Marker tacker...

That'll do..   with tides again not optimal this weekend (0500/1700 and 0600/1800) except for a double tide'r which I didn't have time for, as a result of the need to catch up with "stuff" I missed on the Jolly Boys weekend, I grabbed the opportunity for a sail on Saturday's late tide..

On the boat by 13:30'ish, I dropped the mooring by about 14:00'ish - the depth was showing 0.4 mtrs beneath the (generous) keel offset I've set, so yeah - not a lot of water when I left..  😀

Breeze was fairly brisk - I checked Cambermet [clicky] and that was showing a solid Force 4 down the bottom of the harbour, so deciding that discretion was the better part of valour I whacked in (or rather rolled in) a small'ish reef (about a foot and a half) on the main so I was ready, and then headed for the cut..

Nothing like a bit of brisk breeze to introduce urgency into a sailing afternoon, and I'm still out of practice as a result of the winter layup - I know what I should be doing, it's just not quite as quick as it should be, but either way a good fast run down the cut under a very slightly reefed genoa, and I turned up in to the wind off Northney to put up the main...  what can I say, we got there in the end, but the tiller pilot got discombobulated and blew a fuse on the main panel.. 😒

Pausing only to set an increasingly up wind course for the Emsworth Beacon, I switched the tiller pilot over to a spare switch in the box, checked it was working, rolled a few more reefs into the genoa, and then went sailing...

I suspect by the end of the summer I will have got fed up with doing it, but there is something very satisfying in beating up to Marker in a strong SW'ly, against a strong tide, and in the sunshine - there's always another boat to 'race' (in this case a little 20-odd footer called "Osiris") and this year I have the depth instrument, so I can go further shore to shore - I ended up tacking on the 1 Mtr line and am convinced that helped, as it also gets you further out of the main tide race..  

As the tide race diminished, the tacking angles widened and the wind came round a bit, until the point that by the time I'd gone past Marker, I could almost lay a course for the bottom of the harbour..

Fantastic afternoon, and a nice fast run home from about 3/4 of the way to Verner...

Log:

Distance: 9.62 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F4 gusting F5; SWxS going SWx|W
Sail Plan: Reefed main/reefed genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5 / 1.6 (probably more - missing GPS track info for an hour)