Where were you all?

Allan

Allan

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I did over 120 miles in the Bristiol channel over the weekend and saw no other yachts. Whilst one of the reasons I sail is a desire for solitude, I was suprised to see nobody else. The weather from Friday to Sunday night was lovely although the wind was a little fluky at times. What does everyone do with their weekends when not sailing?
Allan
 
That's one of the best things about the BC. there was a pic in one of the mags recently of boats anchored in Studland Bay. Unbelievable! Must have been hundreds.
 
Allan said:
I did over 120 miles in the Bristiol channel over the weekend and saw no other yachts. Whilst one of the reasons I sail is a desire for solitude, I was suprised to see nobody else. The weather from Friday to Sunday night was lovely although the wind was a little fluky at times. What does everyone do with their weekends when not sailing?
Allan
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Tickety Boo was out ............ we saw him from the balcony so can vouch for him going down to the Holms!
Also saw Challenge Wales up in our neck of the woods Early Saturday morning as we came out of the River Avon, it was a tad cold though and not must wind to speak of.
 
Blue_Pearl said:
Tickety Boo was out ............ we saw him from the balcony so can vouch for him going down to the Holms!
Also saw Challenge Wales up in our neck of the woods Early Saturday morning as we came out of the River Avon, it was a tad cold though and not must wind to speak of.
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Tickety Boo did indeed enjoy a lovely sail on Sunday. No wind on the way down so we needed the iron genoa :( but a beautiful breeze on the way back that really couldn't have been much better :). It felt like we had the entire Bristol Channel to ourselves.
 
This was a shot I took of the Bristol Channel yesterday. I took this from the beach just south of Witches Point: that's Nash Point in the distance.

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I also spotted a frozen tidal pool:

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I found that weekend to be generally pretty frustrating.

I got up really early to lock out of Portishead at 0830. On driving into Portishead, it was clear that there was genuinely no wind: not a puff. Given the option of chugging somewhere or mooching around in Waitrose, I chose Waitrose. By 1030, there was still no wind, but I didn't fancy catching the last lock out on a spring tide, so went anyway. I chugged all the way to English and Welsh Grounds where there were some little ripples on the water. Up went the cruising chute. The wind built and built and we were doing something like 6 knots as we cut inside Wolves on a falling tide (I could see where the water was swirling round the rocks themselves and was far enough off). The wind then just got lighter and lighter and we ended up close hauled. By the Culver cardinals, we were doing about 3 knots and gently ferry gliding towards Blue Anchor which then started moving the wrong way relative to us as the spring tide turned against us. I watched the sunset over Minehead then we had a couple of hours in the dark before getting into Watchet (where the tide seemed to be racing through the finger pontoons - a bit of a learning curve there for my single handed docking skills).

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A walk along the cliff top west of Watchet on Sunday morning showed that there was a light breeze. There were a couple of Watchet saily boats out and loads of Watchet fishing boats. It was a slow tack north in gentle winds which was all very pleasant. The real pain was when the wind stopped for 3 hours near Breaksea SWM. The sea was like a mill pond. There was not a wave or ripple on it. I spent my three hours learning how to splice an eye into a braid on braid rope: was I chuffed when I mastered that! After Breaksea, the ripples appeared. The spinnaker went up. The spinnaker went down. The genoa came out. The wind built and we had a cracking sail back to Portishead (probably the same conditions as Tickety Boo had). These were really, really good conditions: a nice wind and some really pretty flat seas. The only thing that was a bit nerve wracking was that there were quite a few old branches and logs lying in the water and it was pretty difficult seeing them in the dark. We locked in at 2030.

There were a few boats out on both days from both Cardiff and Watchet. I saw Challenge Wales too near Flat Holm on the Saturday.

This was us sailing back from Watchet on Sunday before the wind died. I'm not sure why we were doing 3.8 knots in 11 knots of apparent wind. I think Cervisia didn't like the wavelength of the little waves that there were.

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This weekend was nice too. Really nice. Really cold though.
 
zlod said:
This was a shot I took of the Bristol Channel yesterday. I took this from the beach just south of Witches Point: that's Nash Point in the distance.

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I also spotted a frozen tidal pool:

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Click to expand...

A beautiful place, I know it well. I've walked it many times, and you can sometimes come across buoys and fenders there at times.

You can find other things too. I was hammering at the cliff face once and heared a cheery 'hello' from behind me. I turned around to se a gentleman walking along the baech wearing only a pair of trainers, and they were hanging around his neck.
 
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