The Royal County of Berkshire Yacht Club Club News Blog

RBYC Studland Trip, June 2021

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 16:13:04 GMT

Here's a video of our Studland Bay trip in the summer of 2021.

https://y outu.be/6shMEITdzPM

Weymouth Trip July 2022

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 16:07:08 GMT

Here is a video about our Weymouth / Poole trip of July 2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSiTgIGoElQ

The John Mountain Cup 2022

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 11:19:39 GMT

We had a very successful John Mountain Cup in October 2022.

Congratulations to Tim Langdale who was best skipper. The best boat resulted in a complete dead heat for the first time ever! Well done to the crews on Mon Ami (Christian, Anna, Neil and Krzysztof and Par Excellence (Tim, Jack, John and Bob ).

Thanks to Margareta Flicos and Steve Norton for all their efforts in preparing the weekend.

Saturday night was spent on the Town Quay at Lymington and we provided early evening entertainment for the other yachts moored up with our sailing dinghy race followed by dinner in the Royal Lymington Yacht Club.

John Mountain Cup 2016 Results

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 20:35:35 GMT

John Mountain Cup 2016

Last weekend RBYC had its Annual flagship event. A really great weekend of skills building with a bit of healthy competition thrown in. Friday night we were finding things in the dark en route to Gosport. I bet you didn't know you could see 30 different types of lights between Hamble and Portsmouth.

Saturday we found the only isolated danger in the Solent, navigated in the fog and went to see if we could see Bramble bank dry. Saturday Evening we had a delicious meal at RORC in Cowes where Les found his long lost uncle on a painting on the wall.

Sunday we had the pleasure of Cowes RNLI, the Hamble Lifeboat and Chris Beeson from Yachting monthly practicing getting lifelike dummies and real people from the water by various methods. Look out for the upcoming article in Yachting Monthly.

For more details and all the pictures check out our facebook page

Final Results

Best Boat: Soiree with Skipper Krzysztof Przysowa , Neil Dunnet, Ursula Henderson, Jack Kennelly, Jakub Janc and Adjudicator Alex Dunn.

Runner Up: Faux Pas with Skipper Margareta Flicos, Andrew Burton, Tony Burton, Christian Wood, Jim Archibald and Adjudicator Les Harris

Best Skipper: Henri Grech

Runner Up: Margareta Flicos

Special Prizes:
Furthest Travelled: Jakub Janc from Poland
Largest number of humurous captions: Ursula Henderson
Getting in the Water for the RNLI: Margareta Flicos
Getting 5 Toots from the Red Funnel Ferry: Denis McFaul.

John Mountain Cup 2016

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 07:31:54 GMT

John Mountain Cup Oct 14th 2016 is now completely full. Always popular we have 4 boats going out on this trip with trainee skippers Margareta, Krzysztof, Bethany and Henri. Good luck to all 4 of them.

We have confirmed that the RNLI will join us for part of the trip and we will be doing some joint training on MOB.

We also have Dick Durham from Yachting Monthly with us so look out for the article about our club and JMC.

Weekend skills trips never disappoint by Henri Grech

(Past member) — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 16:45:33 GMT

It’s been almost 11 months to the day since my first ever sailing weekend with the club and as always these skills weekends and other trips never disappoint.

Firstly a thank you to Fairview who allocated Vis a Vis (Oceanis 37): I think we were originally assigned to D’Artagnan; so no swash- buckling weekend for us…. but plenty of pontoon bashing (and more) was had by all! Peter Hurley, our skipper for the weekend, explained and made every manoeuvre look so easy.

It all started on Friday night when Peter demonstrated the application of springs when leaving a tight squeeze situation such as the finger pontoons at Hamble Marina with tide and wind never failing to make their presence felt. Night vision goggles were not on the boat’s inventory but we managed nevertheless. After a broad reach sail across the Solent to West Cowes we tucked into a delicious lasagna (American recipe) courtesy of Harry Jemmeson, washed down with a red wine. But West Cowes was far from still as a mill pond, much to Peter T’s disgust. Red Jet’s turbines seem to be heard all night long L too. Come morning, we soon got down to business after breakfast but only after Harry had found his socks and glasses!

After a masterly demonstration by Peter H we all had our turn at mooring under power, under sail, ferry gliding, mooring short-handed, once again using a spring technique and so on. After a warm soup and bread rolls we left the Medina. Dodging the obligatory car and container freight ships we were on a beat to Gosport. That’s when the NE’ly made its presence felt; the soup’s warmth was there no more although fairly lively discussions took place about the merits of staying in the EU or simply Brexit! Once in Portsmouth Harbour we got busy again with picking a buoy under sail. Whilst many of us needed two, (or three goes Peter T???), both Christian and Harry simply kissed the buoys: well done guys but just stick to the bouys eh ! Then off to Gosport marina but not before I had unwittingly upset a few anglers fishing off the Marina wall by pinching their lines perhaps in an attempt to catching some sea bass for dinner! My somewhat fast approach to the finger pontoon was put right by skilled crew on the warps; no damage done, so we were still left with cash to spare for dinner at the Lightship Restaurant. Christian and Krzysztof soon got into technical discussions about fluid dynamics and computer simulation. Whilst I had enjoyed a lovely Beef Wellington and good company I would have not minded being teleported to my sleeping bag for a goodnight sleep.

Come breakfast, prepared by the skipper, the scene was set for the morning drills. On the menu were, mooring stern-to (slime lines not included, much to my relief), manoeuvring a yacht by turning on a 5p coin (no bow thrusters), then out of the harbour to save some lives; or so it seemed. My insurance premiums must have rocketed having sailed over 2 mob’s and causing serious ‘bucket-head’ injuries to a third one. To my defence Krzysztof was more concerned about eating bananas and whose mobile phone was ringing or receiving messages whilst my frustrations built up. Never mind computer simulations Krzys; I think skipper should have chucked you overboard to have a run for real.

An attempt at anchoring under sail was aborted when somehow one of the sail cover straps managed to double up and snag the stern end block of the main sheet. We anchored under power whilst Peter T managed to free the main sheet from the snag. Peter then took the helm and sailed towards the anchor after some initial difficulties and we were soon underway on a close reach towards Southampton Water….or so we thought. About ½ mile East of Bramble Bank I recalled running into unexpected shallow waters last season. Skipper felt comfortable to proceed with caution even though the depth was registering at a big fat 0! Christian and I felt a subtle judder and shortly afterwards we found ourselves crest hopping over the uncharted shallows I recalled from last season. Keeping the boat healed we bobbed along at 0.8 knots finally off the shallows and now with Harry at the helm we made our way after having left an interrupted groove on the sea bed. I am sure most of us felt that we had blown off the cobwebs and looking forward to the next sailing weekend. Finally a thank you to Peter H for being gently inspiring and Peter T for getting the season going with a great weekend. For some of us, me included, it’s Brighton, here we come! Henri

Our holiday voyage to Devon on Wild Honey

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:45:29 GMT

August 2015 holiday voyage on Wild Honey (Sadler 29)

Overview: 312 miles, underway 66 hours over two weeks. 50 hrs sailing, 16 hrs under engine.

Hamble, Lymington, Poole, Lulworth Cove, Weymouth, Dartmouth, Salcombe, Brixham, Teignmouth, Portland, Poole, Lymington, Hamble. Dolphins were the top highlight.

Saturday 8th August 2015

Went down to the Hamble in late morning, sorted out the boat and got provisions on board. Later we walked down the river to the coast then returned to Warsash and ate at the Rising Sun.

Sunday 9th

Set off west down the Solent early (0810) to avoid Cowes Week activities; saw the first start of the day (Sigmas) and sailed downwind as far as Lymington Yacht Haven to berth for the night. 18 miles.

The tiller extension broke (a weak repair by the previous owner) and, with no fitting in stock, I asked the marina chandlers to get quotes for a replacement joint and for a complete assembly. However, we managed without it with no problem all the voyage. Warm & sunny weather so we walked around Lymington and then walked along the coast towards Keyhaven.

Monday 10th

Set off for Poole at 0850 via the North Channel. Sailing mostly close hauled, in 10 to 14 kts, though not much beating required. Visibility became poorer with hints of rain ahead. Went to Poole Quay Boat Haven. 30.1 miles. Our little yacht was dwarfed by a variety of Sunseekers all around us, some still being finished by the builder.

Tuesday 11th

Not much wind forecast or evident so we stayed in Poole for the day, enjoying the tourist sites, museums and shops. Poole Quay is always lively in the evenings.

Wednesday 12th

Better wind forecast so we set off for Weymouth at 0748 with adverse tide initially but with west going tide for the most of the passage. Good sailing wind so stayed near the scenic coastline and anchored for a sunny lunchtime stop in Lulworth Cove, which was fun but busy. Left at 1400 for Weymouth but as the wind died we motored the last one & half hours into the port. We moored alongside another yacht well into the harbour on pontoon D5, right on the centre of the town. 27.3 miles in total.

Thursday 13th

Good Easterly / North Easterly winds so we set off for the 55 mile passage to Dartmouth at 0710. This brought us to Portland Bill at the right slack-tide time to pass close inside to avoid the “Race”. Sailing on a broad reach we make good time, though the weather gradually became cloudy, grey and eventually rainy, as forecast. This meant for much of the passage we were out of sight of land, so giving a different experience from earlier passages. Entry into Dartmouth was upwind sailing in stronger winds and poor visibility but proved straight forward. 54.8 miles in just under 10 hours. We took a berth in Darthaven Marina on the east side of the river, Kingswear. A very scenic place.

Friday 14th

Stayed at Darthaven and visited Dartmouth in the morning. In the afternoon, via the steam railway, visited Agatha Christie’s summer home, now a National Trust property, up river on the east side. An enjoyable day

Saturday 15th

Set off for Salcombe at 0925 in NW /W winds, 9 to 12 kts. We had an enjoyable sail, initially reaching to Start Point then upwind to Salcombe, total 18 miles. We started off in adverse tides to reach Start Point at slack water for an inside passage. Arrived at Salcombe around Low Water so took the narrow channel to the west of the Bar, also used by a couple of yachts ahead of us. At Salcombe we asked for mooring instructions and took an orange buoy as instructed, only to be told that this orange buoy was not a visitor’s one so we had to move to another! All good practice. (Note: Visitors buoys are orange AND marked with a V ). Salcombe was in full August holiday mode, a sort of sailing-town theme-park. We stayed two nights on the mooring, sharing with two other small yachts for the second night.

Sunday 16th

Enjoyed Salcombe ashore and afloat. Inflated and used our tender & outboard in earnest for the first time.

Monday 17th

Departed mooring at 0800 for Brixham. NE winds so beating East and North back to Prawle Point and Start Point. Favourable tide direction but tide flow not suitable for a close inshore rounding of these points so stayed a little offshore. This had the bonus of putting in contact with the northern edge of the Fastnet Race fleet making their way slowly west, downwind against tide. A chilly but sunny day giving a pleasant sail.

Wind dropped just after mid-day so motored after Berry Head and moored in Brixham Harbour Marina after four pm. 28 miles in just over six hours.

Brixham is more downmarket than Salcombe but is a good practical port; we had a great Tapas-style meal here.

Tuesday 18th

Not good wind forecast for a long eastward passage so went north to Teignmouth, just 10 miles, sailing across Torquay Bay. The wind dropped as forecast so we motored last part. We followed the Tom Cunliffe Channel Pilot advice on the entry with no problems, arriving HW +1. We moored on one of only two visitor pontoons; very cheap, very convenient (50m tender ride from the shore) and very picturesque. We spent the day pottering around Teignmouth and Shaldon (on the opposite shore of the estuary). A great place to stop.

Wednesday 19th

A good southerly wind forecast so suitable for our passage east but a very grey and rainy day. We left at 0735 for our 56 mile passage. The tide direction was favourable for this eastward leg but not suitable for passing close in to The Bill so we had to follow the outside route south of The Bill and then east of The Shambles. This made for a longer passage but with good strong winds we averaged 5.6 Kts through the water. However in increasing poor visibility and stronger winds we were very glad to finally make it into Portland Harbour. A good practical marina but not as interesting as Weymouth.

Highlight of the holiday: About ten miles due west of Portland Bill we saw a pod of five or six dolphins. Rather, they saw us, and leapt towards us from the north, dived under the boat, coming up all around us in a sort of starburst manoeuvre, then raced off astern. Too quick for a photo I’m afraid.

Thursday 20th

Another day of southerly winds to take us east to Poole. Damp and grey weather but no heavy rain. Departed Portland at 1000, starting off close hauled but gradually changing to a broad reach covering the 30 miles in six hours. We kept off St Albans Head to avoid the overfalls with today’s tide times. Berthing back in Poole Quay, still surrounded by huge motor boats. We had a great Thai take-away and then enjoyed the music and entertainments on the Quay, rounded of by huge fireworks.

Friday 21st

At last a sunny day and SW winds for our return to the Solent. We left Poole a 0900, motored out of the harbour and then sailed across Christchurch Bay. It was too early for the Bournemouth Air show, though there were a variety of naval vessels anchored there ready for it. We came in through the North Channel with a strong east-flowing tide in the Hurst narrows. We were not in a hurry to get back to the Hamble as our berth would be drying by the time we arrived so we returned to Lymington Yacht Haven and enjoyed an afternoon in Lymington, buying provisions for a good meal on board.

Saturday 22nd

Another sunny day with a good sailing wind for a beat back home to the Hamble. After the quiet waters further west, the Solent seemed very busy. We arrived back in time for lunch on board then sorted out ourselves and the boat ready for us to leave and drive home, tired but very satisfied with our holiday cruise.

George & Magdalen Hoskins, August 2015

JMC 2015 by Tessa Murphy

Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:03:14 GMT

Friday 17 April 2015

Hamble to Bucklers Hard

After arrival and introductions at Hamble it was clear that there was diversity in the crew and a wide variety of experience. As we set off on Tres Jolie it was clear that the skippers plans ran the length of the alphabet as he expertly manoeuvred out of a tight spot at the marina using plan A, B, C and a bit of D – our only disappointment was that the weekend ran out before we got to plan Z!

Heading out of the Hamble Tessa and Diarmuid the inexperienced crew were lulled into a false sense of security by being given bingo. Tessa discovered an unexpected desire to call house first which obsessed her throughout the weekend!

More serious matters followed as we had to find a particular unlit post in the dark – despite being able to see it clearly!

