Slosh..

First sail in over three weeks! The summer went south for a few weeks, doing what it did last summer, with a solid succession of grey and windy days not conducive to sailing in (for me) anyway - we even had our first named storm (Floris) which, even though the main effects were further north, had enough sting in the tail to provide some windy conditions down here in the south..

So it was that with a Saturday clear of other interruptions, a decent tide time, a decent forecast, and the promise of a bit of warm weather I grabbed the chance...

HT was 12:47 and a massive 4.43 Spring tide, and I was on the boat by half 9, covers off, engine warmed, and dropped the mooring a full 3 hours before HT, but not before I'd also given her another quick scrub along the waterline where the weed had already started to regrow following an intermediate barnacle and weed clean just a few weeks ago...  all the indications are that this is going to be a high growth summer both for marine and vegetable life..  crappy anitfoul does nothing...

Pulled the main up in the pool, and then bore away on a nice solid westerly breeze down the dtich before deploying the rod for the first time..

Fingers crossed..

Never caught a thing except weed all day.. 😏

Mahoosive spring tide and a lot of water was sloshing about, but the westerly helped us along. and even with a couple of knots of adverse tide we were turning in 2's and 2.5's SOG - single tack to the bottom of the harbour was another bonus

Passed the seal colony..

..no they aren't logs.. them's seals...

...and headed towards the blue sky...

I was very hopeful we might even get or nose out into the Solent but with a wind of this direction and a tide this strong, by the time I got to HISC the breakwater was sheltering us from breeze, and speed dropped to less than half a knot SOG, so I baled out just shy of West Winner and rode the tide home seeing 5.8's and 5.7's over the ground..

Fantastic day out - now need to find another trip before this tide disappears!

Log:

Distance: 9.59 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): Both ends of a F4; W x S
Sail Plan: Full main and 50% genoa
Speed (Max/average in knots): 5.4 / 2.6