Our 'normal' ride "Ocean Waves"(a Hallberg Rassy 342) is largely unavailable these days; due to ongoing issues on charters the insurance is beginning to get stupid, so as there were only four of us this year, our ride was our usual one, Rod the Mod's boat "Ami-Ly" (following) a Legend 290...
Four old blokes on a 29 footer for four days, what could possibly go wrong!😀
Day 1 - Monday 1st July:
Portsmouth to Cowes - only thirteen and a half miles, but a good days sailing as we rode the tide to the west.
Couldn't help not seeing this beauty arrive as we pottered towards the harbour entrance..
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| Chilean Sail Training Ship ESMERALDA |
Stupidly impressive, all the crew were lined up on deck, the orchestra/stereo banging out what sounded like a national anthem, and they got a spot alongside within the actual dockyard - the crew are Chilean Navy so that might explain it, but also that she has a bit of a dark past. Amnesty International, the US Senate and the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission described the ship as a kind of floating jail and torture chamber for political prisoners of the Augusto Pinochet regime (1973 to 1990). Given the likelihood of protest, a spot within the dockyard would definitely be the safer option..
The ship is fascinating though and given my interest in things historical I couldn't not look up a bit on her background.. In summary, construction began in Cadiz, Spain, in 1946 as she was intended to become Spain’s national training ship (in fact she has a sister ship who still is). In 1950 Chile and Spain entered into negotiations in which Spain offered to repay debts incurred to Chile as a result of the Spanish Civil War in the form of manufactured products, including the not yet completed Esmeralda. Chile accepted the offer and the ship was formally transferred in 1951, she finally launched in May 1953.
Wind was 'lively' in the harbour so we took the opportunity while we had it, and put a single reef in the main - didn't regret it, as the wind slowly built all morning to a solid top F4 by the time we arrived off Cowes.. it was sunny and bright and the Solent was looking beautiful..
A repeat of the experiment in 2022 and we overnight-ed at Shepherds Wharf in Cowes (west side of the river) which was stupidly quiet (a feature that repeated itself all over the Solent for the 3 nights we were away.. compared to previous years where we've had to book ahead almost a week in advance there was plenty of available space.. where was everyone first week in July??)
As we'd arrived fairly quickly, we walked the Red Squirrel trail to Newport in the afternoon (5 miles). A pint and dinner in the Duke of York finished off the day nicely!
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| Nice spot in Shepherd's! |
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| Bye, Cowes |
Dinner that evening at a local pizza restaurant was cracking - one of the nicest calzone's I've ever had..
Day 3 - Wednesday 3rd July:
Lymington to Hamble
A long slow start to the day as the wind was westerly, strong, and we were heading east - so we needed to wait for the 'travellator' to turn in our favour.
No loss.. a good breakfast, we then lounged, read, popped into Lymington for a look around (and for t'other Dave to make purchases in the Musto shop 😏) before we dropped the mooring about half one'ish and headed out into a particularly grey and dismal looking Solent..
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| Coming out of Lymington - Needles and Hurst Castle in the distance.. |
We were getting the last of the wind over tide slop and chop.. but with an almost dead westerly wind, and an almost dead easterly trip, we cracked open a bit of the genoa and did all of the almost 17 miles we did that day under just the reefed foresail.. once the tide fully turned though we were moving fast. 6.3 knots under a half reefed genoa is going some!
Destination for the night was the River Hamble, where to be honest we have history, but I do recommend arriving at slack tide (as we did) as getting into the berth this time (unlike last time) was a doddle! 😏
It was a long, cold and roll'y old sail, I even put on full fouliers at one point as we could see the rain rolling down Southampton Water, but happily we stayed dry - I can confirm though, that the beer has never tasted as good as it did when we finally sat down for one having made fast.. so good in fact I had two.. 🍻
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| Not a bad view to have with a beer.. |
Dinner that evening was at the Royal Southern and was glorious - superb clubhouse, and good food..
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| 1958 British America's Cup Challenger (she lost 4-0 😏) "Sceptre" [clicky].. she's stored ashore at Hamble.. |
Day 4 - Thursday 4th July:
Hamble to Portsmouth
So as mentioned one of the features of the Solent is the "express travellator" that runs four times a day, either east to west, or the opposite, and which had provided huge amounts of help on the Monday and Saturday to get us quickly from one end of the Solent to the other, but which we now needed help on in the opposite direction, but an early departure was required if we were to get back in time to get on the pontoon with water to spare, and with time to spare for us all to go and vote, and that meant an adverse tide..
So it was that 08:30 saw us ready to leave the berth and heading to the Solent, and that was after a cooked full English! Yesterdays grey, cold and windy westerly, was replaced by sunny, cold and not quite so windy westerly, but the sun was shining (occasionally.. go on then.. mostly) and the Solent was again looking all glittery again..
Another downwind run, but in a lesser breeze than the day before, but against that adverse tide, so we rolled out all the genoa and just hunkered down to make the best of it - if we'd thought yesterday was roll'y (and it was with tide so had a bit of help to keep down) today was double it - wind over tide all the way.. we hugged the north Solent shore contour lines and just enjoyed it for what it was.. and were rewarded with a quick sight of a couple of dolphins sounding off the port quarter no more than 30 yards out.. glorious!
Back on the mooring pontoon by 13:00'ish (we topped off the fuel on the way in, and then made three failed attempts to rescue a lost fender 😏) as the wind was picking up rapidly, we finished off as much of the food as we could, and decanted the boat into Rod's car ; I must have been home by 15:00'ish, and that after having voted.. I can confirm I slept well that night!!
Brilliant trip.. 😀👍
- Day 1: Force 3 gusting 4; N going W
- Day 2: Force 4 gusting 5; N
- Day 3: Force 5 gusting 6; W
- Day 4: Force 4 gusting 6; NWxW
Speed (Max/average in knots): As above..
