Looking Back at the first Shared Cost Cruising Weekend

Our first shared cost cruise took place over the 16-18 August weekend. We had 8 crew on an 8 berth Oceanis 37 chartered from Fairview. We weren't crowded; the only time it got snug was around washing up time!

Our initial plan was to see the end of Cowes Week fireworks, but we were confined to port due to deteriorating weather.

That didn’t in anyway put a dampener on our evening as our skipper had prepared an excellent evening meal, followed by a very sociable drinks evening and quiz, courtesy of our question master Stuart who coincidentally was on the winning team ???

After Saturday morning’s briefing we slipped our berth heading to Yarmouth, stopping for lunch at a Beaulieu river pontoon, our passage continued to Yarmouth with extremely challenging weather and wind over tide gusting F7, we made over 9kts over the ground. Yarmouth inner harbour was a very welcome sight.

A planned evening meal at Salty’s was very enjoyable followed by drinks at the newly refurbished Royal Solent Club, this is also this year’s Autumn Rally venue, we checked out the trophy cabinets & photos, but couldn’t see our burgee!   

On Sunday morning the sun appeared after a heavy downpour; we departed Yarmouth mid-morning for lunch in Osborne Bay.

As the wind freshened, we made our passage back to Port Hamble via an extended trip up Southampton Water.