This was the first big sail of the season, the last sail having been a shake-down of our skills two weeks previously with Robert skippering Dragonfly Too, an X-332, in East Cowes with Victor and Diana Bader Clynes as crew.  Nice boat, shame about the lack of power under engine.  Sometimes one finds interesting passages in the log book on the boats we charter, this was no exception and in this case, it had sailed the Eddystone Light House race.

For this Matzo sail Victor organised “Event” which is a Dufour 40, spacious, sufficient power under both sail and power.  His crew comprised Robert (Mate in a non-carnal way), Diana Abramova, Diana Bader-Clynes, Janice and Mel a new member. The weekend started with the obligatory evening meal in a local hostelry, the Jolly Sailor in Lands End Road, Burlesdon, where the vegi / fish / other food filled the gap between lunch and breakfast.

On the Saturday morning we had smoked salmon for breakfast, courtesy Victor, got ourselves ready for a gentle sail down wind towards Gosport where Sandy had organised a couple of berths in Gosport Marina for us and her boat Sea Dream, sailing with Avi and Phil plus dogs.

Gentle was the order of the day, there was not even enough wind to sail the whole way and eventually we motor-sailed into Portsmouth harbour and tied up to a mooring buoy to have lunch.  We then motored up the harbour towards Fareham and returning back to the marina arriving about 16h30.

Dinner on board consisted of Diana’s homemade soup, Janice’s roast chicken (two tasty birds), potatoes and carrots. Sandy and Avi hosted the evening drinks and nosh on board their boat.

Sunday morning we motored out of Gosport bound for Lymington and with sufficient wind were able to sail up to Cowes. Again, progress was slow and gave way to the ‘iron sail’ into the West Solent with a favourable tide. This time we had lunch on the hoof, smoked salmon again – there was quite a lot of it, and soup.

As Baldrick would say – “I have a cunning plan”, so we carried out man over boat drill under motor with the obligatory fender and bucket.  This was carried out not in the best of places, between the Yarmouth and Lymington ferries with the tide running ant 3 knots. So we had our hour or so throwing and catching, some more successful on first attempt than others.  We had to offer numerous assurances to the fender that we would return to pick him/her up. We did not lose either and finally Victor steered toward Berthon’s Marina in Lymington where again, Sandy had organised the berths close to the marina office.  The marina there uses five-pin electric connections so one has to go to the marina office to get an adaptor cable, no big problem, and whilst they do have taps, they don’t have hoses on the pontoon. This is SouthWest Water’s method to prevent legionnaire’s disease.

After a stroll through the graveyard (dead centre of town) and other scenic wonders we had dinner in the Ship Inn on Lymington’s harbour-front where Nick and Hilary joined us.

After a meal from a menu to suit most tastes, we walked back to Event for after-dinner drinks and some more of Sandy’s pyramid cakes and Victor’s cinnamon balls and almond snaps (they started out as macaroons, but that did not affect the taste).

On the Monday morning the forecast again was for 3-4 winds – that didn’t happen immediately, and so back to motor-sailing up the Solent towards Cowes.  Other boats were sporting their cruising shutes – they were full of wind, looked the bee’s knees, but still they were virtually stationary as we motored past.  We did more man-overboard practice on the way back, and again retrieved all the “men”. By then the fender/bucket was getting thoroughly fed up.  Towards the Beaulieu River the wind picked up enough to try sailing again, and we had a cracking sail up Southampton Water to just above Netley and back down to the Hamble for re-fuelling and the marina.

Another grand weekend afloat.
Thanks to Victor for arranging the boat and the girls for keeping the crew full and content.  Any hint of chauvinism is purely co-incidental.

Robert

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For Sea Dream and its crew Sandy, Avi and Phil plus Rudi and Collie (ex-officio members) it was the real start of the season with her first shake down sail. Prior to which we had a Pessachdicke Friday night meal and welcomed Gilad and Limor, (former HSSC members) who came and raised a glass with us. The shake down sail proved to be exactly that, when raising the main sail only to discover the main sheet was incorrectly threaded through pulley block. After ten minutes of motoring about in circles in Chichester harbour (very pretty but not the point) the problem got sorted. And off we sailed to Gosport to meet the rest of HSSC sailors brave enough to venture out on the briney early in the season.

It was thought the sail from Gosport to Lymington might take place faster with a cruising chute, which got optimistically raised, however the problem was with the way the wind was blowing we were more likely to end up back in Chichester – why is it the wind always seems to be blowing in your face when you need it to blow the other way. Tacking was the order of the day.

Sea Dream minus Phil carried on from Lymington to Poole the next day on a most  glorious sunny day – you don’t know what you missed Phil – with calm gentle breezes and a fishing line off the back of the boat to catch supper. I can confirm we had fried fish for supper – no questions please. After returning to Lymington a day or so later, we caught the early morning tide that took us all the way from Lymington past Cowes, Portsmouth, Southsea and into Chichester for afternoon tea – now that’s what I call a sail.
What a great few days sailing.

Avi