Thursday, August 31, 2006

Downhill racing.


Sunday was pretty exhilarating with the spring tide and the wind going the same way as us. The GPS showed us touching 8 knots on the return to Chichester. Great sailing, with the weather forecast dissuading enough people from coming out to make the Solent pretty quiet. We did see this splendid ship coming up the other way though. (Even if they were cheating by motoring into the wind).

Everything was pretty quiet on board, until we turned north to get into Chichester Harbour and realised that the downwind sailing was hiding just how strong the wind was as we suddenly heeled over. Good job the sea-dawg was at home. She wouldn't have been impressed.

This is a graph of wind speed from the weather station on Chichester Bar Beacon.

See the 30 knot gust at about 14:30? That's what hit us as we were rounding the corner. No wonder we were moving quickly!

Just to round things off nicely, freeflow into the marina began just as we were arriving, so we even missed the usual weekend afternoon queues, yay!

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

White Horses

The forecast winds duly turned up on Saturday morning, with 20-25 knots blowing in from the West. The skies looked pleasant though, with plenty of blue sky in between the scudding clouds, so off we set for our latest attempt to actually go somewhere.

We didn't have the most auspicious start - for the second time I had to get an unsuspecting passer-by to hold onto the bow of the boat so we could actually turn her up the fairway. (Moonshine only wants to turn her bow to the right when going backwards. All the berths we've been in so far have involved a left turn to get out. Add a wind from her stern to this and there's no way she's going to turn in the right direction). Once we got into the lock we got a stern telling off because we'd inadvertantly jumped the locking out queue. In the time between me listening to the VHF traffic to and from the marina and actually setting off, they'd started the usual wait-for-your-number-to-be-called routine. Ah well, I apologised profusely and it saved us an hour's queueing, so hey-ho.

Disappointingly not much to report from our intrepid passage to the wilds of Cowes. We had the tide with us all the way, but the wind absolutely on our nose, so we got plenty of tacking practice and plenty of water over the decks. Mark looks like a natural on the helm, though. I'm not 100% sure where we were just here. We don't look at quite the angle that we spent most of the trip.



Just to prove that we actually got some distance from Chichester this time, here's Portsmouth complete with Spinnaker Tower on the left and a Napoleonic fort in the foreground.


We eventually arrived in Cowes at about 5:00, rafting up at East Cowes Marina on the outside of four spiffy 42 foot yachts, and definitely looking like the poor relations. On our return from the pub we were greeted by the owner of Teflon II, who we'd tied up to. He was most put out that the marina had dared to tie up a 27' boat next to his 42' Moody, claiming that we were scraping his sides. (We weren't, I'd checked for two hours before we headed pub-wards and even moved his fenders lower to make sure that we weren't). He should have been pleased that the contrast with Moonshine was making his boat look even flashier than it was.

Racehorses

A three day weekend with lots of stuff planned, but Missy wasn't feeling well so Plan B had to be put into effect. Missy stayed and home and watched old movies for three days, with Clemmie the sea-dawg hanging up her lifejacket for the weekend to keep her company. Paul down to the boat with old mate Mark with some serious wind forecast for the weekend.

We were civilised on Saturday and got booted and suited for a day at Goodwood races. Here's a picture of the people there. I didn't bother with any pictures of horses, because all the ones that I put money on came in some hours after the rest of the field. All, that is, except the one which was leading all the way round until a couple of feet from the finish line. At which point the horse that Mark had backed got itself half a nostril's length in front. Hmmph.

Still, it was all in all a good day, despite Missy's absence.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Fair winds

Sunday was a lovely day for sailing. Up at 8am, walked the dawg and got a newspaper, cooked bacon rolls and coffee, tidied the boat and snook out of the marina towards the end of free flow so the tide was with us. (About the first time we've managed that trick - we've spent a lot of time going the wrong way so far!)

To be honest, we didn't do much, but it was a very nice day to be on the water not doing much.

Mark seemed to like it, anyway.










How about this for a fine, upstanding crew?




So all in all a very pleasant weekend. We didn't make the Isle of Wight this time, but there's always next time!

There are a few more pictures here. (Sailing, plus a few others.)

In which Missy finally enjoys a day on the water.

There has been a conspicuous lack of on-the-water pics and stuff over the past few weeks, because we haven't been anywhere. We're being very cautious when there's just the two of us and the wind's been slightly too strong to venture out.

This weekend, however, we had reinforcements in the shape of publican-to-be Mark. The plan was to head off to Cowes on Saturday for our first proper sail. Unfortunately nose to tail traffic on the M3 meant that Mark didn't arrive until 2pm, so we missed our slot in the lock (even after the massive two hour wait for 30 boats to get through!) Fortunately, Mark arrived just in time for them to call us to let us know that we'd made our way back to the top of the queue

We didn't fancy risking getting into Cowes as darkness was falling, so it was a motor up the harbour and then a sail sorting run for an hour or so before sailing back.

With a bit of tweaking, Moonshine actually sails rather nicely. It looks rather splendid all goosewinged out. If there are any proper sailors reading, Mark did manage to get the kinks out of the main eventually.

Even the sea-dawg seemed to enjoy it.



Saturday evening was very pleasant. The queues to get back into Chichester Marina were as long as those trying to get out, so it was getting late when we finally got tied up. Fortunately, we were the last-but-one group to order food before the exhausted kitchen staff at the Crown & Anchor at Dell Quay put up the shutters for the night. They'll be praying for rainy, miserable weather over there before the summer's out.

We'd walked to the pub but, after a few pints, the return journey wasn't looking like much fun. Unbelievably, the landlord offered us a lift home when we asked him if he knew if any local taxis would take us and the sea-dawg. What a nice man!

Fat bloke berates dog


This one's apropos of nothing at all, but I'd say it's time for that bloke to go on a diet.