Notes from Fulmarks

Three of us met up on Friday evening, settled in and went to the pub in true HOEOCA style. Slawek joined us on Saturday morning and we went sailing after the usual briefing and a quick refuelling stop.

The plan was to meet Blue Wolf in Osborne Bay at lunchtime. We had a splendid time sailing gently around the eastern Solent, shaking down Fulmarks' new mainsail, and dropped the hook for lunch. We didn't meet up with Blue Wolf, they were fighting the same tide which helped us.

We had another enjoyable sail in the afternoon, ending up rafted against Blue Wolf outside Shepard's. This was not exactly what Paul had booked, but members of HOEOCA do not let things like that get between them and a stiff drink.

Sunday morning arrived complete with the odd hangover. Naturally the inside member of the raft wanted to leave first, and that suited us fine. The breeze had strengthened from the previous day and the sailing was brisk, beating towards Portsmouth. When we saw consistent 20knts apparent, I decided to put a reef in. This was the first time with the new sail, and it went very smoothly - phew! As usually happens, the boat was more comfortable and lost no speed.

We arrived off Gillkicker Point about 1pm. The tide against us strengthened and the wind dropped away, and we shook out the reef. In spite of this, our attempts to sail to the forts came to naught, our track on the plotter looked like a seismograph trace during an earthquake.

As it neared 4pm, we shaped up the channel to Portsmouth Harbour entrance, against a falling Spring tide at peak flow. With the engine at 3000rpm we crept in at less than 2kns sog. The slightest loss of concentration on the helm had us shooting sideways like a scared rabbit, while the water seemed to boil under us. Ferries joined in the fun to make life more interesting.

We were safely docked by 5pm, then packed up and went our separate ways.

The new main performed well. The same cannot be said of the house and windlass batteries, there is scope for faffing there.

What a cracking enjoyable weekend!