Clippers...

Taeping, a tea clipper built in 1863 by
Robert Steele & Company.

No not that kind.. 😁

I may have mentioned that my bro in law works for the Clipper Race [clicky] and for the last few months he's been more than a bit excited, as with the completion of the last race (2025-2026), the next race (2027-2028) will have new boats..

The current fleet have now done four navigations, and although the boats are all in pretty good shape, the new generation boats, of which the first has just been delivered, offer a whole raft of improvements based on the previous boats..

I've been watching the updates on the races Farcebook feed, and it is an absolute beast, so when he offered me and the Jolly Boys a look round it, we almost bit his arm off..

So it was that a contingent of the Jolly Boys convened at the Clipper Race headquarters in Gosport this week..

Just to help put it all in context he showed us around three generations of boats as they still have some of the boats from the generation before last, so this (following) was the first one we went on - the Grandaddy if you will the second generation of boat.. all of them however, even the new boat, share some common characteristics

• foresails are hank on, 
• there's no tiller pilots/autohelm, 
• no powered/hydraulic winches - they are all human powered
• crew accommodation is spartan (pipe cots and hot bunking)..

It's still in service, 68 foot of racing machine - I think they use these now for crew training [clicky] as part of preparation for each race..  with the arrival of the new boats I guess that role will be shifted a generation..

Note - single wheel - little or no protection for the helm - no cuddy. They have a second cockpit, or rather well, a couple of feet deep, forward at the mast, all the lines seem to lead to that. 

This boat will have raced across the Southern Ocean and I have no doubts whatsoever it would have been a very wet ride...

Every sail change forward (and they carry the full suite of foresails so Code 0's, spinnaker, and three or four upwind sails - it's an amateur race, but the skippers are professionals, and they give the crews all the tools to race hard if they wish to) would involve dropping the old (possibly wet) one down the forehatch to the sail room which is shared with living accommodation... 😏

Then to the next generation - so third generation - these are the boats that have just finished the last race - the one we were visiting came in 3rd I think he said..

The boats gained a couple of feet with this generation to 70', note also the change in stern shape, twin wheels and designed for fast down wind legs, helms are still exposed but now they have protection fore and aft - in effect you stand between the two immensely strong mesh covered metal hoops ..

Still very little protection for the crew though - long open cockpit - pedestal winches (which I don't remember seeing on the previous boat) - the sail room is separate to the crew accommodation though, so it should at least be drier down below, though my bro in law says they tend to suffer from condensation as airflow is limited..  more on them here [clicky]

Note the black line on the side deck - no crew in front of that line without permission..

...and then on to the beast, the Clipper RX [clicky] - this is the fourth generation of boat - and as seems usual, has gained another two feet at 72'.

Built in China she's the forerunner of ten new boats (possibly more) and for the first time they have some crew protection - twin wheels with a cuddy in front that also houses the nav station down below. 

Fascinated to see that the running gear for the steering is dyneema b.t.w

Centre crew cockpit with a serious cuddy for protection, note also the pedestal winches - the actual winches are astonishing - huge!

Most noticeable is the dreadnought bow, and the chines - bro in law sent us a video the other day of her doing 12 knots on a training session (we thought it was a motor boat he was on!) but he tells us the chines work like a dream, deflecting water sideways rather than up, but also a huge stabilising influence when she's planing...

Ignore the green stuff on the bowsprit - they were prettifying before she came out of the water later that afternoon for vinyl wrapping prior to a visit to Southampton Boat Show

As I say she was coming out of the water that afternoon for vinyl wrapping - I think she'll end up looking like the picture on the Race website..

Piccie courtesy Clipper

Final amazement was the standing rigging - 14mm! So strong that the rig tension is completed by hydraulically lifting the whole mast to get the tension into it - the eye bolts are so huge you cannot manually tighten them enough. Once the tension is on they have shims they can then slide under the mast foot. He told us that they replace the standing rigging on each and every boat in the race after the race has finished...

