rough seas

[RickJ]

Hi Matt

Just catching up with your adventures. Jim told me you had a tough time - glad you made it OK.

Jim & I attempted a cruise round the Isle of Wight last sat/sun. Sat was good, no wind until lunch time but then it picked up nicely, and was fairly sunny as we sailed round to Ventnor with the tide in our favour. Got there about 7pm, and tied up at the last mooring in the little harbour in time to get ashore for a nice pub meal. (I'll skip the bit about getting ashore and back for another time )

Overnight the weather turned, it was chucking down on the boat while we were trying to sleep, and Sun morning was wet, windy, and misty. We pulled out of the harbour and pointed west to continue the trip, but were full into the weather and 3-4' seas. To carry on we were facing the prospect of that right along the exposed SW of the island, having to motor with not much chance of using the sails. So we decided to abort and went back the way we came (Jim said if it was your call you'd probably have just kept going. ). It kept the weather out of our faces and avoided pounding into waves, but trying to maintain a heading in following seas was kinda fun.

We motored like that for about 2 hrs keeping the shore just in sight through the mist, until the waters got a bit more sheltered, at which point the mist lifted and it showed some prospect of sun. So we got the sails up and cut the engine - relief! (2-stroke engine noise gets wearing after a while).

From there we spent the rest of the day sailing back to Cowes - took quite a while as we had 3-4 kts of Solent tide against us most of the way. Managed to get caught out on Ryde Sands, the shallows extend so far from the shore it's very easy to forget you're no longer in deep water (note to self - pay more attention to buoys and markers ). Had to resort to the motor to pull us off.

Jim couldn't believe how many sail boats there were out in the Solent, but it was pretty much normal for a summer w/e here. Altogether a good couple of days!

Cheers, Rick

[bastonjock]

rick

glad to hear that you guys had a good time,i spent sat with my wife and daughter,we sailed out of one river and into another,on the way back we dropped the sails,dumped the ballast and i gave it wot whilst my ladies sat on the bow,they enjoyed it.On Sunday they were away at a pony club competition so i took the time to explore the Deben,On Monday the forcast was a bit iffy 3-4 then 5 with 6 later,so i stuck my head out of the river and it was not too bad,so i hoisted the sails and of we went,my wife was a bit scared of the heel,but my daughter who referred to heeling as "Tippage" enjoyed it,the weather helm was a bit strong and upset my wife as she fought at the wheel ,after a few attempts at tacking i saw the weather changing so not wanting to scare the girls too much i headed in,it was a bit of a buzz going over the Deben sand bar as the pilot guide says to cross it at HW-2,the deep keel boats were at anchor and i went over at LW-1,i had done the math before hand and expected 5ft and that was on the button,after crossing the bar we headed up to Woodbridge,i managed to get the mac stuck at the aptly named "troublesome reach" i was being a bit arrogant and paid for it,i got off the sand bar and decided to stick to the bouyage,the sand bar was covered in scoring from deeper keeled vessells.