September's Drift

The weather is certainly strange and has continued in a similar vain to the weather during my return trip from the Scilly Isles. Overcast, horrible and rain, to clear bright sunny days.  This weekend saw my skipper bring two of his friends with him on a bright and sunny day, both I had seen before but this was the first time they'd been on board at the same time.

Once bags had been brought on board and stowed below I was prepared ready to go, even if one of the chaps did unzip the cover of the spray hood frame, am sure he was just keen to help.  Skipper had brought with him a new flag pole which soon had the huge ensign flying complete with the fly just touching the water as it’s supposed to, if you want to be in keeping with sailing etiquette.  With a close eye on one crew member, the other went forward and slipped my bow line as skipper reversed me to swing the bow out, without Poly Agatha in front of me I didn’t have to swing too far before I could motor forward and have the stern line released .  I remember this chap from Round the Island race when he got in a bit of a mess, this time though without panic he reeled in the warp without fuss and we set off for the Solent.

Now clearly my skipper had forgotten how much rain had fallen recently and so it was fortunate that my main stopped as the reefing lines had got caught, as one crew member was at the base of my mast heaving and the other was to tail off the halyard.  Skipper handed the helm over as he sorted it out and hoisted the rest of the sail with the electric winch, tonnes of water spewed out from the front of my boom around the position one chap had been standing previously !  As usual there were plenty of boats out on the water, every weekend there’s some form of racing and this one was no exception.  Having headed West temporarily in to what little wind there was to hoist my main, we turned and headed East with the tide, making sure to keep clear of the barge bring new rock for the Cowes breakwater, shame the old gaff rigged boat didn't have the same awareness of my skipper.  Both my main and Windex struggled to find any breeze.  However it was a glorious day and so my engine was turned off so the crew could mellow in the quietness, that was till one crew member went below to find a CD to play. Skipper handed the fishing rod to one chap and nervously kept an eye on both the depth gauge and the traffic around whilst I slowly drifted. Lunchtime was fast approaching probably as quickly as  boredom was setting in for both crew members, but having stripped me of most things during my de-camp lunch was not on board.

 

Whilst it had looked towards the end of the week as though wind would be light, skipper had hoped that there would be enough to get us going and keeping everyone amused or busy, sitting in the sun wasn’t preventing the thoughts of food from entering the crews minds. Skipper went down below and brought ‘Thor’ up from below decks and set about setting up the sheets, we had reached Osborne Bay by now and the only shipping, a car transporter plus a paddle steamer had just passed us.  So up went ‘Thor’, but he just wouldn’t fill enough to move us across to the mainland, where another yacht race was taking place although at a snails pace, but there did appear to be more wind.

 

Every time skipper went forward to play with the luff of the sail to try to encourage the wind to fill it, so he checked the depth gauge first. We drifted slowly East. With no luck and without wanting to be a chicane for the Fishborne ferries, ‘Thor’ came down, packed away and my engine went on,  I was taken back to Cowes.  Skipper ran through the procedures of landing me against a pontoon and set up the fenders and warps ready.  We’d have two landings to make apparently, the first one would be a good practise for the home pontoon and so I was brought up behind a small sea fishing day boat on the fuel pontoon, walking me forward once there, to enable the hose to reach my fuel filler.  When complete, they repeated the same take off as before and headed to my home pontoon.  Having done one landing previously the crew were ready again, this one was just as straight forward.

Skipper didn't take his usual care of putting me away, as he wanted to get the guys off for lunch, but he did return the following day to sort me out and fitted the new replacement LED lights as well.