The next challenge was to navigate to Bucklers Hard using Krzysztofs’ navigation plan counting posts and watching the bar at Beaulieu river entrance. Tessa called up Purple Mist for instruction which was to moor in the gap between Purple Mist and another boat; later Kate gave different instruction that we needed to raft alongside another boat as the gap had been taken. When we arrived we could only assume it was a ghost boat - since the gap was clearly there. A touch of early confusion on the part of the Commodore? Or the sun was long gone over the yardarm!

Such an enjoyable and humorous evening fuelled by a few after mooring drinks with dinner.

Saturday 18 April

A beautiful morning at Bucklers Hard but another envelope advised a problem with the mast necessitating Jack to be hoisted aloft where he diagnosed the problem was only bird poo! Tessa followed unconvinced the sling would take her weight despite assurance from Andy - good job it did! Tess was heard murmuring to Diarmuid “does my bum look big in this”

We considered the best way to leave the mooring after watching the departure of Purple Mist and Apres le vents J Skilled use of a spring saw us away uneventfully. Throughout the journey crew Denis the skipper, Krzysztof first mate and Jack in particular shared thoughts and experience to achieve tasks and this made it a great learning experience as well as a challenge.

Lunch was spent bobbing on a buoy outside Yarmouth harbour which Denis was tasked to sail to and which Krzysztof skilfully lassoed first time – perhaps we should have had additional points for avoiding the harbour masters fees!

After sailing off the buoy expertly we all were tasked with telling jokes for another envelope and the wind dropped as we had to use all the sail controls to achieve the fastest speed through the water. Discussing which controls could be used was really useful for Tessa.

Krzysztof planned the next task navigating a sail into Newtown Creek which at low tide was a challenge but Denis gave it a go and successfully sailed into the entrance and out.

The day was finished at Cowes Yacht Haven where communication via radio was challenging and we found another boat on our designated mooring. Krzysztof created spaghetti junction on the chart as he went up and down waiting until we were told to moor up beside a non-existent boat with a French name leaving us to take the decision to raft alongside another Fairview yacht with a different French name.

A very good meal was had at Island yacht club where stories of the events so far were exchanged and Tessa delighted in spotting the burgee for the bingo. This was becoming an obsession!

Sunday 19 April

The first envelope of the morning set first mate Krzysztof with the task alongside the least experienced crew member to get the boat off the mooring on their own, which was achieved with no problem at all.

Out onto the Medina the skipper was set the task to moor single handed onto the training pontoon where by now Denis was beginning to make things look easy. Mission accomplished we set sails for some “slow” tacking down the Medina and back out to the Solent.

Envelopes then appeared quick and fast …we needed to record the fastest of 3 tacks in half hour which sadly we only managed as 8 knots with little wind. Then deciding what to do with an imaginary Chip pan fire on board which resulted in an imaginary abandoning of the ship…good job Tessa remembered that the handheld radio was in the table so she could call a ‘Mayfair’. It’s her age and she was getting tired!!

In the middle of all this activity we had what appeared (at least to the least experienced members of the crew) we had a very close shave with a racing yacht who insistently screamed that racing had priority over cruising while Andy quietly advised them of the correct COLREGs and that we were “starboard”

After a few man overboard tasks, Denis was given final envelope to get back to Hamble writing his name Denis in the water to show on the GPS track – great effort especially avoiding putting a longer track onto his D

Finally it was back to the visitor pontoon for the presentations, but not before Tessa called in bingo after spotting a Grimaldi ship at Southampton – success!

Winning skipper was Denis McFaul – a very well deserved accolade

Winning boat - Apres le vents, Peter Bromwich and crew

A big thanks to Andy who was especially patient with the least experience crew members, and to our fellow competitors on Apres le vents and Purple Mist skippered by Bethany, for helping make it such an enjoyable weekend.

For new and relatively inexperienced members Tessa and Diarmuid (crew on Tres Jolie) the whole weekend was enjoyable and a real learning experience to be highly recommended to anyone who hasn’t yet taken part.

Its an Ill Wind by Doug Hughes

Sun, 09 Nov 2014 14:28:24 GMT

So the JMC was cancelled, again! Although Kate still planned to go out in Purple Mist, Beth & I decided not to risk getting stuck in Cowes for the weekend.

Then a thought occurred. I had won a course with Southern Sailing in the club charity auction and, for one reason and another, had never quite managed to take it up. A quick call to James Murrison on Friday afternoon and I was signed up for the Day Skipper course starting on Sunday 19^th October.

So Sunday saw me travelling down to Southampton with not a little trepidation. The forecast for the week wasn’t good and I’d be sailing with a bunch of strangers and without Beth for the first time. But once on board “Tomfoolery”, a Sigma 36, with the instructor “Rafa”, a laid back Dutchman, and fellow course mates Philip (“Pip”), Stuart and Charlie, I was keen to get going. The first evening was just a short trip down to Warsash, but it was dark almost before we’d gone under the Itchen Bridge, so navigation was by lights. With so many navigation and other lights in that area things were sometimes a little confused. But we found our way to the pontoon and afterwards to the Rising Sun, just in time for last orders. First task accomplished!

After breakfast on Monday we did a bit of pontoon bashing then I was asked to make a passage plan. Oh dear! But then the good news. What had I been working on in preparation for the JMC ? A passage plan for the Beaulieu River. Where were we headed? You guessed it, the Beaulieu River. What a spot of luck! Once out of Southampton Water we were beating into quite a fresh breeze, but we found our way to the Lepe Spit SCM then to the yellow racing buoy and followed the transit into the river. Once round the first bend we dropped the main then motored up to mooring buoy near the sailing club. A large seal was on the pontoon, pretending to sleep but keeping one eye on us.
We motored all the way up to Bucklers Hard (useful JMC practice!) then sailed all the way back down and out into the Solent again. Heading across to the Isle of Wight in rising winds with three reefs in the main we did some heaving to and MOB exercises. Then off to Cowes in the increasing gloom, tying up at East Cowes just as darkness fell.
Bangers and mash for supper. The first mechanical failure was the grill on the cooker, which refused to stay lit. Gaffa tape had that sorted! This was not to be the only problem!

Tuesday was forecast to be the windiest day, with the tail end of hurricane Gonzalo coming through. We weren’t disappointed! Bramblemet was showing 30 knots gusting to 40, and 50 knots at Southampton dock head. We seemed to be the only sailing boat daft enough to venture out! We headed downwind to Portsmouth with three reefs in the main and a No. 4 jib and, surprisingly, it was actually a good sail. I can’t tell you the wind speeds we recorded, as none of the wind instrumentation was working. Something else to add to the fix list!
During the passage, Rafa pointed out that a significant amount of water was flowing out of the vent in his cabin and going across the floor before disappearing into the bilges! He didn't seem unduly concerned, but it was obviously something that needed investigating!
Once in Haslar marina, the covers in the aft cabin came off. Between Rafa, and Stuart (a plumber, fortunately) they concluded that it was a leak where the cooling water entered the exhaust pipe. Out with the Gaffa tape again and the problem appeared to be solved for now. There was still time for a drink or two in Minnie Mouse 2.

We went into Gosport on Wednesday morning to top up the supplies, particularly tomato ketchup which was sadly lacking on the boat. Then out through the small boat channel again with only one reef in the main as the wind had thankfully died somewhat. We were beating this time and had the tide against us, but things eased somewhat once the tide turned in our favour.
We sailed down to Newtown Creek and dropped anchor while we had lunch. It was a struggle getting in as the tide was already falling, and we only just managed to scrape out before the tide fell away completely. Then sideways across to Lymington in 3KN of cross tide in the failing light, with the front navigation lights needing some “encouragement” (banging!) to come on – another lesson in boat maintenance! We finally rafted up at the town quay with enough time to visit the Kings Head before turning in.

Thursday morning and we set off for Newtown Creek with Stuart making the passage plan. We didn’t stop, but just sailed to the cardinal then set off for Beaulieu again. As before, we waited until we'd rounded the first bend before dropping the main and motoring up to a mooring buoy. The same seal was in the same place it was on Monday. Perhaps it hadn't moved at all?
After a relaxed lunch we set off into the Solent to perform MOB manoeuvres, firstly using the engine and then under sail.
During all this, the engine high temperature warning sounded. Using the engine as little as possible, we headed into Cowes Yacht Haven.
Taking the engine cover off didn't reveal anything obvious. The impeller was checked, but that all looked OK. The water filter was clear. The engine was started and everything appeared normal. Unable to find anything obvious we agreed to see what it was like in the morning and headed to the pub.

Friday, the last day, started with bacon baguettes and coffee from Tiffins for a treat - delicious. We started the engine and left the marina but the smell soon told us that all was not well. We got the sails up as soon as possible and killed the engine. More investigation revealed that it was the same issue we had on Monday, but now water was leaking from the cooling system. With the system topped up the engine worked once more and Rafa declared that it would be OK for berthing back in Southampton.
We had a good final sail all the way up Southampton Water almost to the Itchen Bridge, before dropping the sails and motoring the final stretch to the pontoon.
As soon as the lines were tied, the mechanics started work on the issues we'd had, as the boat was due out again later that day for a seven day trip. Best of luck with that!
We unloaded our gear and gave the boat a clean through. Then the paperwork was completed and certificates issued. Hooray!

So thanks to the RBYC committee for organising the charity auction, and thanks to Southern Sailing for an interesting week, with rather more wind and boat maintenance than I could have wished for!

Doug Hughes

Polar diagrams for Benny 37 and Jenny 36i

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 05:21:38 GMT

If there was a test to find out how geeky you are it would be bound to have "do you have your polar plots on your boat?"

These are sometimes tricky to find, so here are the links to them for the Beneteau 37 and Jeaneau 36i with performance pack....

Benny 37

http://www.finot.com/bateaux/batproduction/beneteau/oceanis37/vpp/polaire%20oceanis%2037.pdf

Jenny 36i

http://www.jeanneau-owners2.com/technical/id377.htm

Skippers checklist and notes for a safety briefing

Wed, 09 Jul 2014 21:29:46 GMT

https://sites.google.com/site/yachtsafetybrief/

This is a link to my skippers notes that I put together when I was writing my first proper safety briefing for Solent charters. It has links to places with info that you can use to develop your own briefing and also my checklist I use when I charter. Feel free to steal anything you want. A word of caution though.....every safety briefing is different and depends on who you have on board and what is planned. This works for me but may not be right for you.

Weather Forecasting Service

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:48:14 GMT

The Sailing Weather Information Service (SailingWeather.co.uk) has now been extended to cover sailing areas of France, Spain, Italy, the North Sea and the Baltic. Their UK and Ireland areas have been enhanced too with updates at 6am and 6pm each day.

View all the forecasts at http://www.sailingweather.co.uk

They would love to hear what you think of the service and what extra you'd like to see. How about emailed forecasts, text messaging, more areas? Please email simon@weatherweb.net with your thoughts.

Follow Michael Soul in The Clipper Race

(Past member) — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 13:52:58 GMT

Clipper Race - Leg Eight - Yacht 'Qingdao'

  08.06.2014 - So here I am in the middle of the Atlantic, typing away with the boat
  leaning over at 30 degrees.
 
  New York was pretty hot when we arrived, about 28 deg.C The fleet
  congregated at Liberty Landing in the NJ side of the Hudson; Qingdao was
  still motoring slowly towards NY. After a bit of sightseeing I took the
  ferry over on Tuesday morning to register at the race office just as
  Qingdao arrived so I got some good photos of a very exhausted crew making
  land at last. The afternoon crew meeting was distinguished by a torrential
  thunderstorm that crammed all the new joiners under the awning. On Thursday
  I crewed the boat for a trip on the river with a party of visitors from
  potential sponsors - again it started with a downpour but by the time the
  visitors had found a parking space it cleared up. Friday was free (up the
Rockefeller) then Saturday was departure. Most of the day was taken up
parading up and down past Manhattan for photos - we finally waved goodbye
at 3 and motored out for a Le Mans start off Long Island at 18:30.
 
Long ocean racing is mainly about correctly interpreting the weather
forecasts. This race has been mostly distinguished by light airs: first
three days were hot and sunny and extremely slow for everyone and various
tactics were tried to make best progress. Unfortunately we lost out in
the lottery at this point and have been towards the back ever since. Days 4
and 5 it got windier with a big swell running which made cooking difficult
- we had our turn on day 6. Once past Newfoundland it got extremely cold
and we had to keep a lookout for mini-icebergs - this cold lasted a couple
of days. Lots of sightings of dolphins either fishing or swimming round the
boat; the occasional whale. Then we had another long period of downwind
sailing with the spinnaker up - same tack for several days and nights. Our
path to Ireland is blocked by high pressure systems with no wind so again
the boats are trying different tactics to get through or round them.
 
Life on board is now very routine - 5 watches per day between two half
crews; 600-1200, 1200-1800 day, 1800-2200-0200 night. i get a couple of
hours sleep at the start of every off watch. Getting dressed takes
over 20 minutes with all the layers and lifejacket; undressed about the
same. Going to the loo - 30 minutes. Bunks are shared - not enough to go
around. Unlike training where you practice "evolutions" all the time,
actual racing consists mainly of sitting on the deck as ballast for the
whole watch as the boat continues on the same course for days on end.
Occasionally we change a sail.
 
As I type this we are 10th (boo!) close hauled to the NE with less than
1000 miles to go out of 2950. This wind should remain stable for 2 days
when it is expected to die away and we will have to find some means of
getting round the corner to Derry. As the race is running late we may end
up being cut short and motoring the last few hundred
 
Please do not reply this all goes via satellite phone for which I have to
pay.
 
Michael Soul

Follow Rob Nelson in the Torquay Triangle Race

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:52:41 GMT

Congratulations to Committee member Rob Nelson who is currently topping the leader board of the Royal Torbay Yacht Club Torquay Triangle race.

The race is a double handed , 3 leg race from Torquay to Kinsale. Ireland and Treguier in Brittany and back to Torquay. Rob is crewing a J105. Results

Follow RBYC Club Member Peter on Javelin

Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:53:29 GMT

Club member, and former commodore, Peter Hurley has just set off with various other club members to take his boat Javelin to the Med. The image shows his progress to St Peter Port. If you would like to follow his progress, here is his blog:

www.offexploring.com/javelin

Also you can track him on AIS, search for Javelin:

Live Ships Map - AIS - Vessel Traffic and Positions - AIS ...

ShipAIS

VesselFinder : Free AIS Ship Tracking of Marine Traffic

“Apres le Vent – a skippers wife’s view of the JMC weekend”

(Past member) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 09:17:15 GMT

John Mountain Cup 2013

Thursday 3rd April 2014 – Gone to his Head.

