Solent sailing on “Lady Emma  ” Saturday 26th April   – report by Bob Buchanan

Skipper Bob Buchanan  , Crew, Becky Goddard  , Colin Evans  , Kevin Lay  and David Winks 

We all met up as usual on “Lady Emma” on Friday evening and had a few beers and a few bottles of wine, as Bex prepared our dinner. It was an excellent meal (as always) of boiled gammon, jacket potatoes, cabbage etc. We had an early(ish) night, about midnight, not like the last trip when we collapsed in our bunks at 3.00 am.

Saturday. After a good healthy full English breakfast, we all had a bit of a lie down again, (it’s hard work, this sailing lark). With time getting on, and the tide just about to turn west, we slipped our moorings at 11.30. The wind was from the south F 5/6. We had the no.2 Genoa and two reefs in the main. Our destination was Port Hamble Marina, which is not far up the Hamble river. With Becky on the wheel, the sun beating down on us, we were having a fantastic sail. Our speed was up in the 9knts for a lot of the time; bex hit 9.4knts then hit a top speed of 9.7knts.

We also managed to get ourselves into one of the many races that day. Two yachts had gone around the mark, with full main and Genoa, port tack and totally over canvassed. We decided to tack onto a port tack, go parallel with them, and let them pass us. Unfortunately, their speed was not quite as fast as ours. Bex said “what the hell do I do now?” Jokingly, I said bear off a bit and push them over; we can win this race quite easily. It was not the words Bex wanted to hear from me, so we did the polite thing to do, spilled the wind in our sails, let them pass, tacked and headed up to where we should be going.

We berthed at Port Hamble Marina at 14.00 and had a beer at the R.A.F yacht club. We then walked up into the village and had a beer at “Ye Olde Whyte Harte” a lovely little pub with some good real ales. Back at the boat after two hours, and £8.00 berthing fees, we set off back to Haslar marina.

We left at 16.30 and had another very good sail, tacking all the way down to Gilkicker point. The wind was still F5/6 but was now SE. With Colin on the wheel, we rounded Gilkicker and had a broad reach all the way to the main channel into Portsmouth. Our speed was back up into the 9knts for most of the way, then we hit 9.7kts a few times (the speed Bex hit earlier) then we hit 10knts, (I have a photo of my G.P.S showing it)

Back in Haslar at 19.30 we tided the boat up and went out to “the great wall” Chinese restaurant not far from the marina, we have been there a few times and have always had an excellent meal; again we could not fault it. Back on “lady Emma” we had a couple of glasses of wine before we got into our bunks. It was quite an early night but then we were going to be up early in the morning. No, not to go sailing, but off to Beaulieu boat jumble.

Sunday. It was a bit of a wet day and the first thing we did was to visit the burger van for breakfast, not as good as Becky’s, and at £6.50 for a burger and coffee, not as cheap, but it went down very well. Walking around we bumped into Phil Steele. His shoes were covered in mud and he was carrying a pair of wellington boots. I thought it was a bit odd so I asked him why he was not wearing them, he replied that they were for Jane and also were many sizes too small for him

So, after a couple of hours wandering about the muddy fields, we set off home. It was a very good day’s sailing, we covered 27nm and a good day at the boat jumble.