‘Lady Emma’ sailing 3-4 October 2015 – report by Bob Buchanan

Skipper R Buchanan. Crew, Hugh Hayward, Rebecca Hayward, Colin Evans, Kevin Lay and David Winks

We all met up at the Great Wall Chinese restaurant on the Friday evening. It was very quiet compared to most Fridays that we have been there, but that soon changed with our lot giving the staff and management some stick. The meal was as always excellent. Back to the boat it was a few drinks and a chat before bedtime,

Saturday, I got up at the crack of 10.30; I had to, or would have been eating my breakfast in bed. We slipped our moorings at 12.00 headed out to the Solent with full main then pulled up the Genoa in the main channel, the wind was very light and we still had a bit of tide against us. Approaching Cowes after a not so good sail, we had a discussion of shall we go into Cowes, go up Southampton water to Ocean Village, go up the Beaulie river or go down to Yarmouth. Our question was soon answered, as the wind picked up just as the tide was turning west, we passed Cowes and decided to go to Lymington (16.00 hrs). We had Becca on the wheel, the wind had increased to SW 5 and we were soon doing 8/9 knts over the ground, we hit a max of 10.2kts.

At Yarmouth (we gave Lymington a miss as it would involve a bit of tacking to get there) we found the harbour was full. We were met by the harbour master and told the only berth was on the wall by the ferry. We agreed as the wall is about the same length as Lady Emma, 42ft). We tied up at 17.30 hrs with, bow and stern lines, also a line from the ladder (in the middle of the harbour wall) to our mast, we were on spring tides, (high water was at about 16.30 and low water was at about 21.00)

At about 18.00hrs we were all having a drink, and getting ready to go out, when Becca, in the cockpit, shouted down to me to come up. I came up to see her talking to a harbour master official, a very young harbourmaster official, he said our yacht was drifting out into the main entrance and he had told Becca he had to tighten our bow and stern lines.

With our stern line nice and tight, I asked him, in two hours’ time, at low water, we will have 8 tonnes of yacht hanging by the cleats with no water under it, what you think is going to happen? I suggest you put the lines back where you found them; he mumbled a few things, and then said I will let you put the lines back where you want them, he then jumped over the guard rail, up the ladder and disappeared. (I didn’t know what to do, report him to the harbourmaster, or hope that he would learn from this)

After this, we came back down below and had a surprise party for the owner of the boat, Hugh Hayward, we had a silly cake that sang happy birthday, and a real cake that you could eat, he also had a pair of Dubarry deck shoes from us, (we have all had to take out a mortgage on them). We told him not to wear them before his birthday (19-10-2015) because if he popped his clogs before then, we could send them back and get our money back.

We went out that night had a few drinks in the Bugle, then back into the Indian restaurant, that we had booked a table for that night. We had a very good meal that night, with Colin and Kevin having a tour around the kitchen. Back to the boat, a couple of drinks before lights out.

Sunday. After a full English breakfast, we left the harbour wall at 11.00hrs, pulled up the main and genoa and headed back towards Gosport in a S/E 4 with tide with us, hitting a max of 10knts over the ground. Going past Gilkicker point, we saw the Ben Ainslie racing yacht going from Ryde, down to Cowes, then back to Ryde. We turned around and headed towards them. They passed us within about a hundred yards, and as they did, I took several photos, they were soon in the distance, and then disappeared into Portsmouth. We then turned around, headed back to Haslar, and berthed at 15.00hrs, had a meal then went home.

Total distance for the weekend was 45 NM