“As Skipper I am allowed to keelhaul you if you don’t behave. Alternatively, I might place you on loo cleaning duty, so take a toothbrush!” Herein proof that some would-be skippers completely lose their sense of humour at the slightest sign of a misdemeanor from the married quarter. Excusable perhaps, being that the 2013 JMC was 6 months delayed and the tension has been building steadily.

Notwithstanding, the bags were packed, the victualing acquired and all of the Solent’s rivers, creeks and sea-like fissures had been plotted measured and graphed to within a centimetre of their lapping shorelines.

The alarm had been set for 6am for on the morrow we were to set sail for who-knows-where!

Friday 4th April 2014 – Dances with wolves, sails with tankers

At the Hamble it seemed Skipper was scuppered in his wish to get going as soon as the last crew member arrived. We found our charter company had packed the JMC yachts into the smallest possible space (had this predicament been prearranged by The Committee we wondered) with our Beneteau, ‘Apres Le Vent’, the most accessible by land but the most inaccessible for exiting the pontoon.

However, following the handover, safety brief, and numerous builders’ intakes of breath, the momentary, spaghetti-like warps transformed into a perfect swan-like exit from the pontoon. Just as well really as we were moored inches away from the marina’s bar veranda and the inevitable curious eyes of the customers!

Dinner on the hoof and the first letter.

With a passage plan to guide us out of the Hamble and our curry heating up for supper on the hoof, the crew waited with baited breath for the first envelope order from our adjudicator. When it came it seemed to be a fairly innocuous ‘find this point given these co-ordinates’ except there was an additional ‘oh and, by the way, we have disabled the electronic navigational aids’.

DINNER’S READY!

(Girls, you know the feeling. you’ve spent ages cooking dinner and without fail, the minute it’s ready the family have all gone off and found something else to do.)

We were getting on quite nicely, taking care not to impede the usual Solent traffic. However, just as we had finished the task, passing Calshot, we noticed that there was a big black hole where Cowes used to be. **? Further inspection revealed the ‘hole’ to be a rather large oil tanker looming. No probs., we thought, we’re safely out of the deep water channel. At the same time though, our heads spun round to see a motor boat with an ominous flashing blue light pirouetting spectacularly on his rudder,(hand-brake turn style) and inches from our stern, to make sure we were safe and to deliver a document.

Skipper’s first thought was ‘Blast! Not another ruddy envelope…’ We thought this was a rather 007 method of giving us our next JMC envelope but obviously The Committee wanted to impress. Our minds boggled, how would they top that with other clues? Her Majesty leaping out of a helicopter and parachuting onto the deck, perhaps?

We opened the document to see a brochure explaining the Solent precautionary channel. Our adjudicator’s Litter Picker ditty (previously blogged) will explain in more detail and how tremendously well we did with the task…

Saturday 5th April 2014 – Fun, frolics and failures a-plenty

The day began with something not seen for a long time on a Saturday morning: 07:00 on the clock face and an enthusiastic Michael taking notes from the 07:30 weather forecast.

Our adjudicator proceeded to ensure the rest of the crew were fully awake with a startling visual announcement. Enter stage right into the central saloon garbed in a shocking fluorescent turquoise outfit. The effect was similar to the arrival of Lee Van Cleef into town upon a frothing stallion bursting through the western saloon doors, gun in one hand and wanted poster in the other. Speechless with wonder, we took the poster which turned out not to be a wanted mug shot but another of the dreaded quests!

Howard Blumenthal calmed the fray with a delightful nouvelle cuisine-style Oeufs et du Bacon Pain avec café au lait. Yum!

Suitably refreshed we began the day’s tasks showing off our boat-handling skills in the Medina River. However, the day progressed steadily downhill; not only did our every means of assisted propulsion and holding completely fail, the weather degenerated into a foggy, wet mess too!

Still, we passed our final tasks of the day with great success resulting in a safe evening passage and mooring with just enough time to hang up our damp clothes and head out for a very welcome dinner. From feeling like ancient mariners, the evening evolved with salty seadog odes and songs. Oh yes, the RBYC know how to give a very good account of themselves!

Returning to our yacht was like taking a step into Widow Twanky’s Chinese Laundry. Our oilies, hanging everywhere, were drying out nicely with the aid of the on-board heating but the sauna-like atmosphere was stifling and the only thing missing was the Chinese patois and steaming washing kettles of boiling water. Never mind, one of our crew was on an assignation with the glamorous love of his life, leaving us with a teenage style farewell: “don’t wait up…”

Sunday 6th April 2014 – Throw us an elephant why don’t you!

The morning started with a light hearted task, drop the egg from the spreaders onto the deck without smashing it. Easier said than done, eggs drifted off into the river, some floated away downstream and others smashed but heck, it was all about taking part!

Back to the matter in hand, the day was dry but, the gusts, oh the gusts! We pootled out of the river, in which we’d stayed overnight, to continue with the tasks. With one crew member down due to an unidentified lurgy, we had by this stage become rather blasé on the basis (I am sure we were not alone in this thinking) that as we were bound not to have won, we might just as well enjoy the practice and advancement of our personal sailing skills.

Time to mention the elephant in the room: this was, in fact, a fender and bucket on the pushpit. Cunning little devil that he is, our adjudicator tied on said elephant at the beginning of the day and left it there for us to become used to and, foolishly, we did.

The envelopes flowed like confetti and the tasks set were made more difficult by the blustery weather, however, we progressed through them with ever wearying muscles. Having just finished battling with the sails, which were going up and down like a yoyo, we were congratulating ourselves as pure heroes, having got to that stage without harm to man nor boat. We could have merrily strangled our adjudicator as he caught someone’s eye and with a maniacal look of glee, defiantly chucked the elephant over the side.

MAN OVERBOARD!

OMG we thought as one… There was only a moment’s hesitation before we broke into the standard routine.

Eventually we wrestled the bedraggled elephant on board then headed wearily off to Cowes. On route we toyed with an enthusiastic harbour master waiting to collect our fees for mooring on one of his buoys. However, we managed to wear him down after several unsuccessful attempts at picking up the buoy under sail and he eventually gave us up as a bad job!

It seemed our adjudicator did too and he allowed us to join the rest of the JMC competitors at our final destination.

Prizes and surprises!

Well done to the best boat, Fleur de Lis and to all who had taken part. To our Skipper’s surprise he won the Best Skipper prize and (for once in his life) was speechless!

We think our adjudicator also deserved a prize because we really put him through his paces too.

What a weekend, what a fab time we had! Hey, keep a weather eye on the horizon for, come October, we’ll be back!

Di Bromwich

JMC Ode from Javelin

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 16:52:25 GMT

Ode for Javelin on the John Mountain cup

Javelin is on the JMC, We are going off to sea

challenged by our envelopes, working hard we live in hope

Heave ho, heave ho, heave ho and off we go!

The point awards will come our way, adjudicators we will sway

we tried to bribe him with a cake, but that's not enough for goodness sake.

Heave ho, heave ho, it's off to the bank we all go!

The rain is pouring down on us, but we try not to make a fuss

We did towing in the Medina, Purple Mist was our redeemer

Heave ho, heave ho, heave ho and off we go!

Sunday is our final day, hope the rain clouds go away

we have got an egg drop task, which means that Jo is going up the mast!

Heave ho, heave ho, heave ho and home we go!

JMC Song from Porky Pie

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:50:42 GMT

To the tune of “Yellow Submarine”

The RBYC

Sent the fleet to sea,

For the JMC,

For the JMC.

Well, they had more ships

Than the Queen’s Navy,

The Queen’s Navy,

The Queen’s Navy.

But we don’t really know,

Where the hell to go,

So the skippers sent below,

The skippers sent below.

And we still don’t know,

Where the hell to go,

Yes, we still don’t know.

Advant le Vent, thinks her chances strong,

But we’ll prove her wrong,

Yes we’ll prove her wrong.

And Fleur de Lyes,

Is such a tease,

But we’ll beat her with ease,

Yes, we’ll beat her with ease.

And Modernistic Lady,

Definitely shady,

But in with a chance,

Well, yes maybe.

And PourQuo Pas,

We’ve learnt such a lot,

And Win or not,

We’ll raise a tot.

John Mountain Cup aboard “Fleur de Les”

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:18:07 GMT

What a great weekend, topped off by winning best boat. Totally unexpected!

We arrived on Friday to find skipper Denis & adjudicator Les already aboard "Fleur de Lis", a Benetau Oceanis 37.

It looked like Clare wasn't going to join us, so we were down to skipper and two crew. The first of many envelopes appeared - First Mate to give the safety brief - then time to get away. Leaving plan made & well executed by our skipper and we were off.

We motored out of the Hamble, then the next envelope. Crikey! Apparently we had lost the prop! Our first plan, to drop the anchor, was scuppered as the anchor was still in the locker! Plan B, to get the headsail out quick sharp, was completed only just in time but we managed to sail into deeper water, then the prop magically re-appeared!

Envelope number three. Predict the depth of water at a given position, get there and compare. We quickly discovered that finding out where you are, planning how to get somewhere else and knowing that you'd arrived is much more difficult in practice than theory! But we got quite close and our depth prediction wasn't far out. Lessons learnt - keep it simple and double check your bearings.

Then on to East Cowes, a very controlled berthing by skipper and the welcome aroma of lasagne from below. Very nice meal – thanks Denis.

Next day we were joined by Clare, who had arrived via the Red Jet ferry, the chain link ferry and taxi. Well done!

Off up the Medina, and then engine problems again. We needed a tow and, by pure coincidence, Trevor on “Porquoi Pas” was circling around just looking for someone to tow! A short tow completed, then it was “Porquoi Pas” that needed an alongside tow. It all seemed to go very well.

Out of the Medina through the small boat channel - watch the depth - then the next challenge, to pick up a mooring buoy. This went well but we'd only been there a few minutes before being "moved on" by the harbour master. A dredger was coming through. How inconsiderate!

The presence of a bucket and fender on the rear rail gave a hint of what was next, but crafty Les managed to take us by surprise when deep in conversation and it's surprising how far you can travel whilst getting a rescue plan together. Still, we recovered our "man" in four minutes at the first attempt, so it wasn't at all bad.

Anchor now in place (!) we were able to drop & recover it off Newtown Creek entrance, with Denis doing a sterling job of pulling it in by hand.

Then the (fictitious) fog descended, and we had to blind navigate to the entrance of the Beaulieu river. Beth at the helm, blindfolded, with course to steer instructions coming up from Denis & Clare below. The (real) weather just got worse and worse, but we managed to get very close before Les called it done. Despite the miserable rain we were soon moored at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. Time for a quick shower before dinner, but no time at all to prepare anything like a good poem! We were certainly eclipsed by the excellent writing and performances by all the other boats.

Denis put an inordinate amount of thought and effort into constructing a splendid egg-protecting container. Looking a little nervous, Bethany was winched to the first spreaders and released the egg. It survived intact! And so did Beth, coming back down with a big grin and declaring "that was great".

Back down the Beaulieu and into open water for some reefing practice. Half way through putting a reef in, we suffered a non-fictitious gear failure! The second reef block had parted company with the sail, putting us on third reef for the rest of the day.

We had only just got the third reef in when the pesky "man" decided to go overboard. Again! Recovery wasn't quite so swift this time, but eventually bucket and fender were back safe in the locker.

Judging by all the Fairview boats criss-crossing each other just outside Cowes entrance, we weren't the only crew to find picking up a mooring buoy under sail something of a challenge. It must have all looked very amusing from the shore, but it was very frustrating. It took several attempts but we finally caught it! After successful completion of the final berthing challenge in Cowes Yacht Haven, lunchtime!

Les disappeared into a judgely huddle with the rest of the adjudicators then re-appeared giving nothing away. We were to gather outside the Marina building in ten minutes for the prize giving. Our crew (myself included) were so busy chatting however, that we lost track of time. It wasn't until Clare said "it's gone very quiet" that we suddenly realised that we should have been elsewhere. We got there just in time to see Peter get his well-deserved Best Skipper award. Then, hang on a minute, why is Denis holding a big cup? Surely not! Yes, we had somehow won best boat. Sorry everyone for not managing to make our own presentation time!! Bethany really appreciated her special award for her berthing and mast-climbing antics, so thank you for that little extra surprise.

A huge thank you to Kate, all the adjudicators and everyone else involved in the planning and organisation. I know Bethany and I learnt a huge amount and had a great time also. I'm sure everyone else did too. Definitely an event worth doing!

Doug & Bethany Hughes

JMC Caption Competition

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 19:15:44 GMT

Thanks to all the JMC crews for some very funny contributions to the caption competition Saturday Night. Here are some of my Favorites:

OK, Ive harpooned the whale, you deal with it.
I thought we were sailing not kite surfing.
Two Sailors trying to Pull.
Shouldn't the spinnaker have been attached to the boat .
It's no good I cannae hold it cap'n (Scottish voice from Star Trek) .
This tow rope, did you want it round a cleat ?

Show me the workings for that tidal calculation again?
This'll be the last time we let Les tow us
When I said on the rocks, I meant my whisky
I said just blow the bloody doors off
I said 1/2 mile SOUTH of Beaulieu river, not north.

OMG is that Kate AGAIN?
Have I got Kate in my contacts?
Yachting Monthly Skippers Tip 200, If you cant get Kate on the radio, check for a text.
Where's Channel 16 on this thing?

How Many JMC points do I get for this
I said wait until I drop the egg, not drop me
Its fun to be at the Y...M...
Looks no hands.....arggghhhhh!
If I do this they wont realise how scared I am

Note to self, dont practice walking on water without checking the tide tables
This is supposed to be a ski-ing holiday
You put your right foot in, your right foot out...
I thought only Brian Clough could walk on water
Do I still need these now the snow has melted?

Saturday night song and poem by Apres le Vent

(Past member) — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:00:11 GMT

Apres le Vent Song and poem from Saturday nights JMC dinner.

To the tune of a well know girl band’s hit…

(crew)

Just tell us what you want,

what you really really want

(skippers)

We’ll tell you what we want, what we really really want,

We want you

We want you to just bloody do it now!

(crew)

If you want to be our skipper, you gotta do better than that.

(Skippers)

If im gonna be your skipper I don’t want none of your c**p

(Pete)

If im gonna be your skipper, I want my breakfast in bed

(Diane)

You aint gonna be MY skipper, and you aint gonna get fed!

(all)

RBYC what are we gonna do?

(More verses required…any takers?)

The litter picker letter, by Rob Hammond.

It was a late windy night and we were on a mission,

To find a five meter contour, with a phantom position,

Devised by a deviant, with a mean disposition

We eventually found it and left with a smile

Only to realise we’d missed by a mile!

