This week we’re off for a trip with Salty Sailing across the channel to the Channel Islands. The trip is one we wanted to do in order to gain experience crossing the channel before doing it on our own.
We met at 09:30 down at the boat, Precision, and met Mark and Suzanne who will be along for the trip, as well as Hugo who’s the skipper and owner of Salty Sailing. We had a quick planning session, looking at the tides, the winds and best options for the trip. We decided on heading from Cowes to Lymington today. Lymington is protected from the strong northerly winds, and places us closer to the Needles so with an early (3-4am) start we can make the most of what could be a 12-hour journey to Alderney. The option of going to Portland would have put the wind directly behind us, giving us a harder to maintain, and slower course.
We then had a safety briefing, followed by Mark springing off the dock by going against a bow spring to push the aft out into the wind which was blowing us on to the dock. Then we slipped the spring and Mark reversed out smoothly. The wind and skies, which had been fierce earlier in the morning now broke to sun and a fairly steady 15 knots. The sea state was good so it was nearly champagne sailing as we made our way down the Solent at over 8 knots at times, with the favorable tide helping us make ground.
When we got near to Lymington we tried to furl away the genoa, but it got stuck halfway in with what looked like a wrap inside the drum that prevented the re-furling. After a couple of failed attempts to clear the wrap, we pointed to wind and dropped the genoa on to the deck. The main quickly followed and I followed the channel into Lymington harbour and brought us alongside the Dan Bran pontoon. The wind and tide were both favorable and docking was simple.
Hugo then disassembled the furler to get access to the winding. After fully unwinding, clearing the wrap then re-wrapping before reassembling the furler, reattaching the sail, then furling the sail everything was complete. A lot of work for a small problem.
After that, a simple lunch and we went to explore the charming town of Lymington.
Then dinner at The Haven, good selection of fish dishes followed by an early night so that we can get a 3am start!
