Solent sailing 22/2/08   to 24/2/08. Report by Claire Turner.

Boat. “Lady Emma  ” a Barberis Cantieri 42, berthed at Ocean Quay, Southampton

Crew. (All members of Bristol sailing association)

Becca Hayward  . Skipper and part-owner

Becky Goddard  , Claire Turner  , David Fogden  and Bob Buchanan 

We all travelled to Ocean Quay on Friday night and had a meal on board, mandatory on “Lady Emma”, as it’s always great food, plenty of drinks, and always a very good social evening.

Pork & leek pie with all the extras was provided by Becky, (what would we do without her?)

Dave Fogden chipped in with some party sausage rolls, Claire asked, where did you get them from, a party? No, came the reply, a funeral. (Horror of horrors we found out that they were already four days old.) After the meal a birthday cake was brought out for Becca, as it was her 25th. Becky had the cake done with a picture of a sailing yacht on it, it was a fantastic cake and it also tasted delicious, thanks again Bex.

Saturday morning. We all got up and left Ocean Quay at the crack of midday (yes it was a very good birthday party). We motored all the way down Southampton water then got the sails up and headed towards Gilkicker Point. The tide was going that way so we decided to go with it. The sun was out; the wind was about F3/4, perfect sailing weather. Things got even better when Becky rustled up some bacon sarnies. As the tide went slack we turned towards the Isle of Wight. From there we tacked west past Cowes and towards Yarmouth, our destination for the night. Between Cowes and Yarmouth the wind started to pick up. Dave Fogden was on the helm and our speed was a steady 9kts. We were on a beam reach, starboard tack, heading towards the I.o.W. With the wind speed picking up, we had to make a sail change. ”Lady Emma” is o.k. on no.1 genoa with winds up to 18kts, but it was getting past that, up to 25kts.

We dropped no.1 and hoisted no.2. Lady Emma has hanked-on sails so it was not an easy thing to do. We changed sails and reefed in the main. With one reef in the main and jib no2 we were back sailing again. Time for lunch on the hoof, Becky’s pork and leek pie etc was more than welcome as we were all getting a bit peckish. After about half an hour of sailing, the wind was gusting up to about 35kts. At this point two of the reefing points in the mainsail decided that they had had enough, the sail ripped through two reefing points, both about a foot long. We pulled the sails down and motored into Yarmouth.

That night we had a meal in the “Bugle”. The pub was full of French sailors and they were watching France v England playing rugby in the six nation’s cup. They did not seem too happy when the match finished (England beat them in France).

A quick phone call to Phil Steele was made as he was skippering one of the three boats from BSA that had berthed for the night in Lymington, just to compare the day’s sailing. Bob, who was on the phone to Phil, sat back in his chair and toppled backwards, he landed on the floor but just kept talking to Phil, with the whole pub watching him. Another phone call from Claire to Dave Lloyd, one of the other skippers, followed. Claire then made one to the third skipper Jeff Birkin but this has to be classed as “confidential”. I don’t know why because the whole pub heard Claire.

Sunday morning was bright and sunny with a bit of a breeze. We left Yarmouth and headed for Southampton. With the mainsail ripped on the first reef we had to put the second reef in. With the wind down to about a F1 most yachts had cruising chutes or spinnakers up. I must admit, we did look a bit silly. Lunch was leek and potato soup, this time served up by Claire; we were all being spoiled by the excellent food on board.

With the weather getting dark and misty we put the nav lights on. It was 5.00pm and we were still quite a way from Southampton Water. With not much wind we had to put the engine on. We finally got to Ocean Quay at 7.30pm. The first thing we had to do was to remove the mainsail. The birthday present we gave to Becca was a headlight torch. This came in very handy as it was very dark. We finally got away about 9.00pm.