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

Intermittent puffs and some rafts..

Short meander on yet another very hot and sweaty day..  32'C and almost windless - which would have been good news for the raft racers in the front of the pub opposite, but not so good for a sail..

I'd put off going the day before because the conditions were if anything the same, but wanted to get out as I had a couple of jobs to do and I was missing Sparrow

So...  on the boat for 12'ish, as todays HT was 14:24 and at 4.94m an absolute beast of a spring tide..  the water was fairly ripping through the moorings.

First order of the day was to fit new genoa sheets - the old ones were worn, and beginning to fray so this was long overdue. The old sheets also had a matt finish so by way of an experiment the new ones were of a lighter and slipperier feel to see if it helped with the sheet transition when tacking... 

That done, I topped up the tank with 5 ltrs of fuel, and started up the metal donkey to warm up while I got the boat ready to go. Lots of noise and fun from the pub opposite, might be a bit more peaceful down the harbour (wishful thinking on a hot Saturday!)

Dropped the mooring at 12:30..  motored down the ditch and then went head to wind off  Northney to raise the main before bearing away for Sweare Deep and rolling out the genoa - wind was fitful at best, and northerly, and the tide was problematic. When I turned the engine off to sail, at times we were doing half a knot backwards.. 😏

Then when I got to Sweare I found that one of the Emsworth Sailing Clubs was running an RS Tera Open event that weekend, and there were 50 of the buggers racing at the top of the Emsworth Channel... 😁

Ah well - couple of enjoyable transits between Sweare and the Beacon, but with no wish to do a very slow run down the harbour only to have to then fight upwind all the way back, it was back to the mooring to tidy up, watch some of the antics across the way, and go home for a beer..

Piccie courtesy Farcebook - you can just see Sparrow in the background..  just... 😁

Piccie copyright Scenic Eye

Log:

Distance: 3.73 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F1 gusting F3 ; NxE
Sail Plan: Full main and 90% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.2 / 2.2