With a shrug of the shoulders and an ‘oh buggeration’

We set off south for our next destination

When the helm suddenly cried “goodness me, what’s that I’ve espied?”

The lights on Cowes have gone out, just like the war

And if we don’t move over, our butts will be sore.

The hulk lumbered past and out of his wake

Came the pilot boat, in a hurry, to us, for goodness sake.

He shone his search light in our eyes, the great twit

It mucked up our night vision, as it would, just a bit.

And growled by our stern like a big cat on the hunt

The bloody great lumbering stupid ….

He finally approached us, from the rear

And as he came up, his man did appear

on his rail holding what looked like a spear.

Lucky for me with my dicky ticker

It turned out to be a long litter picker.

“You might like to read this” he said without pause

And put something official in between its jaws

It turned out to be useful advice, and some flannel

But at no point had we entered his bloody deep channel!

JMC: Saturday Night Song by Purple Mist

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 20:21:20 GMT

From the crew of Purple Mist with apologies to Morecambe and Wise

Friday evening, after work,

Sailing the Solent, in the murk,

Navigational tasks, that are set to tax our brain,

Lat and long to work out and lots of buoys to find.

Give me sunshine, instead of rain,

Let's unfurl the jib, and hoist the main,

Let's sail across the sea with friends from RBYC,

Give me Richard, give me John and give me Rob.

Then the rain came, what a blow,

Drip dry Les on deck, crew below,

Engine failure assured, then a man went overboard,

We had cloud, we had fog and then it poured.

Stella, Cecil and Peter

March training weekend

(Past member) — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 20:10:03 GMT

Just one boatful of hardy types for the March training weekend, our skipper was David Head, Friday and Saturday night victualler was Di Bromwich, mate Pete Bromwich and crew were David Laws, complete with a wonderful cake, and a new member on her first trip with the club, Laura Sambrook.

We set off for Cowes on Friday night after a superb meal of sun dried tomato and chicken and pilaf followed by summer fruit pie complete with a sailing boat motif on the crust! Thank goodness we ate well, after a small detour to find East Knoll we were treated to 38 knot gusts, hail and rain. But we were all warm inside! So off to East Cowes for the night, after quick tidal calculation to make sure we were OK overnight , and a well earned beer.

Early start on Saturday as we had loads of tasks to do, first up was pontoon bashing which went well and a reverse mooring for Pete, why make it easy? Then off to Bembridge for lunch and a secondary port calculation, which we checked against the tidal gauge.

After sailing to a lat and long (without using the GPS), the plan was to go to the mouth of the Beaulieu River then off to Yarmouth doing a blind nav. However after a very fast sail from Cowes to Beaulieu and a look at the state of the Solent in the strong wind against tide we had a quick change of plan and made our way back to Cowes for the night after a bit of a play around. Thank goodness for that, with winds of 25 knots, a choppy sea and hour below would have given us a very green Pete!

Saturday nights eat on board meal was beef in ale followed by apple crumble and custard, after a few drinks and a quiz or two we all turned in early.

Sunday was another early start as we still had plenty to do, some more pontoon work including a reverse park for David, sail back to Southampton water for some picking up mooring practice then back to the Hamble to refuel and try out the emergency tiller. We all had a go at steering with the emergency tiller, what a struggle, you certainly would not want to sail for a long passages with it.

We all went off back home having had an excellent training weekend and practice for the JMC for Pete and Diane!

A Winters Tale (aka RBYC Skippers trip 2014)

Tue, 25 Feb 2014 13:38:25 GMT

A Winters Tale (aka RBYC Skippers trip 2014)

With thanks to William Shakespeare for choosing some apt titles for his plays

Cast: Kate Cope (skipper), Les Harris (mate), Richard Lindsay, Gary Careswell, Steve Wright, Trevor Bateman (special guest), Peter Terry (special guest), Neil Dunnet (the Scribe).

Measure for Measure

Lily of Hamble 50 ft Bavaria; 1 amazing skipper, 7 amazing crew; max wind speed 43 kn, max boat speed 11.2 kn (SOG)

Two Gentlemen of Verona

The closest we can get is seven gentlemen of Berkshire; whoops make that six from Berkshire and one from Gloucestershire

Much Ado About Nothing

A great relaxing weekend, with cracking sailing. Did I tell you about the max wind speed of 43 knots – no problem?

Richard III (or our Richard)

‘Now is the winter of our discontent…..’ We’re all a bit fed up with the weather too.

Macbeth/Hamlet/Othello/King Lear/Anthony and Cleo et al

Crew members next year perhaps

Titus Andronicus

No idea how he got in here

Merchant of Venice (well Yarmouth)

Had to buy a few extra victuals within 24 hours of leaving the Hamble (but note – no beer!)

As You Like It

Great company, lots of chatting, brilliant sailing, food, beer and wine ….

Comedy of Errors

Uncharitable observers might rate the performance of the crew for the weekend ….

The Tempest

Sunday morning leaving Yarmouth – did I tell you about the max wind speed of 43 knots?

All's Well That Ends Well

Sunday afternoon back in the Hamble after a great trip

PS Snow White and the Seven Dwarves crept onto this blog as I was about to go to print…

Any parallel with this story and the crew is purely coincidental, but if any reader would like to think who might fit the characters of Happy (the Scribe?), Grumpy, Doc, Bashful, Sleepy (no competition), Sneezy and Dopey (I couldn’t possibly comment), please let the skipper know.

RYA First Aid Training: Jan 18th

Sat, 18 Jan 2014 20:20:49 GMT

RYA First Aid Training

On Saturday 18th Jan we had a full house our RYA First Aid Training. Our trainers were Peter and Carol-Ann Pocock who certainly lived up to the introduction from Tanya as probably the best First Aid trainers in the South. They were assisted by there four legged friend Jessica the dog - who modelled bandages beautifully..... as did Les when we found a new way to stop him chatting.

The training started with CPR, after the theory we had lots of chance to practice to the tune of Nellie the Elephant.

Then came the perils of Hypothermia, where we were shown a very clever warming blanket. This blanket also came in a "Onesie" version which Les offered to model for the class.

With Lunch there was the chance to fly the radio controlled rescue helicopter - I do hope if I ever need one the pilot is a little more steady,

Finally the obligatory gruesome pictures of cuts and burns. There were some particularly horrible pictures of accidents to the fingers from getting rings caught - I don't think anyone will be wearing rings sailing after viewing those.

Fantastic training if you haven't attended. Thanks to Tanya for organising, I'm sure they will be back next year.

Kate Cope

Sandhurst, Berkshire Weather Station

(Past member) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 13:17:29 GMT

I stumbled upon this fantastic, local web site a while ago.

I was keen to get the live feed from the site owner as html code so that we could use this data on The RBYC web site but the software is on the weather site server and was quite expensive to purchase.

Sandhurst Weather is located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, UK. Our location is at 51° 21' 08" N : 0° 46' 26" W and we are 83m above sea level.

The site was established in October 2006 and runs continuously. The Home and Live Weather pages are updated about every 20 seconds, the rest of the site is updated every 10 minutes, although continuous updating depends on the internet connection not failing, so if the last updated time is a while ago, then the connection has failed and will be re-connected as soon as possible.

The station is powered by an Oregon Scientific WMR928NX weather station. The data is collected every minute by a dedicated low power computer using Weather Display Software, which also automatically uploads the data for this website at set intervals. The station comprises of an anemometer, rain gauge and a thermo-hydro sensor situated in optimal positions for highest accuracy possible.

Visit Sandhurst, Berkshire Weather Live Data

Earth Wind Maps

(Past member) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 13:11:06 GMT

I love an interesting news story!

An interactive globe that shows up-to-date air currents across the world in breathtaking beauty has been created.

Simply called 'Earth Wind Map', the website shows the winds that traverse our planet as snaking lines, with outlines of the continents beneath.

A gentle breeze is shown by a thin strand of green, while strong winds are bright yellow. The strongest currents are bright red.

Users can drag the globe to their desired location and click on the spot they want to find out what the wind speed is. Fun!

2014 Cruising Calendar

Sat, 14 Dec 2013 12:52:13 GMT

The 2014 Cruising Calendar is now published.

If you want a break from the Winter weather, then start dreaming of summer sun, take a look and start planning a few trips. Events will be available to book in the New Year.

Thanks to the Cruising committee - especially Peter and Pauline for the hard work that has gone into planning 2014. Cruising Schedule 2014

Photos of the Shallows of the Solent

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:08:38 GMT

New Website shows pictures of the Shallows in the Solent.
A low spring tide in August gave this team the opportunity to photograph the shallow areas in the Solent. Check out how the Shingles has moved and the Bramble bank is lower.

Solent Shallows Website

An extremely low spring tide in August gave the opportunity for aerial pictures to highlight ever present dangers in the Solent.

The Solent Shallows website has 62 different images, showing the Solent's trouble spots, and how they have changed. As the pictures show, Shingle Bank has moved slightly, Brambles Bank is lower and Stone Point is far larger and shallower
Read more at http://www.motorboatsmonthly.co.uk/news/535736/aerial-photos-show-underwater-solent-dangers#VbKcdcXk11FKe2jU.99

If you didn't fancy the shops.... Why not try a weather course?

(Past member) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 13:04:37 GMT

So, when the rest of the world is Christmas shopping on the first weekend after payday, what do you do with 5 club skippers, a retired physics teacher and assorted other RBYC members?

Well, we had all booked onto Simon Rowell’s Weather for Sailors course, and so, with slight trepidation after flicking through the 112 page course manual we packed into a nice warm classroom in Theale Library.

Simon is a fun, entertaining and extremely knowledgeable trainer – he promised, and delivered plenty of tea – and also a thorough and challenging course into global weather patterns. We learned some new words, like cyclogenesis – Peter Hurley’s particular favourite - and by the afternoon the concept of the coriolis effect was tripping off our tongues! We stopped talking about pressure being measured in millibars and talked about measuring pressure in hecto pascals, and we learned how to interpret synoptic charts, and not just the surface pressure ones, but also the upper level charts.

At lunch time David Maxwell checked out the local pub, while the rest of us checked out the local sandwich shop. This was an occasion where alcohol was definitely not going to help!

Just when we thought we’d got to grips with mid latitude weather, we moved onto tropical weather. I now know which side of the hurricane, or tropical revolving storm to used the correct terminology, to choose. There is a dangerous semi circle, and a navigable one – as both involve winds of 85 knots, I have carefully filed this information in my brain, and committed to being in the pub at this point.

So, all in all a challenging and fascinating day. This group arrived with thousands of miles of sailing experience, and plenty of experience of weather! Heads were scratched, questions were asked and we all came away with a huge amount of new knowledge. Simon was reassuring, “Weather is easy – its just little parcels of air moving around the globe!”

So, if other RBYC members would be interested in this course, please let Tanya Robinson know, and I’ll happily arrange another course, if the demand is there.

Do you like forms and checklists????

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 21:53:32 GMT

Here is a handy link to PBO contributor Sticky Stapletons forms and checklist for skippering.

Some very handy checklists for safety briefs, passage planning, tides, flags even Astro navigation if anyone can remember how to do it....

Link to PBO article

Could be a handy compliment to our own RBYC checklists for those taking part in JMC!!!!

Sailing - Skipper / Crew Info for your trip

Javelin does Fastnet 2013

(Past member) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:54:07 GMT

Please see my blog for the report on Javelin's adventure doing Fastnet last week.

www.pesailing.com

Thanks to all the club members who supported & tracked us.

Pauline

John Mountain Cup: This years Skippers are......

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:23:39 GMT

Planning is very much underway for this years John Mountain Cup.

One of the first job is to choose the trainee skippers who have demonstrated the skills to skipper the boats. Each skipper will be under the watchful eye of an adjudicator, one of our club skippers who can help out and ensure everyone stays safe.

This year the skippers competing for the coveted skippers shield are: Peter Bromwich, Denis McFaul, Trevor Bateman and Roddy McColl. Good Luck to them all.

Fastnet - Are We Ready?

(Past member) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 13:14:20 GMT

To read the latest installment on Javelin's preparation for this years Fastnet race (starts 11th August), please go to www.pesailing.com.

Pauline

Fastnet – Cowes to Dinard / St Malo (in theory)! Written by Pauline Errey

(Past member) — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:46:50 GMT

We were back to a crew of 6 for this race. Tanya had returned but hubby was unable to come due to work (what’s that!) & was replaced by Spongebob Square Pants (aka Jim).

Due to the fabulous weather we are currently having, there was absolutely no way we were going to get from Cowes to St Malo in this life time. A huge high pressure system had parked its derrière over the UK with no intention of moving. What wind there was, was steadily moving south – unfortunately faster than the intrepid Javelin could carry us.

We had a gentle drift down wind against the tide at the start, while waiting for the sea breeze to kick in, which it duly did, giving us a cracking sail out of the Needles. Then, at St Alban’s Head, the sea breeze turned off & the wind had gone on its travels to France without us. A night on anchor, followed by a brief sail Saturday morning when the tide turned, before we conceded defeat & retired from the race (along with most of the fleet in our class). A pleasant motor back to the Solent with the afternoon spent practising the spinnaker. Then an earlier finish than planned & I got to spend some time at home with my hubby (for the first time in AGES!!!).

But there is now

Put the Kettle On.

With the forecast of little wind, we needed to top up on fuel to ensure we could get back to land if we ended up drifting aimlessly mid channel. So we slipped our moorings at Shamrock & went aallll the way to the fuel pontoon on the river Itchen. Clearly after such a strenuous sail, a cuppa tea was required to revive the crew. Well we did have to wait for the fuel guy to come down & open up his wee hut.

Now it’s Getting Tight to Qualify….

We signed up to do 5 of the Fastnet qualifying races, which would give us significantly more than the required 300 miles. It also gave us a buffer eg should we lose one of the races eg due to an incident or the weather. Unfortunately we have lost 2 & both of them were the higher mileage races – the Myth of Malham where we had to retire due to the head vs spinnaker pole incident & now this latest race to St Malo due to lack of wind.

The good news is we have one race left in 2 weeks time that will give us the required mileage. The bad news is that all the weather pundits are saying that this ‘good’ weather is going to hold for the next couple of weeks. I don’t mean to be a spoil sport but I have to inform you that I am doing my wind dance on a daily basis now – with renewed vim & vigour. So word to the wise – don’t plan any elaborate outdoor events that require good weather for 27th / 28th August – coz it’s going to be a little bit windy.

What No Pit Boss??

