Solent sailing 30/4/16 to 1/5/16 – report by Bob Buchanan

Yacht: Bavaria 38 Janbo chartered from Solent charters & training, Saxon Wharf, Southampton

Skipper R Buchanan. Crew. R Goddard, H Hayward, R Hayward, C Evans, K Lay, D Winks

We all met up at Saxon wharf on Friday afternoon. Becky was there first and did the handover. After getting our kit on board we went into Southampton for a few drinks and a meal. We went to the “Platform” a small pub by the ferry terminals, it has live music, very good ales and good food, it’s a pub that we have used many times and can recommend. Back on the boat we had a few more beers and bottles of wine, and had a chat about all the things that had happened since we last met on “Lady Emma” back in November 2015

Saturday. We left at 10.30 after a full English breakfast. At the top of Southampton water we put up the main, it was an N/E F1/2 but the sun was out. At Calshot, we turned right to go west; our plan had been to go east, around the Island and into Yarmouth, but with the wind as it was, it was not going to happen. The wind picked up a bit, so we pulled out the Genoa; it was now going from NE to NW. We were right on the bottom of neaps so tide was not really much of a factor for us.

Looking west, we saw some very dark clouds and they were coming our way, as the wind picked up a bit, we decided to put a reef in the main and pull a bit of the Genny in. This was very easy, as “Janbo” has single line reefing. As the wind got even stronger, we put another reef in, again single line reefing, and more Genny reefed in.

As the wind hit F7 we pulled in a bit more Genny, then realised “Janbo” had slab reefing on the third reef, no one was prepared to go up to the mast and put in the third reef, so we all said, hold on, it will pass in a minute, so, yes it did, thirty minutes later. It was a bit of a learning curve for some of the crew, also myself. Janbo, had started to round up, and had water up to the gunwales, not something we were used to on “Lady Emma” It is one of the things we will have to get used to when chartering.

After a few more hours sailing around, we berthed in Yarmouth at 1800 hrs. We had the pontoon right at the entrance. We tied up and went below for a beer. Not long after a yacht came in and was getting very close to us, we looked out and the skipper said that he was coming alongside. The skipper was on the wheel and seven others were all on fenders, no one had a line in their hand. The bow line was out, but just tied onto the guard rail. Becky told the person on the bow to take the line off the rail and pass one end to her, under the rail, which he did, but didn’t understand where he had to tie it off, so Hugh jumped on their boat and did it for him. We also had to do the same at the stern. Now with their boat tied to ours, with lots of fenders, we felt that the wind was blowing too much, so we called the harbourmaster.

He agreed, and moved a big rib that was behind us and we walked the boat back and tied it up.

The skipper was very thankful for our help, and explained that it was his first time out on a yacht as skipper and it was their first time at sea for the seven crew. We noted the main sail halyard was not connected to the sail, and the sail bag was still zipped up, we are sure they just motored from Southampton. Later that evening the skipper gave us a bottle of wine.

That evening we had a meal in the Indian restaurant in the harbour.

Sunday. After a late breakfast we left at 1230 hrs, it was a bright sunny day and the wind was a very gentle S/W F2. Outside the harbour we just pulled out the genoa and had a lazy sail back to the bottom of Southampton water, where we pulled up the main and sailed up to the Itchen River then pulled down the main and carried on under genoa up to Saxon Wharf.

We berthed at 1615 hrs. We cleaned up the boat and most of the crew went home.

Hugh, Kevin & I stayed on board for the night, but had to be off by 0800 hrs the next morning.

I went up to the office to do the hand back, said the water tank was filled up, the boat was clean, we didn’t hit anything and there were no breakages, the only problem we had was that the heads was not emptying very well. They just said that’s O.K. Just leave the keys on the chart table when you go in the morning

Total mileage 46NM