The scriptural statement that the first shall be last could have been written for displacement cruiser owners, but those on the MBM fleet have at least been blessed with calm seas and blue skies for their Channel crossing.

I’m writing this onboard the Sealine 410 True Blue from a position north west of the Sandettie light vessel in the Dover Strait Traffic Separation Scheme. The log says 7 knots, the compass is swinging mildly between 315-320T in a light swell made up mostly of geriatric ship wakes and there are not too many ship movements to trouble the watch.

The Colvic 26 Amalfi is a grey blip astern, the Seamaster 8m Barrier Reef is a brilliant white blip ahead and all is just as it should be. The Nimbus 26 Tanuche has crossed the shipping lanes further to the west and White Rabbit, our Broom 10/70 control boat, will by now have overtaken her bound for Brighton.

The Birchwood Viceroy Pheran was last seen off Calais heading in the general direction of the attractive French harbours that can be found between there and the first port of call for our Normandy cruise in company next week, Dives sur-Mer.

For our part, although hardly designed for the role our borrowed Sealine 410 has adapted nicely to displacement cruising; as soon as our two compatriots are safe on the English side we’ll be blowing the soot off the turbos and making best speed for the Solent.

Tomorrow we move all the copious quantities of kit we carry off of True Blue and back onto Motor Boats Monthly’s Sealine F37 Calm Voyager. In many ways I’ll be sorry to part company with the 410 – it has handled everything we have asked her too and I have grown into her greater internal volume with ease. An additional sleeping area (aft cabin, forward cabin and curtained-off dinette) has been handy compared to the F37’s forward and midships cabin arrangement.

There have been a few technical bits and bobs to address and were True Blue my boat (there we go, alarm bells should be ringing on my behalf for anyone who has ever bought a boat) I would doubtless enjoy the tinkering required to put them right.

I thought I’d miss the F37’s bow thrusters and low speed engines, but all the 410 has proven is that such things, as worthy and useful as they are, had made be a bit lazy with handling. With 5 knots with both of True Blue’s Volvo Penta 63P diesels on idle ahead, no thrusters and quite a bit of windage, you soon learn to dust off rope tricks again and remind yourself to engage brain a little earlier. Once you do so, you discover a boat that handles as well as any of her breed around the pontoons. We even performed a halfway decent side tow in Breskens, size and the low torque grunt of the diesels both being a bonus.

I don’t know what sea lore says about writing about such things on the internet before sounding ‘finished with engines’, but perhaps I shouldn’t tempt fate. So that’s all for now, at least until the River Hamble.