To everyone’s relief , Tanya, our pit boss, returned for this race & within no time at all had licked John & I back into shape as her pit crew. Then the bombshell – unfortunately she was having to pull out from the rest of the campaign & would not be doing the last qualifying or the Fastnet race with us. This is a HUGE loss to us.

Moi? Pit Boss?? Really???

But it got worse. I’m the new pit ‘boss’ – OMG! Hence the intensive spinnaker training Saturday afternoon. Not always pretty but with the superb training from Tanya – hopefully any major embarrassments can be avoided. Forward : In, Back : Out (I think).

What About the Toasties?

In addition to being the pit boss, Tanya also victualled the boat. As you will have read in previous blogs her toasties are legendary & the highlight of our race weekends. So I know we have a toasted sandwich maker somewhere in the loft – the question is where on earth it is?

It’s here somewhere – I think

He’s Not Really Going to do That is He?

During our gentle drift down the western Solent, we found ourselves in the middle of the pack (a first for us!). Alex, our First Mate, kindly pointed out to one boat that they were trailing a line (her killer instinct having temporarily gone AWOL!!!). In return, the rather cultured gentleman generously shared his local sailing knowledge about where to get the best wind (yep – we were moving that slowly you could have an in-depth conversation with the boats next to you). How nice. Well not really, as the wombat, who was the windward boat (we were both on port tack) declared he was going to gybe, which would have had him turn into us.

Hey! Who you calling a wombat?

A brief & rather terse exchange followed that demonstrated a clear difference of opinion about the racing rules. So what did he do? Gybed right on top of us – forcing us to gybe to avoid a collision & causing us all sorts of grief as we weren’t ready. At this point the FM killer instinct returned with a vengeance & from within the spinnaker (she does seem to spend a lot of time wrapped up in that sail) could be herds shouting ‘Protest!!! That is a despicable display of poor seaman ship’. I think most of the Solent heard how she felt. Unfortunately, in order to submit a protest we had to get to St Malo. So while our red protest flag got its first outing, the wombat got off!

How Much Anchor Chain Do We Have?

Of course, you never run out of wind somewhere convenient. We were off St Alban’s Head – in the overfalls, when the aimless drifting started. After flopping about for a while the decision to anchor was made. Now in theory, if you have all chain anchor cable, you should put down 4X the amount of chain as the depth of water that you are in.

I can reach the bottom – just!

We’d come to a stop in 30m of water. Now we definitely had more than 30m of chain but nowhere near the recommended 120m. Fortunately the sea was very calm & as I’ve mentioned in passing once or twice already, there was naff all wind. So parking up in the overfalls was feasible. Comfortable? Well a bit rolly. Did the anchor hold? Sort of – we didn’t go too far.

Yankee Signal Flag – Am dragging anchor

As each of us took it in turns to do the anchor watch, we were entertained by watching one of our fellow competitors who didn’t have a long enough anchor cable, slowly drift backwards – his track illuminated by his pretty green starboard nav light.

The Portland Coastguard Sweepstake.

I love the coastguard. They are fantastic in helping out in a crisis, have the patience of saints in dealing with some of the calls they get & clearly have nothing better to do on a gorgeous summer’s weekend than manage the huge number of boats that retired from the race. Race rules require retiring boats to contact the RORC boat on Channel 72 (only really feasible near the start & finish of the race) & if unable to raise RORC, to call the Coastguard.

So early Friday evening the calls started to go into Portland Coastguard. Soon, when boats hailed them on Channel 16, they were asked ‘If it is routine traffic or if you are retiring from the race, to go to channel 73.’ Obviously being innately curious (ie nosey) we’d switch to 73 to hear what was going on. As the evening wore on & more boats retired, the Coastguards, started to get a bit chattier. On hearing the later boats declare they’re intentions were to go into Weymouth, the Coastguard wished them a great evening partying with the other race boats that were already in.

Hmmm! I reckon …..

Night fell & all went quiet on the radio (apart from Lancelot towing in another race boat with engine problems – very gallant). So picture the scene. Early morning, the tide turns. Anchors are raised as the optimistic souls who didn’t go into Weymouth, endeavour to find wind. Optimum conditions for a sweepstake me thinks! Who’s going to retire first? What time will the last boat retire? As most of the boats have AIS on them, the Coastguard could track the lack of progress being made. Now clearly they are waaay too professional to run a sweepstake but it must have been soooo tempting.

Food Update

While the Toasties are by far the favourite food on-board Javelin, the spicy min-beef pasties come a close second. Last race I missed having one as the pack was inhaled by 3 of the crew in the blink of an eye (well actually in the time it took me to make them all a cuppa tea). This race, 2 packets were on-board & I got to try one – at 5am Saturday morning as we drifted off anchor. I can see why they were popular but, although they are mini – you get to enjoy them repeatedly for quite a while afterwards.

To ensure a balanced diet, there are also yoghurts available. This time some funky corner ones – with strawberry goop or chocolate balls. The strawberry ones were much preferred after the skipper was heard to say ‘My balls don’t taste of anything’ – way more information than the rest of us needed thank you.

Deck Shoe Update

My funky new deck shoes – ROCK!!! They don’t go with anything but what the heck. They are bright & cheerful – just like me. Happy days.

Hard to lose track of me in these!

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The art of motivation - our third fastnet qualifier - written by Pauline Errey

(Past member) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:27:47 GMT

As our Fastnet campaign continues, this weekend saw Javelin & her crew schlep out to Dieppe & back. This race provided some useful learning & insights into crew motivation.

So how can you tell what the motivation levels are on the boat? Here are some of the signals:

So focused on racing & winning that they forget to wash for 3 days.
Bounce out of their bunk with a ready smile when roused once again from their sleep when they are off watch.

Understand the need to keep their energy levels high so they are coiled, primed & ready to spring into action when required. One top nutritional source was mini chilli beef pasties (apparently they taste scrummy – so scummy that 3 crew ate all of them before the Skipper & I could even get a look in!) However, the gold standard was the pre-made toasted cheese & ham sandwiches, rewarmed in the oven on Saturday & also eaten cold from the fridge on Sunday. Nothing tastes better, particularly when sitting in fog early Sunday morning just off the end of the Traffic Separation Zone, dodging big ships.
Will stop at nothing to raise morale - from flashing their boxers at the helm when they went off for a fag, to offering to rummage & retrieve my half a chunky Kit Kat I’d saved for later & now couldn’t access as it was buried under my life jacket, oilies etc. As for some of the other suggestions on how to pass the time as we were wallowing mid channel – my lips are sealed. What happens on the boat, stays on the boat.
How to Motivate Racing Teams

1. Have a Racing Groupie.

In our case this is Kate (the RBYC Commodore) on her yacht Purple Mist. Friday night, just after we’d crossed the start line, Kate’s dulcet tones could be heard ringing out across the water as she motored towards us, waving to wish us luck.

Kate – likes to be in the midst of the action
It was very much appreciated – almost as much as the confusion she then created amongst our competitors as she ploughed her way across the start line (I’m joking – she missed most of them!).

2. Drink Copious Cups of Tea

It is highly recommended that once you have crossed the start line you put the kettle on. Do not be distracted by the fact that all the other boats are putting their spinnakers up. Keeping the crew hydrated is far more important. You will then be able to sit comfortably, drinking your cuppa & watch all the other boats broach & rip their spinnakers.

3. Have a Pit Boss – in the Pit

Unfortunately Tanya, our pit boss, was sick & not able to do the race this weekend. This left Peter, the poor Skipper, watching in angst at the helm while his two spinnaker cockpit novices valiantly endeavoured to work out guys from sheets (both red!!) using novel & highly unprofessional aide memoirs eg ‘pull the guys’ which are the thicker of the two red lines became the ‘pull the fat bloke’. This did cause low levels of immature teenage like sniggering from one of the cockpit team each time she got to say it – sorry!

Sooo funny ….
Alex, our First Mate & Bow Boss, did try to take on Tanya’s role & direct activities from the bow. It was quite hard to hear her though, particularly when she was all wrapped up in the spinnaker – oops let go of the wrong line again.

4. Have Team Racing Gear

After our first Fastnet feeder race we decided to get team jackets. This week we got to try them on for size. They look really smart – although the men’s seem to have a unique design feature & give all our guys moobs. Maybe I should wear a man’s top ….

How NOT to Motivate Racing Teams

1. The Course

Picture the scene. 1900 start at Cowes. Head off out to the forts past Portsmouth (arrived there at 2030), out to Owers past Selsey Bill then turn BACK AROUND, beat upwind & against a springish tide & go all the way back to Nab tower BEFORE you start heading off across the channel. EIGHT hours after having left Cowes we were finally back at Nab Tower. I can officially declare that that is one of the few times I have been right royally grumpy while on a boat. All that work to go absolutely nowhere.

Then if that wasn’t bad enough, we got halfway across the channel & ran out of wind. Javelin is a heavy boat that goes on strike when there is less than 10 knots of wind. So after having spent most to of the night slogging our way back to Nab Tower we then flopped & wallowed, drifting with the tide in the channel. Seeing our boat speed record 0.0 kn – was the low point of our race. I know that there was (probably) a very good reason for the course being designed the way it was – but that doesn’t mean I have to like it & I didn’t.

2. The Committee Boat Calling it a Day

After wallowing for hours the wind did finally pick up & we got going again. As we neared the French coast, we started to hear Ocean 1 (the Race Committee boat) talking to the boats as they were finishing. Spirits revived we sailed on with new vigour. Then, over the airwaves, Ocean 1 declared they were leaving their station ie they’d had enough, their moules & frites were on order & they couldn’t wait around any longer for the dawdlers. To be fair, the first boats had finished 5 1/2 hours before we did but we were by no means the last!

See you later alligator!
Seriously though guys. Could you not leave your boat on station & a light on below then take your radio with you to the restaurant & pretend when we hail you that you are still there waiting to receive us & recognise the sterling efforts we’ve made to get there – eventually???

3. Boats Returning Before you’ve Arrived

As if that wasn’t bad enough, we also had the indignity of seeing boats heading back across the Channel having finished the race & turning back for home. Polite request – please choose a different route home so you don’t have to sail past us.

Thoroughbreds power through water
At least AIS doesn’t let them programme in a ring tone – otherwise we would have been hearing Queen ‘We are the Champions’ blaring out at us as they passed. In return from us they’d have heard – ‘Highway to Hell!’

We on the other hand – time for another cuppa
4. Checking the RORC Website

Monday morning I woke up & checked to see where we had come in our class. While my expectations were not high, I was somewhat surprised to see that apparently we had ‘not yet finished’. Was I dreaming & I wasn’t actually at home in my lovely comfy bed but still wallowing in the channel 3 days after having set off from Cowes. No – fortunately a few hours later the results were updated. 18th in our class.

5. Disrupted Sleep

Sleep is as essential as ensuring everyone is fed & watered throughout the race. Clearly we have these latter two nailed. We are not so good though on managing sleep. As we were only 5 crew, our watch system was modified, (in theory) to 4 hours on & 3 hours off with one off watch being only 2 hours long. However, we discovered that it was really helpful to:

Rouse people from their bunks regularly when they were off watch. For maximum effect, don’t do this too soon after they’ve gone to their bunk, or they’ll get up quickly, be focused on the task & get back into their bunk ASAP. Much better to wait until about half way through their time off watch. Then they’ll be fast asleep, take a while to get up on deck & fumble their way through whatever it was you wanted doing, by which time there’s no point in them going back into their bunk so they suggest the next person goes off early instead – sweet!

Wodda ya want & why?
Don’t remind people that their smart phones are just that & will auto correct to French time once you hit French waters. As a result they’ll turn up an hour early & be roped into putting the kettle on, by which time they are wide awake & there’s no point in them going back to bed so the next person might as well go off early – result!
Create a peaceful environment. This is best achieved by leaving metal coat hangers in the cabin lockers that rattle incessantly every time the boat goes over a wave. Once you notice that they’ve managed to track down this source of irritation & sort them out, test your gas alarm. Turn on the gas (for another cup of tea obviously) & if you discover that this trips the gas alarm, take the time to investigate it properly & see if you can fix it. After all safety first, sleep second.
So 246 miles later we managed to complete the course & get back safely. Fog, encountered just as we were got to the outskirts of the TSS, made for an interesting trip on the way back. This provided us with a chance to have a chat to our fellow competitors on One Life (HSY) & a man with a gorgeous midnight DJ voice on Hooooot Stuuuufff, who were in the pea soup with us. Also got to hear the conversations with some of the big boats making some distinct but slightly random turns (towards us!)

Next St Malo – in two weeks time. Yippee!!

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Island Air Blog – 8th-14th June 2013

(Past member) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 14:46:29 GMT

We arrive at Largs Saturday in baking sunlight – most un-Scottish weather! After a foreshortened 3-hour handover from boat owner Dave (aka Heath Robinson) we set off for Port Bannatine to eat on the boat, followed by drinks in the Russian Bar, and a team building nightcap back on Island Air.

Sunday – a great sail to Portavadie via. E and W Kyle. Light airs so only 3-4 kts in our 20-tonne vessel; it was very peaceful so Peter got his tackle out ..... without success so a good job we were dining ashore.

Monday saw the wind pick up to 20kt, and the old girl responded with 8-9 kts – a great sail. After lunch anchored in Lock Gair, the crew got the dinghy out and negotiated purchase of a frozen birthday cake ashore form the local hotel to mark Dave Laws’ birthday. On a peaceful mooring buoy at Otter Ferry, where we ate in a good restaurant and made the presentation to Dave (with kind permission from the Commodore)!

Finally we donned the oilies on Tuesday, a wet day so we didn’t wear them on the flight for nothing. The day was cut short and we went to Tarbert where the many leaks in the boat were revealed. Now we know why there are so many bowls on Island Air...

Wednesday and to Lamlash Harbour in more delightful weather. 10-15kt flukey winds made for plenty of sail twitching. Peter got his fishing rod out again and after a mere 1.5 hours, was rewarded with a nice mackerel (which we duly dispatched into pate for our starter). All boats went ashore at low water for drinks in Lamlash, on the return a senior skipper gave us a useful demonstration of underwater bowline removal – such sang froid....!

After a radio “skippers meet” it was agreed that the strong 40kt gusts consistently forecast for Fri afternoon could not be ignored (depite the mostly inaccurate forecasts for the rest of the week). Therefore plans to anchor in Loch Riddon were switched to the Rothesay marina. Finally found the right setting for the sails in 15-20kt winds to get up to 7.5 kt. With a little help from the Thruster, our skipper did a perfect berthing, but unfortunately the promised video was not taken so you will have to take my word for it! The Space Station served as party boat and a great craic was had by all with a 3 a.m. finish.

