Bastards..

Sometime over the last 4 or 5 days Sparrow had her engine stolen while on the mooring..  spotted it was missing on my cycle to work yesterday morning...  quick row out to the boat last night confirmed it..

Surgical is the only way I can describe it..  couple of clean cuts and it's gone..  cable lock as back up sliced..

...and a heavy duty Squire maritime lock..

..made to look like damp spaghetti..  bolt cutters I think, from the look of the cut

So sailing is on hold for the time being..  I have the serial number, evidence I secured it, I've reported to the police, I have a crime scene number, the insurance claim was put in this morning..  now we wait...

A seal in the cut..

Finally some time on Sparrow - been on holiday (Greece - Kefalonia - 30 degrees and a good F4 every day, but I was confined to a sunbed!) and the tides/weather were also not optimal the weekend before so long and short of iut this is the first sail I've managed this month despite it being height of summer.. lovely lovely day though....

HT was 1545, and I was on the boat and ready to go for 1330.. another one of those days with a lot of water slopping about, and on this occasionfar more wind that was actually forecast.. I'd spot checked Cambermet (the local westher station at the bottom of the harbour) and it was showing F4 gusting F5 which kind of tallied with what I was seeing on the mooring, so I took the deicsion to whack some reefs in the main there and then.

Fired up the metal donkey, dropped the mooring and headed for the cut.. where I was met by a seal, head out of the water and watching as I went past, calm as you like... unfortunately he'd legged it (flipperd it?) by the time I go the camera out but what a lovely sight - proof if any were needed that the harbour is a natural paradise.. clean, vibrant, and full of food..

Unrolled the jib in the cut and motor sailed jib only on a stiff F4 for the end of the Emsworth channel where turning for the bottom of the harbour the wind was clearly up, put the main up as I approached Marker (the wind was almost on the nose anyway, so put the tiller pilot on and raised sail while we were sailing - much easier!) but clearly the jib was too full and needed some rolls in.. gah... in all the years I've sailed I've never has a riding turn in a roller furler, but today was my first...

All I can say is thank goodness for tiller pilots... with the engine still on tick over I dropped the main - let some jib sheet out - engaged the tiller pilot and just went up to the bow to sort it out - no fuss, no drama, and an interesting view I don't get to see often! Issue sorted, it was back to the cockpit, reef the jib, put the main back up and went sailing... phew...

Bore away over Pilsea sands at Verner (about an hour before HT at this time so I knew there'd be water) had a cracking ride to East Head (which was absolutely HEAVING with anchored boats of all types) rounded Snowhill ("hello my friend..") and then a reach back to Verner and home, where I decided that enough was definitely not enough, so turned up wind for HISC before finally turning for home just off the beach by HISC..

Brilliant days sailing... thoughts are turning to a longer trip out into the Solent, haven't seen the Nab in a fair few years!

Log:

Distance: 12.94 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Both ends of a F4; SWxW goig WSW on the HT
Sail Plan: Reefed main and jib
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.3 / 3.6

El-Mellah

The sail training Ship El-Mellah (meaning sailor in Arabic) owned by the Algerian Navy was in Portsmouth the other evening just as I happened to be going over to Gosport with the Jolly Boys (Beer Chapter) for a few beers at the Fallen Acorn brewery..

...for me, a bit too much superstructure to be considered truly lovely, but she still looked a fine site...  Polish-built, 110 meters long and 14.5 meters wide, the masts are 54 meters above water line, with a crew of 126 sailors and 84 trainees (for this trip), and this is her maiden voyage..  in the background are the (lower) masts of a considerably older square rigger..  

...and there you go..  three square riggers in one shot albeit the Gosport ferry was doing it's level best to block the view of Warrior.. 

Both ends of the harbour..

Britain is currently "suffering" (though not as extremely as mainland Europe) from something the weather gonks are calling a 'Saharan plume'.. so it was that a number of places in the UK had the highest UK temperatures recorded over the last weekend, Saturday in particular, but as Sunday was cooler, and I couldn't make Saturday anyway, Sunday was the optimal day for a sail..

Club boat Ampotis dressed overall - not sure what the event was but she was looking good.. 😊  

A 1030HT so not exactly perfect, but needs must, a grey start though still quite warm, and an intriguing westerly wind direction - time for a run up the emsowrth Channel to see what's going on, followed by a reach down to HISC if the wind continued to play ball I thought..

Put a few rolls of main round the boom as the wind seemed quite lively, fired up the donk, and off we went..  decided to leave the main down for the first part of the trip up the channel - didn't need it - left the engine on tickover in case I needed to get out of the way in a hurry, and a most pleasant run was had..   end of June though and there are a lot of empty moorings in the channel - time was when it was absolutely packed from May to Spetember but entire strings of mooring buoys could be seen with no pick up's and no tenders waiting return of yachts...  what we did have however, was a huge number of performance dinghies - racing from Emsworth Yacht Club I think..

Emsworth

Got to the pontoon from the Mill Pond sea wall, and dipped and gybed for the end of the channel..  more motor - wind had come round a bit and it was too crowded to get the main up.. 

That went up at the end of the channel, engine off (oh, blessed relief), and I then had a close'ish beat down to the harbour entrance which also saw the return of the sun - glorious..

Harbour entrance - Eastoke buoy and the island

Funny conditions - the wind had dropped but was still a handful in the gusts, but as the gusts were becoming rarer, I stopped and took the reefs out before continuing...   got to just shy of Eastoke and as I could feel the wind shifting northerly, and the tide was beginnign to build, I turned for home and a close hauled beat up to the top of the harbour which enventually resulted in the engine going on in order to motor sail past Marker, and into Sweare Deep and the cut..  cracking day out - I'm finding that the auto pilot is extending my sailing as I no longer need to be on the tiller for the quiet bits!

For reference - halyard runs...

Log:

Distance: 12.54 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F4 going F3 going F4 (gusting the same); WNW going WxS
Sail Plan: Reefed/full main; full jib
Speed (Max/average in knots):  5.3 / 3.5