|
By our undercover correspondent, Wynne Cha-Grinder
As previously reported, cross channel weekends were organised to extend the experience and fun of the club. Four club skippers(Barry Lloyd, Steve Jones, Mark Hobson, Bob Harris) under the direction of Jeff “Thai” Nellist took Concorde off on Friday 8th September. A night sail westwards in F6 and lumpy seas ended with the main halyard wrapping itself around the radar reflector at 0100 hours during reefing. This caused to us to retire onto a buoy in Poole at 0400 for the (rest of the) night.
 Baz’s fan club rib found their man in the morning with emergency supplies of high energy sausages - for this endeavour, bacon butties alone were not enough!
1100 and departure for Cherbourg with steady easterlies - sails up - various new computations and the course was set. The highest spring tides of the year made the course look even more curved than usual (see below)! Careful midway calculations aimed to make sure we were uptide of Cherbourg, and then we whizzed along with SOG above 8 knots. Finally, a midnight arrival into Cherbourg, after which Steve’s pasta bake was avidly devoured.
The next morning, Sunday, a beautiful clear day and Mr Harris led the charge to wine shop - oops I nearly forgot the bit about the sausage butties for breakfast - with various crates being delivered to the boat at 1230. Which nearly interfered with the timely departure for the short walk to a rather nice restaurant, La Régence (recommended by Baz). Crew morale was fortified by several enormous fish platters - no, enormous platters of fish. Photographs were taken at this stage but no humans are visible. Gradually our stoic heroes returned into view as the pile of crustaceans diminished but the bucket of discarded shells filled. Fortunately there was an adequate supply of wine to avoid dehydration.
After the starter, there was quite a lot more food. Surprisingly most of it was consumed. Followed by dessert. Replete, we entertained some coffee in the sun and wandered around the town, or not, until 1800 FST when it seemed appropriate to try out the Cherbourg marina bar and beer selection. Not bad.
An early night, snacks and hot lunch prepared ready for the next day and one watch manoeuvred the boat out of the marina at 0100. Alternating watches every 2 hours, we managed to pass through the shipping lanes by 0700 in time for bacon butties. Easterly F3 and some excellent sail trimming had us doing over 6 knots again. Excellent sailing. Hot lunch.
A quick visit into Wootton Rivers and then back to Hamble by 1600 hours on Monday.
We had a really good 3 days - many thanks to Jeff for taking us. Good exposure to a range of different conditions, fortunately nothing too extreme. 19 night hours, 2off 60+ mile passages, 200+ miles in total. Valuable experience and learnings for budding Yachtmasters.
These kind of trips are excellent complements to our normal sailing from the Solent.
Have fun everybody!
|
