March training weekend

06 Apr 2014 21:10 | Deleted user

Just one boatful of hardy types for the March training weekend, our skipper was David Head, Friday and Saturday night victualler was Di Bromwich, mate Pete Bromwich and crew were David Laws, complete with a wonderful cake,  and a new member on her first trip with the club, Laura Sambrook.

We set off for Cowes on Friday night after a superb meal of sun dried tomato and chicken and pilaf followed by summer fruit pie complete with a sailing boat motif on the crust!   Thank goodness we ate well, after a small detour to find East Knoll we were treated to 38 knot gusts, hail and rain.  But we were all warm inside!  So off to East Cowes for the night, after quick tidal calculation to make sure we were OK overnight ,  and a well earned beer. 

Early start on Saturday as we had loads of tasks to do, first up was pontoon bashing which went well and a reverse mooring for Pete, why make it easy?  Then off to Bembridge for lunch and a secondary port calculation, which we checked against the tidal gauge. 

After sailing to a lat and long (without using the GPS), the plan was to go to the mouth of the Beaulieu River then off to Yarmouth doing a blind nav.  However after a very fast sail from Cowes to Beaulieu and a look at the state of the Solent in the strong wind against tide we had a quick change of plan and made our way back to Cowes for the night after a bit of a play around.   Thank goodness for that, with winds of 25 knots, a choppy sea and hour below would have given us a very green Pete!

Saturday nights eat on board meal was  beef in ale followed by apple crumble and custard, after a few drinks and a quiz or two we all turned in early.

Sunday was another early start as we still had plenty to do, some more pontoon work including a reverse park for David,  sail back to Southampton water for some picking up mooring practice then back to the Hamble to refuel and try out the emergency tiller.   We all had a go at steering with the emergency tiller, what a struggle, you certainly would not want to sail for a long passages with it.

We all went off back home having had an excellent training weekend and practice for the JMC for Pete and Diane!

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software