lionelz
Well-Known Member
I have been meaning to post this for some time but just not had the time. In August I took my Rinker 270 "Bellorosa" away for a week. This was my wife and I first holiday on the boat (it’s our first season of boat ownership). We spent a week on it going from our home port of Gosport to Brighton and then onto Eastbourne and then back to Gosport. During the week we had some awful weather but also some great stuff.
We set of from Gosport on a pretty overcast day and on leaving the Solent we hit a bit of water disturbance which at one stage made me think about doing the trip on another day. I decided to push on for a few more minutes and to get out of the Solent. This was a good decision as the sea state became a bit more comfortable. This was the first time that my wife had been on such a long trip and we would be out of sight of land for a while due to the visabilty, I was pretty impressed with her! The trip took about 2 hours to get to Brighton. By the time we got to Brighton the winds were upto 4/5’s and the swell coming back of the sea wall was quite uncomfortable we managed to get into the harbour without to much issue however we had been give a berth right by the reception pontoon, which at the time was taking the full force of the wind on it, I am pleased to say that the staff at the marina were there on hand to get my lines and secure me as this could have become very awkward. As it was I had to have 2 attempts at it but we managed to get in. We then spent 2 nights in Brighton we made the trip on the bus into the town centre and of course done some of the lanes (this kept the wife happy but not so much me) and we had some lovely meals on the inner and out quays. We would most definately make this trip again.
[/ATTACH]
When we made the trip down to Easbourne the weather was fantastic with no wind and an excellent sea state. Easbourne was nice and again the harbour staff were fantastic, we managed to meet and take some family out on that day and let my nephews and nieces have a drive of the boat. However that was it for eastbourne! The next 2 days were awful. They had to cancel the first day of the airshow so we became boat bound, which surpringly was not to bad. We have learnt that our canopy is water tight in the sence that the canvas will hold out water, but considering that we had a months rain is less than 24 hours we can now confirm that the rain will run down the sides and then find any small opening and poor into it. We managed to eat out a few times at the local restuarants which were all quite nice. We were now looking for a weather window to get back to Gosport. The decision was made by me to go for it on the Friday as I had got the days print out of the weather and it showed great sunny weather with 3’s. I even waited for the tide to turn so that I would be wind and tide. It soon became very apparent that the weather forcast was not worth the paper that it was printed on. It was slightly overcast when we left however by the time we had got 30 mins out the weather had closed in and visibility was down to a few miles. This meant that we lost sight of land at Brighton and spent the next 2 and half hours on our own!!! I managed to keep a steady speed of about 19/20 knots but at times it was quite uncomfortable. Whilst I don’t mind a bit of wave jumping if I am in a RIB when in my boat I do not get any fun from slapping in the waves. There was quite a bit of power on power off to try and easy the ride. Its fair to say at this time my wife was not seeing the enjoyment of owning a boat, but she tried to keep smiling all be it through gritted teeth. The journey 30 minutes longer than expected and dragged even more when we got into the solent and the heavens opened up!!! I would like to point out at this stage I was not prepared for this as I was still clutching the weather report which very clearly stated sun all day!!!!!!!! I was subsequently wearing shorts, flipflops, T shirt and a small waist coat. My wife was in just a bad a state of dress! Luckly it was not cold and I was concentrating so much that I could not feel it anyway. Now I would like to point out I have a 30ft sports cruiser, as such they are fitted with the most pathetic windscreen and wiper that you can imagine, I sometimes think why have they bothered. Because of this I was having to stand up and put my head outside, which in normal circumstances is fine, however it was raining so hard it was like sticking my head at the back of a road gritter! I think its only fair to point out that I also am as blind as a bat without my glasses on (I had them on) although with the amount of rain that was on them I wanted to rip the wipers of the boat (as they were doing no good anyway) and put them on my glasses. The visability was so bad that I was strggleing to see the channel markers and with the weather and rain getting worse our speed at dropped to 10 knts. We still had not seen land, and we were now at the spitbank fort! I had at last seen some other boats which did raise my spirits. We eventually got back in the harbour and tied up, no sooner had we tied up and the rain stopped. This gave us the opportunity to get changed and warmed up.
We then spent the next 3 day in out home port and spending time in the solent, here the weather was fantastic.
