treasurer)), Kieran and Daire Jameson (Skipper of SOUTHERN CHILD having finished RMSR) and Laura’s parents (Frank and Breda Dillon ( Past Commodore of HYC).

sailors at the Yacht Club

A dinner was offered by Laura and her parents in company of Kieran and Daire Jameson.

Yacht Club ceremony

The night did not end as early as we liked, but was extremely pleasant. More for me than Urs I guess, though he may have to consider to buy now a boat as well after all these stories.

So here our first leg completes, at least on the blog and we hope to be back to you tomorrw.

Whilst typing we have started crossing the Atlantic on our way to Reykjavik, with Laura on board as stewardess. My next blog will tell the story.

I will be back to you. The tracker is working so you can check where are at each moment of each day.

Message from Laura:
My parents (Frank and Breda) and myself were delighted to welcome Harry and Urs to Dublin yesterday, 18 November, on the first stop of their journey to North and Central America. I collected Harry and Urs at Weston airport and was very pleased to see they had arrived safe and sound and also it was great to see that Pilatypus, PH-PNG, was sleeping safely.

Last night, the President of the Irish Sailing Association and the Flag Officers from Howth Yacht Club were delighted to welcome Harry and Urs to Ireland, Dublin and Howth. HYC is my sailing club in Ireland and I was delighted that we could welcome Harry to our club. Joe Carton, HYC Rear Commodore presented Harry with a Burgee from our club. Afterwards, we had a lovely dinner in Aqua Restaurant. This is a very special restaurant, as the building on the harbour pier was formerly, our yacht club building, before the Yacht Club and Marina were relocated to the current site about 30 years ago. Kieran Jameson has raced against WINSOME for many years and very keenly follows WINSOME’s adventures, so we were delighted that Kieran and Daire Jameson could join Harry, Urs, Frank, Breda and Laura Dillon for dinner.

Hopefully this wil be the first of many trips to Ireland for Harry, Urs and Pilatypus. Next time, we will look forward to bringing Harry sailing in Howth and also showing him some more of Ireland and Irish hospitality.

I am writing this over the Atlantic Ocean, between Ireland and Iceland. This is my first trip flying with Harry and indeed my first flight on a private plane. I should not get accustomed to this luxury! I am very lucky, I have 2 pilots, Harry and Urs, to fly me from Ireland to Iceland. Harry also allowed me to fly the plane, well more accurately, he let me sit in the main Pilot’s seat, while The autopilot flew the plane, but it felt like I was flying! We are looking forward to visiting Reykjavik and Iceland, which is another first time experience for me! Then back to work and real life later in the week but for now I will just enjoy this fantastic experience. Thank you very much Harry and Urs for this once in a lifetime opportunity! And we all look forward to welcoming you to Ireland again in 2015! For now, safe travels and hope you have a fantastic and safe trip.