henryf
Well-known member
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace;
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go;
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living;
Sunday’s child sails under a blue ensign and is a bit rude, even on lovely Sunny Sundays.
There we were heading back from the Hamble to Portsmouth more or less following the North channel at the astonishing rate of 7 knots. It was a lovely Sunny day, what wind there was came from the West and there was a bit of tide running with us so engines at tick over, auto pilot set to Gilkicker point and we settled down to a delightful Mid-day potter. No pressure other than the promise of Sunday lunch in Trinity’s at the lightship, Haslar Marina.
Being as how we were going so slowly it allowed us to make full use of the margins of Solent thus avoiding most of the traffic. A clump of sailists heading West were avoided as they congregated together pointing in all directions, I suspect it was some sort of rally and they were trying to round a racing mark. It looked chaotic.
Some way off to our port side was a yacht matching our speed. For 15 minutes we cruised like this until the yacht slowly crept towards us and went to cross our bow. Obviously were we on the plane I would have allowed a large margin but as we were both at sailing speed with a closing speed of less than a knot things weren’t so critical.
Technically you could argue the yacht was overtaking us but I had no interest in such things. Just as I was about to pull the engines out of gear to drop back and allow the yacht to cross in front of us an arm shot out from the female skipper pointing across us. I swept my arm across to indicate the course was clear and she was welcome to carry on. They crossed in front of us heading in the general direction of Ryde.
Now I’m not a needy person but a friendly wave would have been nice. They didn’t even look back. Their daughter carried on tapping away on her phone, hubby busied himself doing what ever it is you do to make a yacht sail with the wind and they drifted off.
I know we are a motor boat, I know we are lower than dirt because we only have a red ensign and I know in your mind you pictured us hurtling along at 25 knots. But we were doing 6.9 knots. I was testing the Chief officer on tides and depths as we predicted depth under the keel to within a few cm. The highlight of our excitement was when we went to investigate some yellow debris which turned out to be a flaccid racing mark in need of more air.
Cheer up a bit skipper and feel the love.
Henry
Tuesday's child is full of grace;
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go;
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for its living;
Sunday’s child sails under a blue ensign and is a bit rude, even on lovely Sunny Sundays.
There we were heading back from the Hamble to Portsmouth more or less following the North channel at the astonishing rate of 7 knots. It was a lovely Sunny day, what wind there was came from the West and there was a bit of tide running with us so engines at tick over, auto pilot set to Gilkicker point and we settled down to a delightful Mid-day potter. No pressure other than the promise of Sunday lunch in Trinity’s at the lightship, Haslar Marina.
Being as how we were going so slowly it allowed us to make full use of the margins of Solent thus avoiding most of the traffic. A clump of sailists heading West were avoided as they congregated together pointing in all directions, I suspect it was some sort of rally and they were trying to round a racing mark. It looked chaotic.
Some way off to our port side was a yacht matching our speed. For 15 minutes we cruised like this until the yacht slowly crept towards us and went to cross our bow. Obviously were we on the plane I would have allowed a large margin but as we were both at sailing speed with a closing speed of less than a knot things weren’t so critical.
Technically you could argue the yacht was overtaking us but I had no interest in such things. Just as I was about to pull the engines out of gear to drop back and allow the yacht to cross in front of us an arm shot out from the female skipper pointing across us. I swept my arm across to indicate the course was clear and she was welcome to carry on. They crossed in front of us heading in the general direction of Ryde.
Now I’m not a needy person but a friendly wave would have been nice. They didn’t even look back. Their daughter carried on tapping away on her phone, hubby busied himself doing what ever it is you do to make a yacht sail with the wind and they drifted off.
I know we are a motor boat, I know we are lower than dirt because we only have a red ensign and I know in your mind you pictured us hurtling along at 25 knots. But we were doing 6.9 knots. I was testing the Chief officer on tides and depths as we predicted depth under the keel to within a few cm. The highlight of our excitement was when we went to investigate some yellow debris which turned out to be a flaccid racing mark in need of more air.
Cheer up a bit skipper and feel the love.
Henry
