Thorney Jubilee..

Blimey - that was unexpected... but I'm jumping ahead of myself.. 😀

It's a long Jubilee weekend here in the UK, celebrating the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne on 6 February 1952. Two days of national holidays on the Thursday and Friday, plus the weekends gives plenty of sailing opportunities, but despite it being June the weather would have us believe otherwise..

Forecasts for the Saturday and Sunday feature rain fairly heavily and also strong winds, so it was that with Thursday off the cards due to other commitments, I found myself on the boat on Friday in weather that was not quite what I was expecting.. 

More easterly's (unusual), and grey, and surprisingly little activity in the moorings..  tides were slightly neap'y, and after putting 4 ltrs of new fuel in the outboard tank (she was getting a little low last time), I eventually dropped the mooring at 12:30 and motored all the way to Emsworth Beacon before raising sails and bearing away for the bottom of the harbour..

Paused to take the reefs out of the main from the last trip out and there then ensued a truly lovely reach down harbour..  even against a strong tide she was doing 2.5/3...  shot past Marker in record time and I was thinking about a trip out to the Bar Beacon or Eaststoke, when almost like someone flicked a switch the wind shot round southerly (the weather charts show a 20 degree shift within 5 minutes) and I had to start tacking..  I had my first seal sighting of the season about here, it swam past without a concern in the world about 20 feet off my lee quarter, fantastic..

Change of plans, and as I reached Fishery, I bore away for Itchenor Reach and East Head ..

Busy East Head ahead..

Wind now on the beam again, and with the last of the tide giving me legs, I had a gentle reach past the busy beach, past the entrance to the Prinstead Channel, past Camber weather station, drifting gently on (tide was cancelling out wind which had gone light) before finally deciding that enough was enough and gybing to return...   

Tacked off Thorney spit (the water was very shallow!) to get some deeper water, and then bore away again for HISC as I passed Snowhill ("old friend")

Delightful almost run through all the anchored yachts off East Head, before having to endure the motor boat induced chop across to Fishery for another (brilliant) reach up the Emsworth Channel back to the mooring...

Rammed..  (as in 'lots of boats', not impact damage 😀)!

Dropped the sails near the Beacon, motored to the mooring on auto while I cleared the gear away, and I was in the Sir Loin of Beef drinking Summer Lightning by half 5..  stupendous day!

My mate Julian was on had to record events for posterity on the way back to Emsworth and sent me this (among other pictures), thanks Julian..  😀

Apropos of absolutely nothing by the way, that's the longest single tide cruise I've had since this  epic sail [clicky] in May 2016 (!) Also apropos of absolutely nothing, it just goes to show what you can do when the wind direction is other than the prevailing SW'ly

Log:

Distance: 13.93 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Bottom F3 gusting bottom F4 ; E going S going SE (!)
Sail Plan: Full main and genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.5 / 3.0