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BlueSkyNick

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Hope everybody else is, too.

Left Cherbourg 0605, tied up in Lymington 1620.

After a couple of hours motoring, we started sailing when the wind picked up and even hoisted the spinnaker. As the wind continued to rise, it got a bit too hairy for just two of us on board, so we managed to get it down without too much drama. Clocked a max speed of 9.65kts though

A great crossing, thanks James for your help and company.

Finally, many thanks to Roger, Fergus and co for their organisation, and also to Colin for the entertaining raffle. Was I the only one to win back the prize I had donated ??:eek:
 

colhel

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I think we got to the Poole entrance about 16.30 , had the spinnaker up part of the way, we started to catch you up, but just couldn't recover from the false start :p . Great to see everyone, a fantastic weekend again. Many thanks :)
 

KREW2

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Left at 0600, picked up my mooring in Portland at 1600.
We saw something on the way back I have never seen before, when I get time and acquire the knowledge I will post a picture.
Great weekend
 

jhr

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Yes; a great crossing back; perfect conditions and excellent company.

I echo Nick's thanks to Fergus and Roger for making the arrangements. I don't know what Fergus said to the Yacht Club, but the food was a lot better this year :)

Good to see some old faces (very old, in most cases) and to meet some new ones. Thanks above all to Nick, for allowing The Great Satan - in the form of a moboist - onto his saily boat for the weekend.
 

jhr

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I think we got to the Poole entrance about 16.30 , had the spinnaker up part of the way, we started to catch you up, but just couldn't recover from the false start :p . Great to see everyone, a fantastic weekend again. Many thanks :)

The bewildered expression on your face, as you looked out of the companionway to see us departing, is a memory that I will cherish for years.

Great raffle. :)
 

Cardo

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We eventually made it back to the Hamble at 1900 hrs BST having left at 0520 EST! That was a heck of a long crossing and one thinks maybe we should have stopped in Portsmouth on Sunday night.

An eventful crossing, though! Very calm to begin with, but then the wind picked up and we decided to crack out the cruising chute. Wind kept building and gusting so down came cruising chute and up went regular sails. Wind kept building so we ended up dropping the main and just got pulled along at a fair lick by the genoa.

Just a pity about the nasty waves that also built up. Galley Wench didn't appreciate those one bit!

I didn't have any ill feelings towards Pinnacle as he passed us on the entrance to the Solent having left 3 hours after us. No, I wasn't bitter at all! :p

All in all, a very enjoyable weekend with a lot of boxes ticked in our sailing book. A big thank you to all the various people who organised the weekend. It was fantastic to meet all the people that came along for the French sun!
 

Sailfree

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We left at 05.15 BST and just as watch settled into a routine and I decided to take a nap in the cockpit to be rudely woken by crew saying ship is calling our name followed by lots of French.

Going slowly East West across the perfect course of Cherbourg to Needles and then reversing direction effectively blocking our route was a Grey ship. Immediately thought we were going to be boarded and our papers checked (Had Toad arranged this I wondered?).

I instructed proceed slowly. By now they were flashing us with their signal lamp - who knows morse code?? Had an interesting array of ariels etc and some balls hoisted. Slowly dawned on my sleeping and tired mind that the balls and diamond resembled something that I vaguely remembered from the flip cards I studied for my YM exam and practical. A minesweeper at work. Now I know that Toad refused to pay the £100 wager to charity but sowing mines across our course home is going a bit far I thought.

At this time a French sailor appeared on the bridge wing pointing to his balls (those hoisted aloft!) and I instructed a 90 deg change of course.

Seemed to be very happy with that!

Wind slowly increased and we made needles at 14.30 often seeing 9kts and we don't have a spinnaker.

Going up the Solent noticed another grey boat shadowing us so we quickly dropped the French courtsey flag and I wondered whether my stern locker 8 man liferaft had been stolen and replaced by stowaways when I saw it was a UK Border Agency boat. They did not stop us but were happily burning taxpapers money cruising up and down the Solent doing their righteous duty of showing the flag to dissuade unemployed illegal immigrants from that foreign country the Isle of Wight trying to get to the English mainland.

Finally berthed at Hamble Point at 16.45.

Thanks to everyone who turned up and sorry to those that missed it. I have received a few PM explaining why from an unfortunate death/funeral to dirty fuel, broken sea water strainer to a crew mutiny!!

Look forward to next year but hoping for another sunny September day for the sixth year in a row may be a bit much!!
 

prv

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Decided to do things a bit different, and left at 1500 BST (1600 off the outer breakwater by the time we'd refuelled etc). Was cooking bacon butties in the mouth of Southampton Water at 0800 this morning, and have just stepped out of the shower at home after unpacking the boat and giving her a good clean.

Cheers to Russell for being short-notice crew and making Kindred Spirit's second Scuttlebutt jaunt possible. The vomit on the dodgers was perfectly excusable (anyone can be seasick, and that was a pretty brief and well-controlled episode) - but pissing on my charts (on the chart table) may take longer to live down :D

Pete
 

Sailfree

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Had an e mail from Magali Harmon from the marina. If anyone has any photos of the event (I guess relevant to the marina) can you let me know and I will PM you Magali's e mail address so that you can send them to her.
 

Ru88ell

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The return leg was one night I'll never forget. Alone (when prv was sleeping), surfing down the rollers in close quarters to tankers in the shipping lanes on a night when it was so dark I relied on the compass horizon to assure me we were still vaguely upright! Wow!

About the piss on the chart table; entirely because the heads are too small for a 5yr old, and there's no way I'm hanging off the mizzen mast shrouds in those conditions. I was trying to piss in a water bottle, but prv's helming caused me to lose my footing and I accidentally squeezed the bottle and launched said piss everywhere - including all over me. :p You did say Imray charts were waterproof.

A fantastic weekend, and something major ticked off my list of things to do before I die - a Channel crossing, not pissing all over the place. Pete was a brilliant skipper - a pleasure to sail with.
 

prv

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entirely because the heads are too small for a 5yr old, and there's no way I'm hanging off the mizzen mast shrouds in those conditions.

Quite right - I'd have told you not to if you'd tried it :)

I usually use the bucket in such circumstances, your bottle idea was an improvement on that which I'll adopt in future.

But, stick to using it in the cockpit rather than the cabin in future, I think :)

I'll have bought an updated edition of that chart by the next time I'm going that way anyway. And they are indeed mostly water-resistant, so no harm actually done.

Glad you enjoyed it. Somewhat shocked to hear myself described as a "brilliant skipper" :D. I still think of myself as a near-beginner in that department.

Did you still want that stew recipe?

Pete
 

Sans Bateau

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Although having earlier planed to leave around 1600 we decide to set off at 1000 to enjoy the sunshine. We started out with little wind, but after around 2 hours the wind had veered and strengthened to 20knts gusting 23. This would have been OK except we had a quartering sea which made this a little uncomfortable. We did record a max speed through the water of 9.3 knts and a max SOG of 11.7knts whilst surfing.

We had to change course 6 times for commercial shipping, just about the most I have had to do.
 
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