Skipper wanted to run me on the jib only so he could see how much of a difference the new sail is compared to the old one. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that the wind was going to be fickle and light. So with the whites up what wind there was took us slowly along the Western Solent in lovely sunshine. The wind was fickle and in the end, the engine came on and left at tick over, 5kts of boat speed and 7kts speed over ground (SOG), but the target of Studland or Swanage seemed too far to warrant winding the engine up and going for it, after all this was supposed to be another pleasant sail. With the usual rapids ride past Hurst Castle the main was dropped and packed. It was at this point the wind picked up, Totland Bay was busy the sun had brought everyone out including a sailing club from the mainland. a flotilla of dinghy's had raced over in the morning, complete with a fleet of safety boats and the bar-b-q, food and drink brought over by a much smaller fleet of motorboats and yachts.
We opted to leave our usual anchorage as it was too close to too many and anchored further out, but with 10m more of chain than usual, a mistake rather than planned, as the chain marker was missed. Skip opted to continue with his fish studies whilst the crew read her book, the wind didn't abate. In fact during the night skip got up to turn off my wind generator as that always makes it sound worse than it actually is and with the anchor light and AIS on a measly 0.2amps of power was being used. It is usual for the skip to remain awake as he listens to creaks and groans and tries to work out where they're coming from. This particular night there were none bar the wind generator and the anchor chain. Despite the snubber being on, various noises came from the bow and skip made a mental note to check all the fittings to make sure nothing has been working itself loose after all this time.
Around 0700 Sunday morning, skip awake he gets up to locate his phone and turn off the anchor light, noticing out of the window after a quick sense check of where I was in relation to everything else, he noted a freighter coming in to go through the Needles channel. He also noted the mist that was on the top of Tenneson Down and the Needles Lighthouse sounding its horn, automatically acted in poor visibility. He went back to bed and checked the weather and tides, the plan was to leave later in the day and catch the flood tide back to Cowes. The weather app suggested some 35kts of gusts in Cowes later and so the crew was woken and a swift retreat catching the last of this flood was made.
The fog had descended by then but whilst visibility was poor, grey objects could be made out a few miles around you. The wind what little there was again, was by now from the South West and virtually from behind so back on went the engine and this time run at 2,200rpm to get back to Cowes to beat the strong winds. By the time they had me sorted, washed up and back indoors, the sun came out and a lovely afternoon unfolded!