A late start was made on Friday for the final short return to Largs with a few sore heads amongst the crew. This may explain the 3 pirouettes en route! With banshee-like winds building up, we were glad to have tied up early. Scotland gave of her best with the scenery, winds and relative lack of rain and plentiful wildlife: birds, porpoises and an inquisitive seal. The overall verdict of the crew was - a great weeks’ sailing!

Howard Royds

Myth of malham - our second Fastnet feeder. By Pauline Errey

(Past member) — Tue, 28 May 2013 19:30:09 GMT

Sometimes, despite all the preparation, plans can change – suddenly & dramatically.

With the second glorious Bank Holiday weekend of the month (what is with the UK weather – it always rains on a Bank Holiday?), Javelin & her merry crew met up on Friday night. The race was from Cowes, out through the Needles, across to Eddystone Lighthouse & back.

Eddystone Lighthouse – apparently
For some of us on-board this was our second attempt to actually get to Eddystone as we had been thwarted by unnecessary weather when 30 miles off from it last time – so near & yet so far!

However, throughout the weekend our plans changed:

1. There was an attempt to oust me as navigator by a smart phone app!!

OK – so my nav plans are done the old-fashioned way using charts & paper and don’t have any fancy pants graphics features.

Satisfaction guaranteed
That said, they don’t need to be charged up to work & more importantly they don’t plan a route that has you going inside Portland Bill & across land at Weymouth. Minor point.

2. Be careful what you wish for.

On passing Yarmouth, 2 of the crew were heard to say ‘wouldn’t it be nice to be sitting in Yarmouth on the boat in the sunshine with a glass of wine, watching the world go by……’ This was at a time when we were cracking along, close-ish into the island side to catch the favourable tide & far enough out to get some good wind in our sails. The spinnaker was up, Foggy Bottom (what we affectionately call the boat that won our class race to Le Havre earlier in the month) was still in sight. All was good until….

3. Sconce on the bonce.

A serious case of deja-vu. Past Sconce, coming up to Hurst, a series of minor errors & a gust of wind resulted in a spinnaker pole vs head altercation. It happened in a heart beat & watching from the cockpit, my heart did miss a beat as my poor hubby was the one having the altercation. Having taken a serious whallop onto the top of his head, he got back to the cockpit where he was then hustled down below & subjected to my first aid administrations – pooooor thing, just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse!

AGAIN!!!
Now those of you who have been following my blog for a while, may well remember me having to patch my hubby’s head up near Sconce late last year, when he head butted the hatch coming up the companionway steps.

While the bleeding was stemmed quite quickly, the concern was the force of the impact & the potential for internal damage. So, the battery of questions began. Impressively, he did remember the date of my birthday – no excuses now honey . However, the decision was made to retire from the race & go into Yarmouth to get him checked out. The thought of getting half way across Lyme Bay & his condition deteriorating was too much of a risk. A huge thanks goes out to everyone on the boat for their support & understanding. We were all well up for the race so to pull out, while the right decision, wasn’t easy.

So while we tootled off in a taxi to St Mary’s Hospital (thanks to Tanya for organising), the rest of the crew got to sit in the sunshine, drinking wine watching the world go by. Thankfully hubby was given the all clear. I was very relieved when he woke up the following morning & told me ‘I’m still here’. Not quite sure what I would have done if he’d said he wasn’t!

Hubby’s OK – YIPPEE!!
4. Not all first aid kits come in green bags.

It’s amazing how pre-conditioned you can be. I could not see the first aid kit for looking – when it was right in-front of me. I was completely zoned in on looking for a green first aid kit – when ours was BLUE.

Cat or sofa??
Slightly worrying – a definite case of ‘boy looking’ (the condition that happens up & down the country where men can’t find their shirts, glasses etc even when told by their better halves exactly where they are).

5. All this adrenalin makes you mighty hungry.

Given we were punching a spring tide to get down to the start line, we had had our pre-race bacon butty at silly-o-clock. With all the drama & excitement of the spinnaker pole incident followed by a trip to A&E, we were starving by the time we got back to the boat.

Soooo hungry…..
Boy oh boy how good was lunch of pre-made cheese & ham toasted sardines, reheated in the oven – AMAZING!! Now I understand how John was able to eat so many of them on the last race once he’d got over his sea sickness.

So our weekend ended up being somewhat different from planned. We had a leisurely afternoon in the marina & a great meal at the Blue Crab http://www.thebluecrab.co.uk/contact.html. I highly recommend the fish pie. Sunday saw us moored up on a buoy outside Yarmouth having an intensive session on the spinnaker pole – to remove any demons that might have been lurking from the previous day. Then a brilliant sail back & a bonus day at home on Monday enjoying the great weather. So I still haven’t got to Eddystone – maybe it’s a case of 3rd time lucky?

Weymouth - Our first RBYC Trip

(Past member) — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:22:41 GMT

Having had a day sail taster, I and my daughter Bethany (14) decided to complete our comp crew course towards the end of last year.

One of our instructors was Pauline Errey, who told us about the RBYC. Even though we live only a few miles from the Jack O'Newbury, we didn't know about the RBYC. Having signed up as probationary members, we registered for the Weymouth trip.

As our first trip with the club, we weren't sure of what to expect or the normal customs and procedures. However, meeting Neil and the rest of the crew beforehand answered all our questions. We couldn't wait to get started …

Thursday

We had a good run down to Hamble, arriving at 1730. We found Neil and "Rude Knot 2", a Bavaria 38. All handover had been done; just a leaky kettle to sort out - essential equipment - and we were off. Neil pinned up the watch list - "Fish Watch", Neil, Richard and Bethany, and "Chips Watch", Rob, Clare and me. Rob announced that he was "IC Chips Watch" and that Clare was thus "2IC Chips Watch". We had a short motor sail over to Yarmouth with Clare doing sterling work down below, creating an excellent supper of pasta with Bolognese sauce, salad and garlic bread, despite there being only just enough room in the pan. By the time we tied up in Yarmouth we were all well fed and the dishes were done. Some members of the crew went off for a nightcap, but for me & Beth the sleeping bags called.

Friday

An early 5am start! But the sight of the sun rising over a dead calm, empty Solent more than made up for it. Clare "2IC Chips Watch" decided to follow Neil's watch system (at least that's how she explained her lie in!) but everyone else was up on deck to watch the sun rise.

Down to the Fairway buoy under motor, then up with the sails and a great sail down to Worbarrow Bay. We stopped to investigate a "Marie Celeste" on the way - a yacht with no visible crew on deck, not under motor and with sails flapping - being blown backwards onto a lee shore. They responded to a radio call with a rather begrudging thank you, and informed us that they were in a race. Rather strange way to race - drifting backwards - but we left them to their own devices. We pressed on to Lulworth Cover where we anchored with Quintessa and Loxley B, Purple Mist having nosed in and deciding not to stop. Still quite early, so bacon rolls all round for a mid-morning treat.

Repast over, up with the sails and anchor and, more or less, a single tack all the way to Weymouth. We found Purple Mist and Quintessa already there, so rafted alongside.

Time for an ice-cream!

Loxley B arrived some time later, the crew opting for an extended siesta in Lulworth Cove.

Later, everyone met up at "The Stable", a pizza, pie and cider bar above the Harbormaster's office. 25 for dinner! Clare was considering the "The Bridport Blaster", a fiery chili laden beast, but after taking advice from the staff, opted for the selection of five ciders instead (oh, and a pizza!). Rob, having no fear or perhaps acting in ignorance, went for the Blaster, only managing half of it before reaching simmering point. There followed much swapping of pizzas and tasting of ciders. Steve on Loxley B reportedly finished a whole Blaster, but regretted it the following day!

Saturday

Next day and the forecast was for force 5 - 7 SW. A much more leisurely start. Loxley B was first away, hotly pursued by the Habourmaster in a RIB. Steve was adamant that he just forgot to give back the "No Mooring" sign hanging from the port side, but we're convinced he wanted a souvenir.

We slipped at midday and, despite a minor panic when the whole raft started to drift away from the pontoon, got away without incident. A quick look around the Olympic sailing area then off in the direction of Swanage with just 3/4 of the jib still giving a speed of around 8 - 9 knots.

The big swell was a bit much for Beth, who went below to lie down and close her eyes. Many thanks to Clare and Neil for keeping an eye on her. I also was feeling somewhat green until the second Stugeron kicked in, but remained on deck (don't think I could have gone below!). Winds were constantly in the high 20's and we saw 33 knots at one point!

We were overtaken by both Purple Mist and Quintessa so, when we rounded Old Harry rocks and ventured into Studland Bay, found both already anchored. Rob "Mechanic" Hammond's diagnosis skills were in demand as Kate's windlass failed to work and, later, when Loxley B arrived, they could not get their engine started but managed to skilfully anchor under sail.

Time for some soup to warm up - too early for dinner yet. After a thorough but vain search for a tin opener it looked like Beth would not be able to have some of her favourite tomato soup. But then Clare kindly pointed out to me that the tins had ring pulls. Doh! Saved the day again Clare!

Later, Rob prepared an excellent chili con carne with salad and garlic bread. Thanks Rob. Apple pie for pud, then a chance to relax and take in this wonderfully peaceful setting. The winds abated and we had a very quiet night at anchor.

A plan was hatched to host a pre-dinner Pimms party on the boat the following day, and Clare was appointed "IC Pimms Party". Her first action was to appoint Rob "2IC Pimms Party" with special responsibility for mint chopping!

Sunday

Spot of breakfast, then off to Poole harbour under motor. Richard helming, dodging the chain link ferry, traffic and buoys all the way up to the Town Quay, then Clare taking us all the way back out again. Then off on a course towards Christchurch Bay.

We had plenty of time, so an ideal opportunity to practice MOB under sail, says Neil. No objections from the crew so our "man" (the usual fender and bucket) was thrown over the side to cries of "man overboard". Clare crash tacked the boat at brought it to a stop hove-to. Our "man" drifted past frustratingly just out of reach. Never mind, wear round, go past on a reach then tack back up. While doing this we lost sight of the "man", the white fender lost amongst the many white crests. Despite tracking back and forth several times we didn't spot our "man", so if you find a fender and bucket on your travels it might be ours! A salutary reminder of how easy it is to lose sight of someone in the water.

On to Lymington via the North Channel without further incident, mooring at 1600. Clare "IC Pimms Party", Rob "2IC Pimms Party" and newly appointed Neil "3IC Pimms Party" swung into action, with the rest of the crew chopping, slicing and sticking cheese cubes and onions onto cocktail sticks 70's style for all they were worth. At the designated 1730 crews from the other boats started to arrive, some bearing gifts. Kate had caught a mackerel on the way to Lymington and had turned it into mackerel pate on crispbread topped with olives - very skilful! The Pimms (Clare's secret recipe) flowed, the nibbles were consumed and everyone seemed to be enjoying our impromptu reception. Even Bethany had a Pimms, her first and, I suspect, not her last - Clare, what have you done!

At 1900 all the crews congregated again for a walk to the Fisherman’s Rest pub and dinner. Neil’s navigational skills failed him on the way back to the marina afterwards, sending us down the wrong road! Perhaps he needs a chart and lateral buoys to find his way? Or maybe he didn’t allow for alcoholic leeway?

Monday

A low mist delayed departure, so time to swab the decks, clean below and fill the water tanks. We slipped at 1100, shortly after Purple Mist.

We headed over to Newtown Creek, the mist bank still clearly visible towards the Needles. We tried the sails but there wasn’t really enough wind to make sensible headway against the outgoing 2kn tide. So we motored into and out of Newtown Creek (Bethany at the helm - well done!). Then back to the Hamble with the flotilla of other bank holiday sailors. A short wait for the diesel, but soon topped up and back on our berth.

Bethany and I both thoroughly enjoyed our first trip with the RBYC. Hopefully there will be more to come. Many thanks to Neil for patiently explaining everything to us and giving us the opportunity to practice helming, navigation, etc.. Thanks also to Rob (mate and "2IC Pimms Party") for all the experience and tips passed on over the weekend. To Clare for doing an excellent job as "IC Pimms Party" and keeping us all organised with food and drink (still amazed at how you can prepare a lunch with the boat rocking and rolling!). And thanks also to Richard for being a good crew mate.

Doug Hughes

The Cervantes Trophy Race – 1st Fastnet Feeder Race for the RBYC crew

(Past member) — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:27:12 GMT

This weekend saw Javelin (Sweden 39) & her merry crew do their first ever qualifying race for Fastnet 2013. On-board there is Pete the Skipper & boat owner, Alex an experienced Fastnet campaigner as First Mate, Tanya who’s also done Fastnet before & surprised herself by deciding to do it again and John, Mike & I – who are new to Fastnet.

We all belong to the same sailing club – the Royal County of Berkshire Yacht Club & have sailed with each other before on various trips – but never as one crew all together.

While other boats may have set themselves the goal of winning, our priority is to challenge ourselves & enjoy doing so. We’ve signed up to do most of the feeder races so that we can get comfortable in our roles & working together as a team.

So how was our first race – The Cervantes Trophy Race from Cowes to Le Havre (100 miles)? Well we didn’t come last (23rd out of 29 in our class) but I’m not sure ‘enjoy‘ is the word that would spring to the lips of everyone on board. To be quite honest the race over was a bit of a slog & the word that may more readily come to mind for me was ‘confused’:

1. Confused Sea

Oh boy was it – we had hour upon hour of that lovely lumpy corkscrew motion on the way out (in stark contrast to the flat sea on the way back). One of our crew quickly fell victim to it & spent the rest of the crossing murmuring sweet nothings into a bucket down below.

Why????

A second managed to resist the urge initially but was eventually seasick for the first time ever. They wouldn’t recommend it apparently! We were able to track their progress by watching how they responded to the offer of a cheese & ham toasted sandwich (pre-made by Tanya & then just heating up on-board). At the first attempt, they were able to open the tin foil but took one look & passed it back down below.

Suddenly peckish

However, a couple of hours later, they were heard enquiring if there were any left & then proceeded to eat 2 back to back without even heating them up.

2. Confused Plotting

My job was navigator. A course to steer was developed & off we went. All was looking good – the helm was happy & off I went to my bunk. Coming back on watch later in the night I had a slight coronary when I saw that the position plot for the previous hour had us way off to the East of our intended track – like WAAYY off. Not a great start as navigator.

I can see clearly now …

However, panic over when it came to light that there had been an error in plotting as someone couldn’t find their glasses when they went to do the log.

