Festina had been purchased with long distance cruising in mind, so earlier in the year I put the options to the crew of another Irish cruise taking in Cork week, a hairy dash to the Faeroes or a trip to Norway with a view to increasing our experience of passage making prior to taking off for the wide blue yonder. The vote was for Norway . Graham volunteered for a delivery, Barney and Jonty were up for the trip across the North sea (although Jonty later had to drop out though work pressures) and Jaap seemed keen to “escape “ for a while and join us whilst we were there. My long suffering partners agreed to a  months holiday, Ben was free to do the whole  trip and so the project was agreed. As ever, having the idea is easy, but would we be able to complete such an ambitious trip in the short time available? All too soon it was time to find out.

The Delivery-1^st JULY

 Predictably the wind was dead on the nose as Graham Ben and I left Hamble at dusk on our delivery trip to the East coast,  but it was obliging enough  to let us motor to Selsey, fetch slowly  overnight to Beachy Head and then thrash dead to windward in bright sunshine to Folkestone, where the twin incentives of a foul tide and empty bellies prompted us to motorsail into the lee of the cliffs and eat a prodigious supper. The wind fell light through the Downs but came up again at Bryony’s “corner“ (N. Foreland) allowing us to race North through the night on a brisk fetch.  

Next morning the wind disappeared as the sun warmed up and we dribbled lazily along the Norfolk coast before another fetch through the night to the Humber , a friendly Grimsby harbour and a somewhat circuitous car journey home – but that’s another story.

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