An
auspicious start
The weather in the 8
weeks preceding our holiday had been universally horrible, with ( apparently)
La Nina sending the Atlantic jet stream South and giving us floods and a Scottish climate instead of a
summer. Thinking we were in for more of the same, we stocked the boat with a
veritable library of books in case we had to hole up for extended periods. To
our delight however, as we thrashed out of the
Solent
into 25 knots of SW wind, the Met office was predicting that the next front
would presage, of all things, a Northerly!
The rain poured down on
our anchorage in Studland , and we set our alarm for 0430 which was when we believed the front would clear.
And it did , right on time, Quick as a flash we were under way with the kite up
, surfing past Peveril point and heading South in 25 knots ( more than we had
bargained for – it was 10 when we hoisted !) . There was a big SW swell and a
rapidly building N sea – which made for pretty boisterous conditions – but
progress was good.
Gradually the wind eased
, and the boat was tossed around in the cross seas with the inevitable result
that just on the edge of the shipping lanes we got the mother of all spinnaker
wraps – not just one – but 6 times round the forestay and stuck fast.
It was too rough to go
up in a chair , so once the air had turned less blue , we put the engine on to
avoid the 6 ships that had inevitably appeared to be coming to see our
embarrassment . Lo and behold , with the wind nearly dead astern the wraps
started to come out one by one , propelled by just the right kind of friendly back
eddy from the mainsail. We had had
visions of having to divert to
Alderney
to untangle it all in public view , so this was
a very welcome miracle . With two wraps left we leapt into action – clawed the
kite to the deck and rehoisted with a
small jib up to avoid a re-run.
The skies now cleared
and we spent the rest of the day alternatively motoring and sailing as the wind
came up and down , so that we could take our tide through the Alderney race and
down to
Jersey
. The last 2 hours provided us
with a fine NW sea breeze to propel us to St Catherines Bay , dropping the kite
outside the mole and swinging in to anchor, eat and fall into bed after a splendid start to the cruise.
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