Leaving the Isle of Man on the 6:30am Seacat sailing, and fighting our way across country on a variety of train services, we arrived in Chichester only an hour or so late, at 4pm.
A strongish SE wind suggested it would be wisest to complete our final victualling, and preparations, ready for an early start on Sunday morning.
We left Itchenor at 4:30am and crossed Chichester Bar at 5:30am - (Bouncy, Bouncy!) in a SW 4/5. Passed up the Eastern Solent, passing 'No Mans Land' & 'Horse' sand forts - Philip asks why they aren't called Sandcastles?
Sailed on down W Solent - against a strong tide at Hurst - so motored for 1 hour to push through. Sailed across to Poole, then round St Alban's head (bouncy, bouncy again!) and into Weymouth by 18:15 with 76 NM logged. Boat behaving excellently in what was quite stiff wind - brill!
........Then off for a curry, what else?
Alongside Weymouth TS Royalist and Sir
Winston Churchill
(Square Riggers)
in the Background.
Left Weymouth 04:30 to catch the 'best' tide around Portland Bill
- probably the most notorious piece of water in the UK - and one of the worst in the world
- where the Channel Tides are thrown up by a shallow ledge and mix with strong south-bound
streams down both sides of the Bill.
Mix with any wind and throw in a bit of swell and - well - yuck!
We had thoughts of taking the inshore passage which is reported to miss the race - but in the event chickened-out and went 5 miles off to bypass it. It was bouncy enough running down the side of Portland Harbour!.
Still - turned due east for Brixham, and had a cracking sail for 40 miles to Brixham - arriving at 1pm in time for a good look round, and a sampling of the local chippy. We were doing nearly 9 knots over the ground for a while with the tide + a good boat speed. Boat performed excellently.
Tuesday 2
June 1998Left Brixham at 04:45 bound for Falmouth. Today presented an ideal opportunity to ensure that the new boat had no cabin leaks - for, once we rounded Start Point, at about 7am, we were presented with a SW 5-6 wind - complete with a traditional English Channel short swell - result lots of green ones over the deck, spray hood and crew :-(
Anyway the boat performed well - soldiering on and still making 6.5 knots under reefed mainsail + motor. Discretion being the better part of valour, we shortened the pain zone by diverting into Plymouth - and thus halving the journey.
Arriving at Mayflower Marina, we were surprised to see 'Isle of Man Taroo Ushtey' - the badged BT Global Challenge boat (ex 'British Steel'), moored to the pontoon - she must have been on her way back from the IoM - as we'd seen her the previous week in Douglas. An hour later and she'd gone - but there won't be many times when there are 2 Manx ensigns in Plymouth.
The tiny wooden, junk-rigged boat (with the number '27' on it) which is in the next berth is 'Jester' - which has crossed the Atlantic single-handed more than once - we feel famous by proxy! The third famous ship we saw whilst here, was 'Royal Viking Sun' the Cunard Super cruise-liner, which left at 6pm in the evening after a quick visit - it is enormous.
We decided to try, weather permitting, for Falmouth again tomorrow - but all-in-all we were quite glad we'd called in here.