Today was a no sail day force 7 winds!
As is normal on a no sail day we tend to wash clothes, prepare routes and look at met info in the hope of understanding what the next few days will bring.
Pete Tony and i went into Chichester to look at the Cathederal and also i met up with some old friends - Emma and Christian Heyman - great to catch up after many years of us both being too busy with children and everyday life.
On Friday night Stuart and i were invited to a party in Itchenor with the Woolfenden / Birkett clan - in a lage tent - theme - footballers wives. A really enjoyable evening great to catch up with my best friend AND we raised £500 for the charities - Thanks to all who kindly donated.
Stuart and i spent that night at the Birkett summer cottage - Pink cottage. I think this is a beacon of how families should spend time. It is a large cottage and by cramming in bunks there is the capacity to sleep up to 20 people at a time thereby ensuring that the parents all 3
children 8 grandchildren and friends are all welcome at any time. Sensibly there is NO TV and becasue of that everybody talks - Great.
So Stu and i were on futons on the sitting room floor and slept well thanks to a good night out.
SATURDAY 2ND AUGUST - ITCHENOR TO COWES
Having had a lovely breakfast at Pink Cottage we waited until midday to be collected by the others with a view to sailing to Cowes.
Whilst sitting and chatting with the crew in the sitting room, the door to the stairs opens and a rather sleepy looking 16 year old with bed head hair appears says goodbye and walks out of the front door hops onto his bike and proceeds to pedal off. It appears that nobody really knew he was there, but that he was a friend of one of the childrens - hillarious and a really great environment for the kids.
Back to the sailing - Forcast for the day was force 4-5 from the South west - meaning a long tack up the Solent from Itechenor to Cowes. We promised Charlie a proper sail on the Hobie and this seemed the best time.
On collecting the Hobie from the beach at Hayling Island Sailing club we headed out to the Solent and had a reasonable sail. After about an hour the wind dropped away and we towed the last few miles until off Cowes the wind really picked up again and we resumed sailing - i really wanted to sail into Cowes if at all possible - having raced yachts there on previous Cowes weeks.
We set off at a cracking pace - 20 knots+( Althought there was too much traffic to verifiy this) but after a couple of minutes only - DISASTER STRUCK!!! - WE WERE DISMASTED.
I always expected a mast falling to go with a huge bang - no such luck it simply fell away from the boat landed in the water and we stopped - all rather dull really.
Picture the scene its cowes week, there are literally hundreds of yachts in the area around us the mast is now lying on the deck and we cannot take the sail down. A huge container ship is bearing down on us and its now blowing a full on hoolie!
I am pleased to say there was no panic, we quietly decided to tow Hobie alongside Destiny back into Cowes - which Pete did really well calnt have been easy with a 30ft sail in the water and a 4 knt cross tide.
We found a slipway next to the Island Sailing club and put Challenger on the hard. We first de-rigged her, worked out what had broken - The Pigstail which is a short section of metal shroud wire that had simply snapped in the middle under the strain! Little other damage was sustained except the junction of the boom to the mast which is bent and (Still) needs to be straightened in a vice.
Luckily we had a spare - and with the benefit of hindsight we should have changed this sooner - but it meant taking the mast down - a big job.
So we set to and after a couple of hours we had the rigging repaired and the mast back up, ready to sail.
During this time Pete popped back to Itchenor to collect Jeremy, his wife Carrie, her sister and husband - Roger and Helen and bring them back to Cowes. It was expected that the journey would take 45 mins each way so i became worried after 2 and a bit hours that they were not back. It transpired that the wind had continued to rise and it was bumpy on the way back meaning that they had to go slower for part of the trip.
Anyhow we left the Hobie on the Slip and went to explore the infamous beer tent - bumping into a great friend of mine - Chris Merriman - Chris thanks for the beers - and also John Wood from Rib Eye.
We then headed to the Cowes Tandoori and had a great curry (Although they tried to charge me £1200 instead of £200!
We then tried unsucessfully to find a home for Challenger and had no choice but to leave her on the slip. We pulled her as far up it and too one side as we could but wires supporting a lampost meant we couldnt take her right up and off the slipway.
Pete was a star and drove the 10 of us back in the pitch black the 18 miles to Itchenor dodging the many ferries and commercial shipping. Destiny was moored in Itchenor again and we drove back to the campsite in Bognor (we near it) arrriving a little weary around midnight.
Rather perversly i really enjoyed the day regardless of the de masting. I am SO glad that this didnt happen when we were 20 miles offshore in a big sea.
SUNDAY 3RD AUGUST
I am writing this at 11am. We planned to be up at 7.30 but overslept by 1 1/2hrs! waking at 9am.
As always i immediatly checked the weather forcast. Today was meant to be the day the shore based crew moved on to Salcombe - us sailing ideally to Weymouth staying in a B&B then on Monday sailing across Lyme bay to Brixham (and then staying in the caravan in Salcombe) finally arriving in Salcombe the following day.
It is not to be - the forcast is not good at all. The forcast for Cowes between now and Thursday is strong wind from the South West. Not only is the wind too strong but the direction is awful. So we cannot sail today, we have abandoned the Hobie up a slip in Cowes which is far from ideal, we have to extend our stay at Bognor, re-arrange Salcombe camp site and then sit and wait for the weather to become sailable.
In addition there is an Azores High pressure system sitting off the SOuth West which implied that once this wind has gone through, it is likely to be replaced with clear skies - with little or no wind!!!!
So feeling a little gloomy here, it is grey and tipping it down as i write this, still there is one positive - its warm.
Till next time..................