Jolly boys outing...

"Ami-Ly" - click on any of the pictures to embiggen..

It's been on the cards for some time, but last weekend (and by way of an alternative to a much hoped for, but doomed on this occasion, trip to Cherbourg*), a few of us departed for a weekend in the Solent on Rod the Mods Legend 29, "Ami-Ly" (see left) ...  delighted to report a damn good time was had by all....no one fell overboard, no one died (though it was a close run thing on the Saturday night due to noxious post curry fumes in close confinement) and no other boats were hit/damaged or discombobulated in any way..  

The Solent has to be one of the most lovely places to cruise a boat known to man, and the extra 10 feet on Rods Legend compared to Sparrow makes for consistently higher average speeds, and therefore brings a lot more option to your  choice of destinations...

Winds this weekend were consistently easterly, and on the Saturday at least were good top end four, if not five - perhaps a little less on Sunday.

Plans for Saturday were to head to Bucklers Hard on the Beaulieu river, grab some lunch, and then head for Cowes in the afternoon for an overnight stop (complete with beer, curry and dancing)...  with a fairly brisk easterly, and a smidge of tide under us, we made good time for the entrance to the Beaulieu river - we left the pontoon at 09:41 and just under four hours and twenty minutes later we were moored up to a walk ashore pontoon at Bucklers Hard...

Up river from the fuel pontoon we were moored at..

The run up the river was exceptional - the scenery is spectacular, and for at least the first two or three hundred yards runs parallel to the sea (with a sand/shingle bank between sea and river). You then get a good mile or so of winding river before you get to Bucklers Hard...

Down river from the fuel pontoon ..

Harbour master usually meets you as you come up river and will give you a pontoon reference, in our case we couldn't find it and just pulled in onto the end of a line of boats moored up on the fuelling pontoon (they didn't mind)

Blue inbound, yellow outbound...

The pub - the Master Builders Arms [clicky] - was OK - decent pint of Ringwood Best (as you'd expect) and the food looked good, but on the pricey side - we settled for two pints of liquid nourishment, followed by cheese and crackers on board...

Bucklers Hard - the pub is just to the right of the flag - down river picture above is just to the left of the flag

Having satisified the inner man, we then upped sticks and headed for Cowes - short hop of a couple of hours, an upwind leg this time though, which was brilliant - just right for a full rig, and we saw 5.6 knots on this leg...

The overnight options in Cowes are manyfold - we decided to give the Folly pontoon a miss as we fancied a curry, and we decided to give the marina's on the west side of the river a miss because they looked rammed as we went past - in the end we opted for East Cowes Marina (my first time here) - hats off to Rod for getting us into the slot which was small and well back from the river ... it also came up trumps for being very quiet...

Mooring N14 - wouldn't fancy trying to reverse Sparrow out of here

To be honest the thing we all wanted most was a sleep - no idea why but we were all exhausted, but having got here it would have been a shame not to have a beer so we wandered over to Cowes (via chain ferry) and had a couple of pints of Fuggle de Dum in a new pub (to us) just down from the Island Sailing Club - cracking pint (errr...  "interesting" clientèle)  followed by a very nice curry in the Bahar two or three doors down....  we decided to give the dancing a miss...... 

Slept well - as well as I ever do on a boat anyway - and after multiple bacon butties, tea and a read of the paper we decided on destination for the day - Seaview...  plan was to pick up one of their visitor buoys and call up the water taxi for some beer and food in the clubhouse...

Every man and his dog was exiting Cowes that Sunday morning...

Long up wind haul to Seaview - but the wind strength was again ideal, conditions were perfect, it was sunny and even beating up wind is good fun when the weather is like that...  there was also plenty to see...  it was damn busy, and I wondered if it was "end of season looming" syndrome

Fellow crew - Smithy (left) and Dave - Rod was probably making the tea....  

..so fast upwind jaunt - took us a little over 3 and a half hours Cowes to Seaview - picked up a buoy - really roly conditions (tide coming in and easterly wind??) made it damn uncomfortable - then the rib from the club told us that they were closing in 30 minutes!  Bah....  cheese and biscuits again, with beer, Smithy's missus supplied home made cake.....  not comfortable though, and when one of the fenders slipped off the back we took it as an excuse to pack away, chase the fender, and turn for home.....

Followed this guy into Portsmouth - discretion being the greater part of valour and all that....

Hour and a half later and we were tied up back at Rods home base...  brilliant weekend!

This guy had been waiting for that ferry to go past so buzzed by very close.....

Log:

Distance: 50.66 miles (not included in the cumulative total as it wasn't on Sparrow, but listed in the 2013 mileage tab at the top of the page anyway)

• 21.28 miles Portsmouth to Bucklers Hard
• 9.22 miles  Bucklers Hard to Cowes
• 20.16 miles Cowes to Portsmouth (via Seaview)

Wind: F4 gusting F5 (and occasionally F6) on Saturday 3 - E to SEE. Sunday was lighter started off F4, ended up F3, and gusting no more than top F4 all day - E to NEE.
Sail Plan: Full jib and main - engine for manoeuvring, and to get across the Solent from Seaview when the wind dropped off for an hour or two..
Speed: GPS track says max speed was 6.4 knots (that was under sail, and on the Portsmouth/Bucklers Hard leg) - average speed 4.2/4.3 knots over the weekend

Blue and yellow were day one, red was day two..

* the trip to Cherbourg is back in the planning stage, and currently scheduled for 2014 - Rod is a member of the RNSA and tells us that he may be able to get his hands on a club forty footer for the weekend....