3. Confused Chart Table

One the way out, the chart table was a source of all evil. It managed to eat whatever you put on it or in it so it was impossible to ever find anything again – the aforementioned glasses being a case in point.

Cookies? I also eat charts, glasses, almanacs

So upon arrival in Le Havre war was declared & order brought to the offending item. How long it lasts – we’ll have to see!

4. Confused Time Zone

We were using a watch system of 3 hours on & 3 hours off with 3 people on at anytime, rotating who was on watch each hour. The system worked well but did have some interesting effects on the crew:

People quickly end up on different meal times depending on what watch they’ve done. Those who were on the 0400 – 0700 watch had had breakfast so weren’t keen when offered breakfast again at 0900 (when we woke them up due to fog). Similarly, evidence was found in the cockpit of the mini beef pasties that had been inhaled during the previous watch 0100 – 0400!

You can completely miss meals. We got into Le Havre at midnight, went to bed & got up mid morning with the intention of having fresh croissants. However, by the time we’d actually got off the boat & showered it was midday & time for lunch. As a result our celebratory beer became breakfast.

Check what time zone your phone is on when using it as your alarm clock. I bounced out of bed at 0045, got kitted out & appeared ready to relieve my husband (from his watch – keep it clean) only to find my phone was on French time vs the boat that was on British time. I quickly became fluent in French before turning tail & getting back into my bunk .

Wakey Wakey – not!!

So why didn’t I just start watch an hour earlier as I was up & let my hubby get an extra hours kip? I did offer but as anyone knows the 0100 – 0400 watch is the coldest, so he insisted I went back to my bed – my hero.

5. Confused Weather

What a contrast a day makes. While the sea had been up & we had a lot more wind than was forecast on the way out, our return trip overnight Sunday was in calm conditions & very little wind. This gave us a chance to use up some of the fuel on-board & to review how our first race had gone. One important thing that had come to our attention was the need for some cool shoreside gear – we’d gone for a base layer that while practical simply wasn’t cool enough.

Ooh you look very smart

Fortunately a friend popped by wearing exactly what we wanted – thanks Jamie. Tanya tracked down the item & negotiations on which colour have now begun.

6. Confusing Sounds.

So we arrived back at the Isle of Wight, relaxed & content with our first feeder race to be faced with FOG & a real pea souper at that.

I can hear something out there….

Fortunately we had Tanya on-board who has the hearing abilities of a bat & was able to hear the pathetic squeak of a yacht fog horn 2 secs before it loomed out of the fog at us & avoiding action was taken. One top tip on fog horns. We were using ours & if we heard another horn we would sound ours again. To note, some of the buoys in the Solent sound horns & while I’m sure they are happy to be tooted at, it can be a slight waste of your fog horn aerosol can.

So one down. A great trip overall & one of great contrasts. Not least at the start when all the other boats stayed on the island side & I took us off to Gillkicker (well the tides were better there……)

Not the RBYC crew weekend!

(Past member) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:57:16 GMT

Jon, Anita, Pete and Diane hatched the scheme in September to charter a boat at the start of the season to get some experience without a club skipper in sight. So along with Lee and Julie we organised an Easter weekend break.

The plan was for each couple to have a day as skipper. For the sake of protecting the innocent and well as the guilty I shall not divulge who was in charge on each day.

Last year Pete and Di had a great week sailing at the end of March, so why not go for that again, after all the weather should be fine. Little did we know we would have F 5's and above and temperatures would be as low as -3 degrees!

Thursday

On the way to pick up the boat at the Hamble, Pete and Diane became stuck in Tesco's car park for an hour due to the pressure of traffic at the roundabout. Looked like we had enough food for an army but then it was to cover 4 days I suppose. We wisely decided to stay in the Hamble overnight and go out on Friday when the tides would be with us to go west. Anita had prepared a delicious chilli which we all enjoyed after a pre-dinner drink at the marina bar.

Friday

We had no problems leaving the marina at slack water and sailed happily down the Solent towards Yarmouth with 2 reefs due to the 20 knot winds and wanting a fairly easy time. Anchoring outside Newton River for lunch, was perhaps a little ambitious with 20 knots across the deck, but the anchor went in a treat, so much so, we did wonder if we would get it out again. However, a call from Kate on Purple Mist, who was already in Yarmouth, alerted us that the place was filling quickly. We could see a steady stream of boats heading in that direction but with the knowledge that Kate's best endeavours had persuaded the harbour master to hold a spot for us, if we were quick, we hauled the anchor up and headed off under sail.

When we arrived at the entrance we did the usual “motor in sideways” and danced precariously with a rather large motor boat that was being ejected due to “no room at the inn”. The harbour master pointed us to Kate who was jumping up and down and waving at us. She guided us to our spot, quite a tight space and not without incident, but luckily we missed Purple Mist!

We met up with Kate and her father for dinner at the pub where we were seated in what appeared to be the Captain's mess of the Black Pearl! A quick nightcap onboard before retiring concluded our first lone sail.

Saturday

Having picked up the forecast of F 4's and 5's for the next couple of days we decided we would brave it and sail to Poole. Skipper of the day planned to get to Hurst as the tide changed and make our way through the northern channel (which we had called the northern passage the night before which caused some hilarity, can't think why) and catch the flow to Poole.

We had been using the jib on its own up to the point of turning for Poole as we had 20 knot winds on the tail and were making 6 knots without even trying. However, in the lee of the land the wind started to drop so we came up with the idea of hoisting the main, on the 2nd reef. However, due to a passing fleet of 10 or more Sunseekers thundering towards Poole, we didn't go directly into the wind before we started the hoist which got into a mess. We decided to drop it and try again when we went up to the wind properly. When we pulled on the main halyard again, this seemed surprisingly easy, but the sail wasn't going up...somehow the shackle had become undone and was now at the top of the mast, minus the sail. Oh how we laughed......!

Diane cooked a macaroni cheese for lunch, which cheered us all up. She wanted to prove it doesn't always have to be pasties and rolls, I think she hit the spot judging by the silence as we ate and no leftovers! Just the job for a cold trip.

So onwards to Poole under jib alone and then finally under engine as the wind dropped further. No real dramas apart from the chain ferry at the entrance to Poole deciding to cross just as we were about to go through, so we did a few loops before going for the entrance. Into the marina and on to our pontoon without too many problems, well we did learn to look in the marina guide to find the pontoon before entering and giving the helm a bit more of a chance.

Then into the bosun's chair and up the mast for Julie to fetch the main halyard. Thankfully Lee, Julie, Jon and Anita had seen it all before during the John Mountain cup and Julie is a mountaineer, so she turned what could have been a difficult problem into a fun exercise!Back to earth and a few drinks later all was well with the world.

Julie's homemade “Ruby Murray”, nice and hot, made a very welcome dinner and after reminding ourselves of the lessons learned from the day's salty experiences we set our alarm for an early start to return to the tidal gate at Hurst.

Sunday

It was indeed a very early start! Someone had set their alarm for the 6.30 UT start. Except Steve Jobs (deceased) had a laugh and decided to put the clock forward on the iPhone and wake us up at 6.30 BST, which was in fact 5.30 UT. We did wonder why it was still dark, but hey, the iPhone must be right? It was not until we looked at the ship's clock we realised the error by which time we were all suited and booted. Oh how we laughed.... (again)!

Frost on the desk, hurrah for British summer time!

Unintentionally, we feared we must have woken the rest of marina as we left with revving engines and frantic cries of encouragement to the helm, along with the depth alarm sounding every few seconds as we were on low water. We found our way out the marina and out of Poole with no real incident, the chain ferry was kind to us and did not pull out this time as we went through the entrance against the flow.

So off to the northern passage again, sorry, north channel. The skipper had worked out slack water at 1200 so we had time for a good beat against the easterly wind. Great fun in a 18 knot wind with occasional 20 plus. With 2 reefs in and making 6 or 7 knots we had a fairly comfortable ride. Diane and Pete made some bacon and egg butties as we left Poole which went down a treat.

Then into Lymington without any incidents we care to admit. The last 30 seconds was a little frantic but no impending court cases. The afternoon turned cold and windy, we had had the best of the day, even if it had started prematurely courtesy of Steve Jobs.

On paying our £36 for the mooring fees Lee was delighted to receive a free floating keyring, if we had moored here on Saturday night we would have got a free Sunday paper, I wonder if this would be instead of the keyring? We must go back one day and find out!

Sunday night's on board dinner was stir fried sweet and sour vegetables with chicken cooked, followed by stewed plums and yoghurt, then cheese and wine. Another yum meal.

Monday

8am start, out of the marina by 9am, 15 knot winds so quite a bit of planning before we left so we reversed out the lane and then into a spot where there was little wind, so we could change to forwards and out. All went to plan and no nightmare nose not going through the wind etc.

Then a bash to windward, 20 knot winds with gusts, so we motored like everyone else on the Solent! We had a funny moment when we had tried the auto helm and it lost its way when the rudder bounced out the water, so steered by hand after that. Nice passage in to Hamble and off to the fuel pontoon. We had timed it so the current would be fairly week (mid low to high, so at a standstill). This made life easier for us thankfully...then the last mooring operation…

So the off to our pontoon, all planned and prepared, down the row of pontoons to our space...blast we have prepared the wrong side, a bit of a panic, we try for a vacant pontoon but overshot it, then drift sideways down the row being blown by the wind. Ha flipping ha, the crew stop damage happening, skipper having learnt by the others, no revving or yo yo. Eventually we reverse out the row, got our composure, got the fenders and warps ready for a pretty good 2nd attempt thanks to everyone. so delighted he wanted to try out this hideous device immediately and had to be physically restrained. Lee

We have done it, 4 days, no maydays or rescues, no fighting...we all ended better friends than when we started plus all these learning points for next time we are skipper.

Learning points

Training exercises like the John Mountain cup and other events prepare us for when we need to do it an anger. Being confident with the bosuns chair made a fun activity at the end of a sail.

Always make a note of the pontoon you take the boat from and which side too. Also a quick sketch of the whereabouts.

On short finger pontoon get the bow person to get a rope on a cleat quickly and stop the boat going forwards. Mid cleat is good.

Don't rev the engine when mooring, it just makes you hit things faster!

If you start to yo yo with the throttle, put it in neutral and see how it settles. Get the team with roving fenders working!

Have a good brief before you go, use the RBYC passage planning sheets, really good at focusing your mind.

Don't be afraid to ask for advice and listen to your crew. Yes it's not a debating society but a friendly, “ok skipper, take her out the fairway, lets get the boat ready for another go”, really does help remove the pressure.

Laminate, laminate and laminate some more. How useful are pilotage notes that are not scribbled notes in pencil that you cannot read! Make them you own by writing note on them in pen, then rub off when finished.

You can eat meals prepared on the boat, vegetables are good stir fried and you can cheat with sauces, or cook stuff you put in the oven and leave, why not? Financially we did the 4 days for less than 40 quid a each including mooring fees and diesel. Not including booze and Friday night in Yarmouth.

Porridge is great for cold mornings, better than a fry up at getting you warm and moving.

Quotes of the trip.

Jon explained how he kept surprising himself in the shower...apparently it was the mirror...

Lee wanted to try the Northern passage. Must have been the whiskey we had consumed but we found it hilarious at the time.

Pete having realised we were up an hour earlier than necessary kept on about "oh how we laughed".

The joys of midweek sailing

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:44:28 GMT

Alright the weather this week wasn't the best but that didn't stop 5 club members making it from Hamble Point to Portland (and back) - a round trip of 180 miles.

I hope this will be the first of many midweek trips - they do offer great value for money as well as the scope to sail outside the Solent.

My thanks to Ian (skipper), David (mate) and to fellow crew members Les and Jack for a fantastic week. Hope to sail with you all again before too long.

Jonathan Hughes

Yarmouth Harbour: New Layout

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:54:43 GMT

Phases 2 and 3 of the Yarmouth Harbour Development have been completed over the winter.

These parts of the development of the Harbour have delivered a new quay wall to the west of the Harbour Office close to the bridge, a new crane, an environmentally friendly closed loop washdown facility, a revamped recycling area, a slightly larger fishermen’s storage area, and a new layout for the commercial berths.

At South Quay they have installed new pontoons along the quay wall and fifteen new walk ashore berths with water and power. This quay now has a continuous pavement along its whole length providing a safe walkway from the Harbour Office to the town.

For more details see the New Layout

Simon Rowell - A bit more than the Weather

(Past member) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:58:25 GMT

Last night Simon Rowell came to the club to give a talk about his last trip across the Pacific. Having won the 2002 Clipper race, he had moved into the Race Management team but was called upon at a weeks notice to Skipper one of the yachts across the Pacific.

His entertaining talk brought to life some of the ups & downs of such a passage. It also reinforced that sometimes the end result is much more than where you came in a race. Getting onto a boat with a dispirited crew who had come last on the previous leg & now had a change in Skipper, his goal was simple - not to come last on this next leg. In fact they did - but in the process they had a series of experiences that transformed them.

Throughout the talk, Simon stressed a couple of key learnings he had:

- always do maintenance as soon as you see an issue. Deciding to gybe before lowering the mainsail to repair it, meant that they went from a 2 foot tear to a rip stretching from leech to luff. A job that would have taken a couple of hours now took days.

- Put the number for Falmouth Coastguard into your satellite phone.

These guys did an amazing job helping advise on medical treatment for a crew member & then co-ordinating with various international organisations to arrange a medivac in the mid Pacific.

- Always ensure there are sufficient tea bags on-board.

Cultural diversity meant that the chief victualler (French) ensured a sufficient supply of excellent coffee but insufficient tea. Fortunately as part of the medivac, more tea in the form of RNLI tea bags were obtained.

Thanks once again to Simon for coming out & giving such an entertaining & informative talk. Anyone interested in attending his weather course with SeaRegs in Plymouth can find more details at http://searegs.co.uk/other-courses/

RBYC Skipper trip February 2013 (according to Neil)

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:17:01 GMT

RBYC Skipper trip February 2013 (according to Neil)

Imagine the club skippers gathering for the first trip of the season (for many of them), chattering and excited about the adventures ahead!

Well, we were not to be disappointed…..

Magic memories

50 ‘ Bavaria yacht, very spacious and in good condition

Heating – hurrah (on most of the weekend)

Sleeps 12 – crew for weekend 11

(Robx2 (Nelson & Hammond); Davidx2 (Sauven & Head); Dr Ian; Gary; Steve; Alex; Les; Tanya and Neil)

Skipper was ‘Kipper’ Steve Wright (so named as he sleeps a lot!)

