Sailing from Haslar Marina, Gosport Monday 17th - Wed 19th March 2014 – report by Colin Hodges

Sailing Spellbinder from Phoenix YC, meeting up Sunday afternoon, and preparing the boat ready for Monday a.m.

Skipper: - Gordon Ogden

Crew: - Penny Luck, Bernard Smyth, Dougal Matthews, Neil Webber and Colin Hodges.

On Sunday evening Neil, Dougal, Bernard and Colin took over the yacht at 17.30 and carried out all the checks and prepared the boat for sailing on Monday morning. That evening we later met up with the crew of Quartette for an evening meal at the Castle Pub.

MONDAY Penny and Gordon arrived early with the supplies for 3 days and we loaded everything on board, had breakfast and left Haslar at 10.20 to sail to Yarmouth on The Isle of Wight. The sailing for our 3 days was with spring tides with high tides around mid-day, and that day we had F 2-4 westerlies and we sailed through the Solent with a reefed sail and achieved a max speed of 9.5 knots with all the crew taking it in turn to helm. For lunch we hove-to between Stanmore Point and the Beaulieu River before proceeding on to Yarmouth where we moored up at 16.00. We had lots of spaces available on the pontoons so Quartette could join us on the same section. That day we covered 20 nM. We found the shower block was still closing early so showered next morning. That evening Quartette invited us on board for excellent nibbles and drinks before all going ashore to the Kings Head for our evening meal.

TUESDAY Today we decided to moor up in the Newtown Creek for breakfast so after showering we followed Quartette at 09.00 up the Solent with the tide and a F 3 westerly wind just using our genoa and arrived at the river entrance in 30 mins and moored on a buoy close to Quartette at the junction of Newtown River and Clamerkin Lake. After breakfast we sailed out of Newton Creek and watched some seals on our starboard side beach. The wind had increased and sometimes reached a F6 but still from the west so we put 2 reefs in the sails and headed quickly across the Solent and up Southampton Water. The next 30 mins or so we experienced rain but this is all we got during our 3 day sail. In Southampton Water we moored up on some small craft buoys near Longdown on the west of the channel and relaxed for lunch. After lunch we sailed off in similar wind conditions and headed for Cowes. On the way out of Southampton Water we could see a huge container ship following us and it caught up with us in the Thorn shipping channel as we went around Bramble bank and passed us to the west taking away our wind until the wind had all collected and blew a huge storm around the stern of her hitting us hard for a couple of minutes before we altered course for Cowes. We berthed at East Cowes Marina where again there was plenty of room on the pontoons and Quartette could join us again. I have moored in Cowes many times over the years but this was my first into East Cowes. That evening the Quartette crew joined us on Spellbinder for nibbles and drinks before all going ashore to the Lifeboat Pub for dinner. This Tuesday we covered 28 nM.

WEDNESDAY. After breakfast we took the ferry over to West Cowes for a stroll and cup of coffee but found a lot of the town was still shut down before opening up again at the beginning of April. We returned across to East Cowes before sailing out of the Medina River into the Solent and headed in a South-Easterly direction down Spithead with a south westerly wind which occasionally went south. At No Mans Land Fort we passed it on the Isle of Wight side before heading back into the main Channel and into Portsmouth harbour. Here we dropped the sails and motored into Haslar Marina and on to our pontoon. This day we covered 17nM which gave us a total of 65nM over the 3 days.

I would like to thank both crews for an enjoyable 3 days of sailing.