Everybody arrived safely and on time and we set off around 1100 bound eastwards as the flood started at midday. The forecast was 6/7 some rain.
Saturday in fact was fine with nothing more challenging than strong wind sailing with some sun. We did this quite comfortably with one reef and the 3/4 genny.
I had hoped to go to Northney but closing on Portsmouth diverted to Haslar with a short run up Fareham reach partly because one main sail slide was broken and one out of the track and partly because I wasn't certain what Sunday would bring!
Had we been able to get off as I hoped around 1000 on Sunday we would have had the milder weather and some sun.
As it happened all I got trying to start the engine was a couple of clicks from the solenoid. This put us back three hours whilst Sea Start were called and although they came out immediately and the engineer was very quick, it put us back into worsening weather. The problem was chronic corrosion to the 4 way isolator under the chart seat.
We came back with a second reef and no genny and still were doing 6-8 knots over the ground with gusts of 40 knots! The crew was fine, the boat was fine, but with periodic soakings we all were pleased we only needed three and a half hours to get back.
The wind direction effectively made the new berth down wind and it took some effort to get the boat tied up tight.
My thanks to Mike who has done little sailing for 30 years but slipped back into it effortlessly, Richard who is building on a useful number of sea miles and Matthew who has not sailed before (almost) and wanted to "try it" - baptism of fire!