Overall we had a great time, both my wife and I have come out of it still enjoying the boating we both have much more experence now, we have leant always have your waterproofs handy as the weather forecast is almost never accurate.
We set of from Gosport on a pretty overcast day and on leaving the Solent we hit a bit of water disturbance which at one stage made me think about doing the trip on another day. I decided to push on for a few more minutes and to get out of the Solent. This was a good decision as the sea state became a bit more comfortable. This was the first time that my wife had been on such a long trip and we would be out of sight of land for a while due to the visabilty, I was pretty impressed with her! The trip took about 2 hours to get to Brighton. By the time we got to Brighton the winds were upto 4/5’s and the swell coming back of the sea wall was quite uncomfortable we managed to get into the harbour without to much issue however we had been give a berth right by the reception pontoon, which at the time was taking the full force of the wind on it, I am pleased to say that the staff at the marina were there on hand to get my lines and secure me as this could have become very awkward. As it was I had to have 2 attempts at it but we managed to get in. We then spent 2 nights in Brighton we made the trip on the bus into the town centre and of course done some of the lanes (this kept the wife happy but not so much me) and we had some lovely meals on the inner and out quays. We would most definately make this trip again.
[/ATTACH]When we made the trip down to Easbourne the weather was fantastic with no wind and an excellent sea state. Easbourne was nice and again the harbour staff were fantastic, we managed to meet and take some family out on that day and let my nephews and nieces have a drive of the boat. However that was it for eastbourne! The next 2 days were awful. They had to cancel the first day of the airshow so we became boat bound, which surpringly was not to bad. We have learnt that our canopy is water tight in the sence that the canvas will hold out water, but considering that we had a months rain is less than 24 hours we can now confirm that the rain will run down the sides and then find any small opening and poor into it. We managed to eat out a few times at the local restuarants which were all quite nice. We were now looking for a weather window to get back to Gosport. The decision was made by me to go for it on the Friday as I had got the days print out of the weather and it showed great sunny weather with 3’s. I even waited for the tide to turn so that I would be wind and tide. It soon became very apparent that the weather forcast was not worth the paper that it was printed on. It was slightly overcast when we left however by the time we had got 30 mins out the weather had closed in and visibility was down to a few miles. This meant that we lost sight of land at Brighton and spent the next 2 and half hours on our own!!! I managed to keep a steady speed of about 19/20 knots but at times it was quite uncomfortable. Whilst I don’t mind a bit of wave jumping if I am in a RIB when in my boat I do not get any fun from slapping in the waves. There was quite a bit of power on power off to try and easy the ride. Its fair to say at this time my wife was not seeing the enjoyment of owning a boat, but she tried to keep smiling all be it through gritted teeth. The journey 30 minutes longer than expected and dragged even more when we got into the solent and the heavens opened up!!! I would like to point out at this stage I was not prepared for this as I was still clutching the weather report which very clearly stated sun all day!!!!!!!! I was subsequently wearing shorts, flipflops, T shirt and a small waist coat. My wife was in just a bad a state of dress! Luckly it was not cold and I was concentrating so much that I could not feel it anyway. Now I would like to point out I have a 30ft sports cruiser, as such they are fitted with the most pathetic windscreen and wiper that you can imagine, I sometimes think why have they bothered. Because of this I was having to stand up and put my head outside, which in normal circumstances is fine, however it was raining so hard it was like sticking my head at the back of a road gritter! I think its only fair to point out that I also am as blind as a bat without my glasses on (I had them on) although with the amount of rain that was on them I wanted to rip the wipers of the boat (as they were doing no good anyway) and put them on my glasses. The visability was so bad that I was strggleing to see the channel markers and with the weather and rain getting worse our speed at dropped to 10 knts. We still had not seen land, and we were now at the spitbank fort! I had at last seen some other boats which did raise my spirits. We eventually got back in the harbour and tied up, no sooner had we tied up and the rain stopped. This gave us the opportunity to get changed and warmed up.
We then spent the next 3 day in out home port and spending time in the solent, here the weather was fantastic.
Overall we had a great time, both my wife and I have come out of it still enjoying the boating we both have much more experence now, we have leant always have your waterproofs handy as the weather forecast is almost never accurate.
Attachments
Last edited:
