BRISTOL SAILING ASSOCIATION

Newsletter August 2010

Contacts:Gordon Ogden (Commodore)01275 462473

Jock Playle (Secretary)0117 973 8855

Jane Jenkyn (Treasurer) 01275 880318

At the meeting on August 9th we welcomed Danny Penman as a guest and potential new member.

Future Trips

1.1Steve Hall will skipper a midweek trip on the PC yacht Spellbinder on September 13 – 16th. This is fully booked. As all payments of £30/day are payable at the time of sailing (cheques to the skipper to forward to PYC) no advance deposits are required. Full information has been sent to all crew.

1.2A three-boat charter has been arranged for the weekend of September 17 – 19th, from Plymouth. The skippers will be Bryan Thomas, Alan Howells and Mike Quick, and all three boats are fully booked and paid. Crew information has been sent to all going.

1.3Malcolm Price and Bill Thomas will skipper two boats from Plymouth on the weekend of November 19 – 21. This is fully booked, and will those going now please send a deposit of £50 to the Treasurer, Mrs J R Jenkyn, Edgecliff, 12 Marine Parade, Clevedon, Bristol, BS21 7QS.

1.4A trip near the end of October was suggested at the August meeting. We hope to arrange something at the meeting on September 13th.

2.Recent Trips

A summary of all trips reported at meetings is given here, or a full report, if available. Members reporting at a meeting are reminded that a full version of the report should be provided, either written or emailed. If this isn’t available, then only a short summary will be given in the newsletter. Full reports will be included in the next newsletter following receipt.

At the August meeting we heard a variety of reports. Sonia Russé described her “refresher” Day Skipper practical course with Devon Sailing, and then John Hartland reported on the midweek sail to France on Spellbinder, skippered by Gordon. Bill Thomas described a family charter from Corfu, and Dave Fogden reported on a trip on Lady Emma from Southampton to Weymouth. These reports follow (The lady Emma report is skipper Bob Buchanan’s written one.)

Bernard Smyth and Sue Fowle reported on successive weeks sailing on the CSSA boat Sea Essay in south Brittany, and Sue also described two days’ racing during Cowes Week. As there were so many sailing reports, these three reports have already been sent to members, either by post or email, along with Julia and Chris Wallace’s second report of their voyage from London to Seville on board their Westerly Conway “Aremiti.

Trip on Bold Explorer, skippered by

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Trip on Spellbinder, skippered by Gordon Ogden

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Corfu Charter July 2010 – report by Bill Thomas

I chartered a Bavaria 38 through Sunscape Yachting, for the last 2 weeks in July. The crew was my wife Heather and old friends of ours – Steve and Sue Greenfield, with whom we had cruised the Dalmatian Islands in 2008. Our son Huw and their daughters joined us fro a couple of days at the beginning of the Holiday.

We collected the boat from Gouvia Marina, just north of Corfu town. For those of you who haven’t been there, it is enormous – although like many of its British counterparts, most of the boats seemed unused.

Our initial plan was to bash down to Levkas and get to the southern Ionian. However, we decided to take things a bit easy and concentrate on the Northern Ionian.

We spent the first night at Petriti, a small working fishing harbour, south of Corfu Town. The evening was enlivened by the arrival of a small flotilla of young Aussies and Kiwis, who were having 3 days afloat as part of an 18-31 backpacking tour across Europe. The boats were about 27 feet long and had 7 people on board! They parked bow on the side of the breakwater. This was fine until a thunder storm suddenly blew up and they were broadside on to the wind and the lumpy sea, which also sprang up very quickly. They were banging into each other (one had its shrouds come adrift from the hounds) Until one of the taverna owners insisted on the Flotilla leader moving them into the harbour to fill the spaces left vacant by the fishing boats that had gone out for the night, which he had to do himself – his charges were by now off in the nearest Bar!

We then went down to Gaios on Paxos. Which was very busy. We were hit by a Flotilla boat, which was being guided in by the Flotilla leader. Luckily there wasn’t too much damage and we nevertheless got the Leader to sign our log. We met this Flotilla a couple of times during the next week and, as the crew on the yacht in question spent most of the day in the Bar, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that they collided with us!

