Solent sailing 28/29 April 2018 – report by Bob Buchanan

Boat, ‘Galaxy’, Bavaria 36 chartered from Andy at Lymington Yachting Ltd

Skipper R Buchanan; Crew, Becky Goddard, R Paulino, Hugh Hayward, Colin Evans, and Kevin Lay

After about six months of not sailing together, we met up at Lymington yacht haven. Over quite a few beers and bottles of wine, we had a lot to talk about. We had a meal on board, provided by Becca (Paulino) it was a Punjabi curry (chicken) and it was excellent.

Saturday.

After a proper English breakfast of egg and bacon sarnies, (thanks to Becky) we slipped our moorings at 11.00 hrs, and headed out into the Solent. We turned right at Jack in the basket (it marks the entrance to Lymington) then sailed down through the Needles channel on full main and Genoa. With lots of tide with us and an N/W F4 we hit 10.2 kts SOG. After a very good sail we ended up just south of Old Harry Rock. We put the engine on and motored into Poole Marina (we had pre booked before we left) we berthed at 16.30 hrs. That night we had a few beers in Wetherspoon’s then had a meal in a Greek restaurant. Then it was back on the boat for a few more bottles of wine.

Sunday.

Another egg and bacon breckie from Becky then we left at 12.30 hrs.

We motored out and put the sails up when we got to the last channel mark. It was blowing 25/30 kts N/W so we put two reefs in the main (Galaxy has single line reefing) and furled the genoa to suit. We sailed back with the wind picking up to over 40 kts.

It was quite a wet and bouncy ride back, but very enjoyable.

On the way we had some nibbles, and Kevin decided to cut up some pork pies. Most of us would cut them in quarters, but Kevin decided to slice it in six slices. He could not have made a worse job of it if he had used a chain saw. It was a case of grab a handfull and put it on your plate. After that fiasco, Becca appeared with a big dish of kunafa, it was made by an Arabic chef. Not sure what it is but it’s very sweet and full of calories.

We got to the fairway buoy, turned the engine on, dropped the sails and motored up the needles channel. The tide was just about with us now. We berthed back at Lymington yacht haven at 16.30 hrs

Miles logged 53NM