Stunning boat - fantastic day - and a pint and a pickled egg after, what's not to like! 😁

Last trip to Cowes?

The day was kind of bookended by this beast..  

This is Virgin Cruises "Valiant Lady" which is in Portsmouth for the last time, as the 5 year contract between the cruise line and the City of Portsmouth Docks has come to an end. 

She was berthed in the cruise port just the other side of the water from AmiLy's resting place - the damn thing was so big it blotted out the sun, and the wind shadow reached to us.. 😏

Anyway - I jump ahead.. as usual.. 

Time to go out with the Jolly Boys - always good to have a trip out with them. We'd originally planned for this to be a two day'er, but as we head in to the cusp of Autumn, the weather is showing signs of letting up, and when we were planning at the beginning of the week, the Friday/second day was looking distinctly dismal (wind and rain) and we decided to cancel the overnight and stick with just the Thursday.

HT was 12:08 and Spring'ish at 4.49mtrs , but as we now know all too well, what we have to plan around when we're out on AmiLy is the low tide, as that is what enables the arrival or departure from the pontoon - she floats all the time, the issue is the exit on the corner at the end of the pontoon where it gets decidedly thin! We need about an hour and a half either side of  LT, but at 05:02 the first LT was never going to be an issue. 

Met at Rod's gaff then at 0900, and we dropped the mooring and were on our way by 09:50 - must be a record, surely?! With more south in the wind direction than usual, we also had the better angle of dangle for Cowes than we get with a 'more usual' SW'ly (nothing is usual/prevailing these days it sems to me - it can come from anywhere) and with Dave on the helm, we even managed to weather Gilkicker Point on one tack, which we then carried almost all the way to Cowes before the wind, which had been backing all morning, finally forced us to drop the sails just off Norris and motor in.. we could have tacked a couple of times to get us to the small boat channel, but we were only half a mile off the channel anyway..  err, and we were hungry* 😁

*and not only hungry, but thirsty to, we shoved the kettle on first thing to get the tea going only to find the gas run out, no worries said we, there's a spare... and that was empty too! 😨 We almost turned back there and then.. 😂

Mooring for the day was Shepherds Marina as that was where we had booked and paid for the overnight stay we we were now not using..  might as well get some value for the money paid. As Sheperds is in west Cowes, we now had a whole load more eating choices but chose the Island Sailing Club, as you can sit on the balcony there, with a glorious view of the mouth of the river and the entrance to Cowes.. 

Damn nice lunch it was as well..

At 05:02 the first LT was never an issue, but at 17:23 the second LT was going to be. There was no way we'd make it back an hour and a half before - we'd had a fast passage that morning but it had still taken two hours plus, and it was well after 14:30 by the time we'd finished lunch, gotten a takeaway coffee (😏) and sat around on the boat eating dessert (pastel de nata's courtesy of Dave, since you ask) so clearly a late arrival was on the books..

In the end we dropped the mooring about 15:45'ish, in what was clearly a building breeze, motored down the small boat channel, hoisted sail and set a course for Ryde so as to keep both sails occupied in what would have been a dead run if we'd headed straight to Portsmouth. After a gust hit us just off Ryde that had us grabbing at the coamings, and having seen a succession of high 5's and 6's (knots SOG) we finally turned and put some reefs in before entering the main boat channel for Portsmouth between the forts, gybing, and heading into the harbour on what was now a fast beam reach..

Only to be met by this as we came through the entrance..

The bookend to the day - Virgin's "Valiant Lady" leaving port - destination Amsterdam.. 

Wending our way up harbour we had a look at the moorings but it was still on the very thin side, so we turned and did a few loops, before finally chancing our arm and getting around the corner with about 20 or 30 cm's spare..

Cracking days sailing - maybe our last together for the year as well...  Rod's got a lift out end of next month (September) but Smithy's going on holiday before then..  we'll see. We do have an adventure next week, though - we're going to see the new Clipper Races boat.. 👌

Log:

Distance: 30.01 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction):  SSE going SWxS (AM) then SWxW PM) ; F4 gusting F5 (occ. F6)

Sail Plan: Full/double reefed main & full genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots):  7.2 / 2.7

Feisty soldier..

