Poole in the rain

What a day today, first of all an early drive to London to collect the radio mic (microphone) to use for the day's filming and then down to Poole to meet Tom (Cunliffe) to shoot next month's pilotage piece.

I managed to organise a boat for the day, it was a Golden Hind 31 owned by Keith and Angela who agreed to give up a day and allow Tom and I to take over their boat. they couldn't have been more perfect hosts.

As Tom was walking down the pontoon to meet us he was troubled by the spreaders on the boat, the Port side being a bit droopy. After having just introduced himself to the owners he had me rigged up and ready to go up the mast to level the spreaders up. I'd established by this time that Keith was an ex-fireman which made me feel much more confident. No messing and there I was dangling in Keith's harness..."up a bit, a bit more, little bit more, just a fraction more..." finally Tom was satisfied, I was let down and we could say hello to Dan the RIB man who'd just arrived and must have wondered what was going on.

After the first of many lovely cups of coffee from Angela we headed out into the rain and Poole harbour. If there's one thing that makes filming tricky it's working on boats but once you add in some rain it's a nightmare. Unfortunately we couldn't rotate Brown Sea Island to avoid the rain and so when you see the item editied I'm afraid there's a lot of rain on the lens, which is very frustrating for me as I want the shots to be clear, interesting and informative. One of the things I really work hard is for Yachting TV to look good and have top editorial content.

having never sailed around the back of Brown Sea Island before, I wasn't sure what Tom had in mind when he suggested this piece of pilotage but it was great to see the contrast of a busy harbour on one side and a tranquil anchorage on the other.

Dan's driving was spot on and after a few transfers we sat and had some lunch and listened to Keith and Angela's plans for the future. They've just bought a Solaris 42 and are going to live aboard in Greece, fabulous. The Golden Hind we were on is for sale so take a look at the pictures and if you fancy it, the boat can be viewed at boatshed.com.

The rain teased us just after lunch, stopping for a while and the really coming down. So hats off to Tom, Dan, keith and Angela for braving the elements, let's hope in the edit we can actually see where we are through the rain!