Sailing in the Solent aboard "Petrel", a Westerly Storm 33

....or a weekend without Daisy II...


The original plan was to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight.  However, rough seas on the south side of the island led to a change of plan.  We sailed from Portsmouth around the east side of the island, past Bembridge and as far as Dunnose Point, where a quite hefty swell in the English Channel, together with F5-6 winds on the nose led to us tracking back the other way, and eventually making for Cowes on Saturday evening.  Then, on Sunday, we left at 6am and worked our way back across the Solent to Portsmouth.

These photos record the less challenging aspects, weather-wise, of the weekend and all taken from the relative shelter of the Solent  - I doubt if the camera would have survived Saturday conditions on the south-east side of the island....

Cockpit

Crew

HMS Victory

Pickled...

Portsmouth harbour

mainsail

Skipper

Sailing in the solent

Sailing with cruising shute on Sunday morning

July 8th - Orwell sailing and showers!

13.5nm, Total 166.0nm 

A day of hefty showers, but some fun as a seal followed me up the Orwell in a rain storm.

June 30th - in defiance of nature

20 days of June is far too long a period without any sailing, but the weather has been playing havoc all month.  Finally, commitments and weather allowed me a day's sailing and, albeit in blustery conditions, I had a splendid time sailing down to anchor opposite the container docks at Felixstowe and to witness the splendid sight of the lugger Avocet sailing downstream whilst a number of Thames barges sailed the other way back towards Pin Mill - part of the Pin Mill Thames Barge match this weekend.

Lugger Avocet makes headway in testing conditions

I much enjoyed this shot - David and Goliath?

Barges ahoy

7.7nm, season's total -152.5nm

June 10th, calm after the storm...

11.5nm; season's total 144.8nm

Following several days of high winds and rain - a 'European Monsoon', we are told - it was time to get back to some sailing.

 This was a strange track!  I had nowhere in particular to go, and a whole afternoon in which to achieve it.  Winds were light - F2-3, and the tide was against me, but I decided to see how far I could go tacking my way against wind and tide, and experimenting with both short and long tacks.

As ever, something decided not to work: on this occasion, the echo sounder was not playing.  When I inspected it, the device normally sits in a pot of oil but this was empty and seemed to have leaked itself dry.  I'm not really in a position to fix this until later in the summer.  I have temporarily refilled it, and it now works, but will have to monitor this over the coming weeks.

Winds were so light, I was able to leave the helm and take a few snaps from strange positions.