Needs must when the end of the season is approaching ..

The lift out dates are already up on the club calendar - looks like it's an interesting approach this year with  two separate lifts starting on either 12th, or 24th October - no idea yet if you can choose the date or not, time will tell.. 😏

..but so it was, that with the rest of this week busy, and after a week of no tides last week, even WITH the forecast I was keen to get out..

Ah.. the forecast - well no rain, and it remains warm, but we had a F4 gusting F5 on the books - time would tell whether it turned up (though the day before had been the same) but better than all that, potentially, it was an easterly! Long reaches to either end of the harbour - a belter of a direction..

HT was 11:08 and at 3.88m considerably more manageable than the man mountain of water we had last time I went out. On the boat by half 8, I started tidying up and getting stuff ready, with an easterly like this it would be a motor to Sweare deep so I had plenty of time to get the sail cover off and sail ready while I was motoring. I eventually dropped the mooring at 0845, and headed up the ditch in a spiky breeze - wasn't so much the wind as the gusts that were coming through..

By the time I'd got to Northney I already knew that it was not only going to be a reef but probably a double one so I hoisted the main while we were motoring almost head to wind and rolled in two sail slides of reefing (I don't have fixed reefing points, and with roller boom furling I can roll in as much as I like within reason, so I tend to do it based on the number of sail slides rolled down to the boom.. two slides means about a foot and a half rolled away off the bottom of the main)

 

Isle of Wight in the distance

Cranked everything down as I got to Sweare Deep as I came off the wind on to a beat, but only for a short time - even with a couple of knots of adverse tide we were seeing mid to high 3's (knots) through the water.. 

Eastoke ahead

..and it was soon enough over as we came further round at the Beacon onto a broad reach, and hurtled towards the bottom of the harbour..  

Two reefs had definitely been the correct decision, even with that she was a handful at times - tiny bit unbalanced I wonder?? Maybe needed either a little more (or less) genoa to balance her, but she was going like a rocket.. high 3's against a solid 2 knot tide, even with a weedy bottom..

Thanks Simon!

.. down to HISC, past HISC, past Fisherman's, 'Bar Beacon?' I wondered, but as the tide turned I was just past Eastoke, and decided to head back as with the wind as it was it would be a beat. It was, but only as far as HISC as I could then start bearing away again for a close reach back to Marker with maybe the last legs of the tide under me..  seeing 5.5's here..

Enjoyed it so much, I tacked at Marker and went back to HISC before finally turning for home - dragging the main down just after Beacon, and with genoa still out I motored back to the moorings where it then went went decidedly interesting.. 😁

With a gusty F5 NE'ly blowing through the moorings, along with a whole load of current*, and it proceeded to be a right bastard to get the pickup buoy on board, too much engine and you overran it, not enough and there was no steerage. In the end (and after three attempts just ended up with me overrunning the mooring), Jolly Boy Dave (who was heading back to shore after some pottering on his boat) suggested a long line from the forward cleat back to the cockpit, run outside the genoa sheets and standing rigging. Line through the top of the pick up while sat in the cockpit near engine controls, tied off, then with engine off the boat just drifted back to sit on the end of the line, which then allows you the time to go forward and just pull yourself in - worked a treat, I'll remember that, and thanks Dave! 👍

...fantastic days sailing - out again on Thursday with the Jolly Boys for what would have been an overnighter, but which has been foreshortened to just the one day due to weather.. 🤞

*(the moorings are fairly ambivalent to tides, as the water flows Chichester to Langstone pretty much all of the time - something to do with our location a the top of the harbour, and the fact that Chichester is way bigger than Langstone, so water is looking to drain from Chichester via Langstone - bit like an osmosis effect)

Log:

Distance: 13.79 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F4 gusting F5; ENE
Sail Plan: Double reefed main and 75% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.3 / 3.4