The clocks have changed, and it seems that really does mark the end of the sailing season for all but the diehards. It was Clarke and Carter's Autumn Yacht Fair at Suffolk Yacht Harbour at the weekend, and all the prospective buyers thronging the pontoons were thinking about new starts next season, just as the sellers no doubt were.
Putting your boat on the market really does draw a line, but even those happily keeping theirs for another year or longer mostly seemed to be involved in the depressing business of laying up: taking off sails and loading up trolleys with bunk cushions to be carted home and kept in the dry for the winter.
We are not actually laying up yet, but we too were unloading a lot of gear. No point in leaving things on the boat to get cold and damp if you are not going to use them. So the dinghy went home. (I don't do dinghies in the dark. Winter cruising means walk-ashore marinas, or stay-aboard anchorages.) And the cockpit table. The thought that there would be no more dining alfresco was particularly sad.
But we did have a great cruise this weekend. We planned to go to Southwold, a favourite destination we seem fated never to reach! Light south westerlies were forecast on Friday, which would have meant motoring there, and we wanted to sail. So we headed south west, and beat to Bradwell, on a brilliant sunny day.
The breeze wasn't so light after all. A reef soon went in. But we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves. It was the first real day of autumn, the first time we have needed to resort to two fleeces and woolly hats since the spring. We had hot soup for lunch, too.
Beating down there meant a great off-the-wind sail on the way back. But autumn really caught up with us, because we couldn't leave until there was enough water in the entrance channel - and that meant we didn't get back to Levington until just after dark.
We are very lucky to be based in a marina that has all states access, and is approached by a well lit estuary, so there is no problem at all about returning at night. But it was so long since we'd done it that it added another interest to the day.
On Sunday we watched the start of the final race of the autumn series - another end of season signal - before switching on the dehumidifier and heading back home and starting to fill up the spare bedroom with boat gear.
It's a terrific chore, unloading the boat, but I remain astonished how many people don't do it. Boats are coming out of the water, and across the hard standing they fall into two categories: those lovingly stripped bare and those abandoned with everything still on: sails, lifebuoys, even fenders.
It's surely a matter of protecting your investment to get all that expensive gear out of the worst of the weather. And in the case of sails, it's a double whammy: leaving them on not only shortens the life of the sails, it also adds considerably to the windage of the yacht in the cradle, making it more vulnerable to damage during winter gales.
Anybody who has gone down to the boatyard at the height of a gale to check on their own boat will have seen, somewhere in the yard, a genoa that has come unfurled and is flapping madly, causing the poor boat to jump around in its cradle.
The ritual of laying up should include stripping off everything that can be moved, and getting it clean and dry and safely stored away for the winter. It makes the end of the season a lot of hard work, as well as a generally depressing time. But it helps to make the start of next season altogether better!
