Saturday. Best Day's Sailing for Ages.

[DJE]

Yarmouth to Bembridge via St. Caths.

Started about 09:30 ghosting down the Needles channel in about 5 knots of Northwesterly. Hoisted the chute at the Needles and gybed into Freshwater Bay making 2 or 3 knots through the water. Gybed back out when we got to within 100 yards of the shore and the wind slowly started to build and veer to the southwest, just getting up to F5 before we got the point. By then we were right on the edge with full main and cruising chute; I was trimming, Rob helming with his legs wedged across the cockpit and both hands on the tiller, Sue on the sheet winch saying "Take it down boys!" at regular intervals, and the boat charging along at 6.5 knots occasionally surging up to 7.5.

Dropped the chute just after St. Caths for the sake of my marriage and rolled through the overfalls under full white sail and on past Dunnose into smoother water where Sue rustled up smoked salmon rolls for lunch. Broad reach on port tack to Bembridge ledge then quickly pulled a reef in for the close fetch to the tide gauge in 20 knots or more of wind. Anchored for a while then crept into Bembridge to join the lifting keel boats from the club – who had manage to creep in about two hours after low water on the neap tide.

And all in glorious sunshine!

 

[Sans Bateau]

Sounds good, trouble is the RTIR was a few weeks ago.

 

[DJE]

Attempted the ISC version a few weeks ago as crew for moodyNick. The rest of that story is well know hereabouts.

But this weekend was the big one, the Hill Head Sailing Club Round-the-Island rally. A hardy bunch of small boats from Titchfield Haven venturing out of the Solent accompanied by one or two slightly larger boats. I think the smallest this year was a single hander in a 19ft Newbridge Navigator.

 

[TeamSpirit]

Yep, Saturday was great day, best day for ages.........
Sunday single handed back to Chichester was not in wsw F6 creating nasty swell over the bar on a ebb tide ! and discovering that the dreaded Chichester Tube worms have taken over the prop blades ! 1.9nts cursed b****rs !!! Lifted, scrubbed 1/2 inch of tubeworms off blades and relaunched today. So much for antifouling the blades.

 

[neil1967]

Saturday morning was superb - we were sailing from Eastbourne to Chichester on our recently acquired Oyster 406. Sun was out, it was a northerly F3-4 and we were stonking along. Beachy head and the Severn sisters looked great in the sun. Unfortunately we made such good time that we got to selsey bill well ahead of the fair tide and the wind backed to the west and came up to a F5-6, with a resultant swell. We ended up going round the Owers in very lumpy seas and had quite an exciting time all in all. Overall it took us 12 hours from Eastbourne into Chichester. Exiting chi harbour the following morning in what was closer to a SW F5-F6 was also a bit frisky!

Neil