Portland Sailing, Weekend 2/3 April 2011 – report by Bob Buchanan

Yacht. Sadler 25, “Crack-on”

Crew. Hugh Hayward (owner) Patrick Beatt (friend and relation to Hugh)Becky Goddard and Bob Buchanan.

This was a sail/training weekend as we have entered “Crack-On” in the Round the Island race.

Friday evening. I meet with Hugh in Portland marina. Hugh has parked his camper van in the car park. We meet up with Becky that night in the Royal Portland Arms for a drink. Becky is staying with friends on Portland. The pub was very good with an Elvis impersonator doing a good job on stage and the two ales on tap were Spitfire and Piddle. The Spitfire was very good, so I then tried the other ale. I gave the barmaid my glass and asked her to put some Piddle in it (I watched her very closely as she filled my glass) it went down lovely. From the pub we went to an Indian restaurant for a meal (the fish curry was excellent).

Saturday. Patrick (Paddy) and Becky both turned up at 08.30am at the camper van. The café in the marina (the boat that rocks) was shut so we went down to the local greasy spoon for breakfast. Breakfast out of the way; it was back to the marina.

The first job was to get all the sails off the boat and see what state they were in.

The no.1 was in a terminal state and needed to be replaced. The no.2 was o.k. but needed some repair work.

The spinney was o.k. and so was the main.

With all the main jobs done we jumped on board and set off. It was blowing a F3/4 S/W so we pulled up the main and no.2. As we sailed across Weymouth bay on a reach they let me have a go on the tiller, as I was the only one that had never sailed on this yacht before. I was surprised how light and easy it was, so I hardened up to close hauled to see how she performed. The wind was now a F4/5 and we were doing a steady 6/7 Knts.

After a few hours of very good sailing somebody said “what’s the plan skipper” We all looked at Hugh and he replied “I am not the skipper, I just supplied the boat”. It turned out that no one had any idea of the times of high and low water, springs or neaps or what the weather forecast was.

It was then we took a GPS reading to see where we were, it was 35 mile from Alderney. The boat was going well and the weather was ok so we thought about it for a moment. The deciding point was that we would not make it to the “Divers Inn” for last orders, so we turned around and headed back. Sailing up the east side of Portland we were getting up to 8knts. We tied “Crack-On” up in the marina and that night we were all invited to a B.B.Q at the house that Becky was staying at. We were made very welcome and the food and drink were excellent.

Sunday. We were up and ready to go when Becky arrived, so the first stop was back at the greasy spoon for breakfast. Breakfast out of the way again, it was back to the boat. The wind was very light but the sun was out. We got out of the marina and pulled up the spinney. Out into Weymouth bay we were up to 5knts with only the spinnaker up. Outside of Lulworth Cove we turned around and headed back, we pulled the spinney down, pulled up the main and hanked on the no.1 for her final sail. We had a gentle sail back in a F2. Tied up “Crack-On”, had a cup of coffee in Hugh’s camper, then we went home.