The rest of the itinerary will be familiar to people who have sailed in that area:

Parga, on the mainland; Mongonisi on Paxos; Mourtos, on the mainland; and then we spent most of the last week around the North Corfu channel – Agios Stephanos, Kalami and Agni, which were all delightful. We had a couple of days when it blew hard and we (together with most of the other boats there) dragged in Agios Stephanos and couldn’t anchor again, because there were too many boats and we couldn’t get out enough chain, so ended up in Kalami, and one night in Gouvia when it was also blowing very hard. The Bavaria sailed up and down the anchor chain when it blew at all and we had to put out significantly more chain than the usual 4 times the depth, to ensure that we didn’t drag again.

My wife Heather and I had been to most of these places on our honeymoon, when we had chartered a Jaguar 22. Mourtos and Parga had changed almost beyond recognition and were a big disappointment. Gaios was still recognisable, although much busier and the North East (which we hadn’t visited before) was much more like what we remembered. Apart from the 2 days when it blew hard, the weather was pretty settled – very hot, with a breeze getting up after lunch and blowing until 6/7 pm and then getting very light or disappearing altogether.

We used Rod Heikel’s Ionian Pilot and Vanessa Bird’s Cruising in the Ionian. We found them both good and largely complementary – when one had only a small note about a particular harbour or anchorage, the other would deal with it in more detail, and vice versa. They are both a few years out of date now, but mainly accurate – except for the comment that Gaios is only a 20 minute walk from Mongonisi. We walked it, fairly briskly, and it took us a good 50 minutes and 2 large bottles of water!

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Sailing on “Lady Emma” 29/7/2010 to 1/8/2010 – report by Bob Buchanan

Skipper. R. Buchanan

Crew. R.Goddard, D.Fogden (all Bristol sailing members)

C.Evans, K.Lay, D.Winks (regular Emma crew).

Wednesday. We all met on board Wednesday evening for the usual drinks and one of Becky’s home made pies.

Thursday. We had an early breakfast (full English) then got the boat ready to go. It was quite light westerly winds so we got the no.1 Genoa up on deck and hanked on.

We slipped our moorings at 10.00hrs and motored from Ocean Quay (just up past the Itchen bridge) to the top of Southampton water. The wind was on our starboard quarter so we only pulled the Genoa up. By the time we reached the Solent the wind had picked up so we put the main up.

We reached the Needles channel on the outgoing tide at 15.00hrs and cruised out at a steady 6knts. From the Fairway buoy we headed close hauled to Swanage bay.

We had a very good sail with a steady F3 all the way. Swanage bay was reached at 19.00hrs where we dropped anchor for the night. After a few beers and a couple of bottles of wine Becky produced another of her excellent meals.

Friday. Another full English, then it’s up anchor at 11.30hrs. We motored over to “Old Harry” rocks for Colin and Kevin to do a bit of fishing. After about an hour we were all getting fed up and turned to head for Weymouth. Colin had caught one small mackerel (not much for a crew of six)

The wind was light so we motored towards the end of Portland with it on our nose. Just off the end of Portland, about 5miles from Weymouth, we put the sails up, changed course, and had a very good close hauled sail in. We rafted up outside the harbourmasters office at 17.30hrs

After everyone had used the showers etc we went into town and had a very good Indian meal.

Saturday. Another full English breakfast, then we slipped our moorings at 11.15hrs and headed back out to sea.

The wind was on the quarter blowing a F3 so we just pulled up the Genoa. We had a steady 5knts sail all the way back to the Needles channel. At the fairway buoy we put the engine on and pulled the sails down. We had a very lumpy ride as we still had about an hour or so of spring tide against us. Once we had got back into the Solent we pulled the Genoa up again and had a good sail over to Yarmouth.

In Yarmouth we rafted up between the piles at 21.00hrs.

We didn’t go ashore as it was a bit late, so Becky produced a wonderful meal of pasta and mackerel etc.

Sunday. Breakfast as usual, full English. We slipped our moorings at 12.15hrs and set off for Southampton. With light winds on our quarter again it was up with the Genoa only. It was Cowes week and there were about 500 boats on the water, most of them in different races. We were heading east and the other 499 were heading west. We stayed on starboard tack so it was not too bad threading our way through the fleet.

Into Southampton water we moved onto a reach and had a steady sail of 7/8knts.

At the top of Southampton water we pulled the Genoa down and motored back to ocean quay at 16.30hrs where we had our last meal on board before cleaning up the boat and going home.

A very enjoyable sailing trip. Total mileage 127

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