Food and drinks - High quality, industrial quantities (David S and Ian)

Dinner Friday night – delicious (Alex)

Mars Bar cake - delicious (Tanya)

Full crew on board each time we left the dock

Great sailing especially Cowes to Yarmouth and back

Rugby result Saturday (if you spent the weekend in a cave - England beat France)

Lots of chatting around the saloon table Friday and Saturday night

David H celebrated passing his Cruising Instructor exams

Bow thrusters for manoevering in tight spots

For me, choosing to share a cabin with David H (who does not snore)

Fading memories

Skipper Kipper – wearing his Tigger onesie suit (see website photos for evidence)

Having to eat continuously to make an impact on food stocks (but not all bad news)

Mooring under full throttle with ‘Thruster’ Hammond on the wheel

Softies on the crew staying below most of the weekend, saying it was chilly; only -5° or so with wind chill

Les wanting to play with the bow thrusters at any time (much to the consternation of the helms)

Anyone sleeping near Rob H and Les (snoring measured on the Richter scale)

Overall

Great trip, with fantastic company, fresh breezes and no lasting damage to any of the crew….

JMC - Par Excellence

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:02:31 GMT

Our voyage began at the crew meeting in the Jack O’ Newbury. Our skipper, Michael, first tacked to the Three Frogs then quickly hopped over to the Jack O’ Newbury and within seconds we were gelled into the most marvellous team ever to embark on the John Mountain Challenge. Unfortunately Jack couldn’t make the meeting but made up for it with passionate and enthusiastic emails and probably the best walnut cake in the Solent courtesy of Mrs Jack.

Friday was an outstanding success. The highlight was our adjudicator Alex not quite managing to reach her tipping point. However by 0130 Saturday everyone else had reached theirs.

Saturday followed Friday’s lack of wind. Most being generated by the men on board.

We got off the pontoon flawlessly and quickly got on to our tasks of the day. One of the highlights being our discovery that al dente spaghetti is perfect for tying bowlines and we were pleased that we had 5’ 8’’ Alex rather than 6’+ Peter as our adjudicator (who says size isn’t important). The day was punctuated with Lee staggering on deck with a severe head injury having been hit by the boom. The crew sprang into action attending to the casualty as a priority. Having been bandaged he was fully revived by a very special kiss from the mate Julie (maybe this should be added to the first aid manual).

Before we knew it we were enveloped in fog and had to use our super skipper Michael’s mathematical genius and Lianne’s perfect steering to get us safely to Newtown Creek without the use of a log reading.

The day was rounded off by a two handed crew doing a rather fast hand brake turn and bringing us safely to a perfect stop and a port side mooring on pontoon V19 in Yarmouth.

And a perfect end to a perfect day – a beer for the boys, some bubbles for the ladies and a great dinner in the Royal Solent yacht club. Now for tomorrow…

John Mountain Cup Saturday Night Blog

(Past member) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:05:50 GMT

David Head, defending champion of the JMC, commented today that this year's crew is the best it has ever been his pleasure to command. Never had he seen a crew quite like it, said David in an interview en-route to the shower block at Yarmouth Marina.

Crew members were heard to say, 'I have to the the TV working in time for Strictly' whilst another felt it necessary to differentiate himself from fellow club member Richard Lindsay, as being his younger & better looking brother. Such devotion to the sailing tasks given to the team demonstrated throughout the day the lengths the team would go to in order to impress adjudicator Mike Errey. 'I'm 48 you know but look much younger' said Errey who has clearly been impressed by the sailing skills he witnessed today.

The crew got off to a flying start today which prompted Skipper Head to comment further 'The early bird catches the worm and succeeds at the spaghetti quiz' whilst summing up the days efforts to the crew.

Head & his crew of 4 thoroughly enjoyed putting Modernistic Lady through her paces even allowing her to touch the bottom. This was thought to be the fault of one Less Harris of Great Hollands who planned for five boats to moor at Wootten Creek without enough depth of water for any of them.

The crew are greatly looking forward to another successful & hopefully victorious day tomorrow.

Scribed by Phil Lindsay & the Modernistic Lady

Strictly Mange Tout!

Peter Hurley — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 07:41:52 GMT

8WRH5VStrictly Come John Mountain
Gliding down the A34/303/M3 ...we moved elegantly to the Port Hamble marina carpark...
Found our partners on mange tout at Foxtrot 27 followed by a very Viennese safety brief with intricate explanations before sashaying out of the marina cutting a swathe down the river.
Moonlit passe doble turns around the Reach buoy, there and back many times.
Bald head gained 11 points from Len "not a 7 - an 11!"
Searched for and found the elusive Town Quay with a new dance themed "jammed genny"
Ultimately tangoing to the quay left right left right arriving in at 11 bed by midnight.
Sunrise over Southampton showed a serene sea for us to strut out stuff...
A power station routine proved too shallow for us classy yachties so we walzted off to Wootton where we professionally handled some headbanger hysteria from Alan as he threw his Kensington Gore all over the floor, winning rapturous applause before we played ketchup all the way to Wootton
Then an illegal lift into the water allowed the manoverboard specialist technique scoring opportunity, of course carried out at speed.
A royal command performance was smartly executed by anchoring in Osborne Bat followed by unique 'blind dance' to the cardinal of Newtown creek before some slick sea stuff in overpowering tidal influences saw Tanya with a buoy off Yarmouth who was playing very hard to get. We sought refuge with a 3 step manoeuvre into our final position for the night before tripping the light fantastic to the Yarmouth yacht club extravaganza which gave us a useful stanza to reflect, compare and consume..commune. ....then our final thrust onto the Solent dance floor ..so, so far on this strictly Solent experience ..in our own sea view...how did we do? Brucie might say "didn't we do well!"

John Mountain news from Creme de la Creme

(Past member) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:51:27 GMT

The 2012 JMC started reasonably enough. The crew of Creme de la Creme skipper 'little' Les, first mate Richard T, crew of John, Rich and Denis and adjudicator 'Big' Les all seemed relaxed even when the engine caught fire during dinner. Being tasked finding a follicly challenged buoy seemed to resonate with certain crew members. The furling drum jammed but the jib came down like a scarf in the Immac scarf test. Unfortunately it went back up like a Brillo pad being dragged over Les's 5 o'clock shadow. Centimetre by painful centimetre.

Sat 20/10/2012 Up bright and early and off to Power Station Creek where the flotilla watched each other grind to a halt in the mud just feet from the mooring buoys. Lessons were learned and the fleet took off to do exactly the same at Wooton Creek an anagram of Crew Took Note, or nearly in our case, Newtown Creek due to some minor literacy problems. The most valuable lesson learnt so far was that spaghetti should be cooked al dente to tie knots in it. An exercise to find buried treasure near the Bramble Bank went better than expected thanks to having three hand bearing compasses on board while off Beaulieu the fog came down just as we set off for Newtown Creek. luckily it lifted just as we arrived on top of the destination. The next challenge was to create and file this post while enjoying a super dinner in the Royal Solent Yacht Club in yarmouth. Unfortunately despite questioning everyone in the YC bar and searching the (minimalist) library of magazines nobody seemed able to help answer the olympic sailing quiz so we handed in our best efforts and after marking and some story swapping all retired to bed/pub/party boat etc.

Sunday morning saw us climbing the mast with black cardboard and string (carrying, not using - that would have been a challenge too far) followed by a single handed slipping of lines and exit out of Yarmouth. Sails up and two reefs in (breezy) only to get the next envelope which told us to put two reefs in - so out they came and then back in one at a time - deep sigh. There followed assorted reefing and unreefing manoeuvres (there's probably a tune there somewhere "you put the green reef in, the green reef out, you unjam the reefing block and you shake it all about") interspersed with assorted sailing skills demonstrations from all crew members.

Then the man overboard fender and bucket went over the back, followed by the instruction that the engine was dead. What followed is best described as a learning experience. I learnt that I shouldn't put the jib away too soon when the main is reefed as you can't get back to the MOB but on the second attempt made it nicely there, jib away and stopped to perfection. Next lesson is that you shouldnt tie fender to bucket with a long length of line as the fender went nicely down the port side while the bucket proceeded, stealthily submerged, down the starboard. Having hooked the fender first go, the (alternative) Hennebry manoeuvre took effect as he heaved on the fender and the bucket hit the hull and ripped the boathook from his grasp! Now we had a bucket, a fender and a boathook in the water. Quick bit of reverse sailing saw the bucket untangled from the keel (phew). Sails away and motor round to get the bucket and fender using a deck scrubbing brush - except - the head of the brush came off. By this time some of the crew were in hysterics (or crying - wasn't too sure) while other, less experienced ones, were wondering why they hadn't seen some of these manoeuvres (or heard the language) demonstrated before.

With 3 MOB's in the water now, and people starting to look at us, we next tried circling the lot with the throwing line but it just floated over them on the waves. Then decided that John should sit on the shower platform, hooked on with two lifelines (with 3 MOB's in the water already and our record to date it was best not to take chances!) while we reversed up to each object in turn. Eventually, we retrieved all except the brush head which sank on it's maiden voyage before we could get it - there went the kitty surplus.

Off to Cowes via the "alternative entrance to the Medina" which was unfortunately not mentioned in either almanac or chart so that took a bit of finding. At E.Cowes we did a quick bit of down tide mooring (not too quick to the relief of the boat in front) followed by a moment of puzzlement when the last envelope was read by the adjudicator who told the skipper he had to demonstrate how to release the pressure on a riding turn using a clove hitch. Having clarified that a rolling hitch was actually required we completed that before a well deserved spot of lunch, finishing off the last of the pasties, cheese and ham rolls and two quiches which had looked dangerously like being left over. You'd never have thought we had a cooked breakfast both days!

After presentations and congratulations on the pontoon we all headed back to Port Hamble and home. It was a great weekend, really enjoyed it, did better than I expected (runner up best skipper!), learnt lots and looking forward to doing it again sometime! Thanks to all the crew and to (big) Les for a memorable JM2012.

Scribed by John (slippery fingers) Hennebry, Rich (to infinity and beyond) Walker and Skipper (little) Les.

RYA Push the boat out, J Boats Round the Island and Clipper Round the world returns

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:09:59 GMT

July 21st/ 22nd was a very special weekend in the Solent. It was a festival of fantastic boats, old and new, big and small, some gorgeous super yachts and the Clippers having just travelled all the way around the world.

Friday night the rain finally stopped, which was cause enough for celebration. Purple Mist cruised over to Bucklers Hard and moored next to the famous newscaster Peter Snow (Very large Halberg Rassey). Tres Jolie was supposed to be joining us but somehow due to the Spring tide got stuck in the Hamble mud... or was that stuck in a Hamble pub.

Saturday was RYA Push the Boat out day, so suitably decked out in bunting and a very large "Sail for Gold" dodger we all headed over to the RYS start line at Cowes. Quintessa was already spectating, busy looking at the 3 fabulous J boats: Velsheda, Ranger and Lionheart. These boats are amazing close up and that's just where we all got.... as close as we dare without incurring the wrath of the marshall Ribs. The start line was very busy, 3 massive J boats and a flotilla of spectators in every type of boat from ribs to yachts. Then 10mins to the start gun and a bulk carrier decides to come through the whole fleet, the poor Southampton harbour patrol vessel was flashing and hooting away as boats were sent scurrying in all directions.

RBYC had 4 boats out on Saturday - The yachts: Tres Jolie, Purple Mist and Quintessa and in a change from yachting some members hired a rib for some super speedy J boat chasing.

Saturday night the yachts headed over to the home of yachting..... Cowes Yacht haven.... to try out the new washroom facilities (better but still not Berthon). We all had a great Portugese meal then some of us tried our hand at skateboarding with some guys who were doing a long distance skateboard charity challenge.

Sunday was more boat "Totty" spotting with the return of the 10 Clipper round the world yachts. The crews seemed genuinely pleased to be welcomed home with waving, shouting bunting and small yachts hassling them on starboard tack.The atmosphere was amazing, support crews had chartered a Gosport ferry and a Red Jet cat and it seemed everyone aboard was hooting fog horns.

Somehow Purple Mist ended up at the head of the fleet alongside Suhaili with Sir Robin Knox Johnston aboard. Maybe it was the RYA "Sail for Gold" banner that made us look official? I did manage to squeeze a wave out of Sir Robin. Then a large black police rib came over and I thought I was going to be asked to move but no, they just wanted a cup of tea!

We gently motored up Southampton water, looking back a the most amazing sight of Suhaili, 10 clipper boats and a massive flotilla of support boats.... sun was still shining.... a pretty magic weekend!

Met Office 1 RBYC 2

(Past member) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 10:52:02 GMT

So when Tanya and Alex spotted the weekend on a J109 as part of the RBYC Charity Auction, they knew this was the prize for them, and so a firm bid was placed, and a date agreed in July, with visions of a gorgeous summer weekend of sailing in shorts and flipflops. This vision was successfully communicated to Alan, Rob, Tim and Judith who decided to join in the fun.

Forecast for the weekend – 18-20 knots of wind... So lets go to Poole said Alex. The promise of a kite run all the way home in the sun swung this decision.

Arriving at Hamble on Friday evening, an evening at Banana Wharf was planned. So Rob, a shadow of his former self, tucked into pasta and cheese. Having not eaten any carbs or fat for several months, he was to regret this decision! But Saturday dawned reasonably hangover free, although a little damp. The met office were still predicting winds of 18-20 knots and showers, and so the intrepid crew hung around Port Hamble for as long as possible, waiting for the shower to stop, but eventually set off on good spirits and full foulies. Jazzy Jellifish was in her element as we steamed through the Solent, letting in as much water down below as there was on deck. The “shower” continued all day, and the wind was more consistent at 20-25 knots. As we passed Beaulieu Tanya wistfully mentioned the pub and the roaring fire, a suggestion which was discounted as lightweight.

Leaving the Solent, the rain continued and things were a little bouncy, and Jazzy was looking very wet indeed. Tanya’s trip down below to warm up, happened to coincide with the weather announcement.... Seeing it as an excuse to linger at the chart table for longer, she tuned to channel 23. The forecast was reassuring... not... Wind at F5-7 with Gale Force 8 imminent, somewhere near Portland. The intrepid crew turned tail and headed back to Lymington for a curry!

A good burst of the diesel heater to dry out Jazzy, and a trip to the Musto shop for extra thermals for Alan improved everyone’s spirits, although not the man in the Musto shop who simply can’t source enough thermals to meet the demand, but has a whole shop full of shorts and t-shirts, and then the discovery of a really happening bar made for a great night.

Sunday’s forecast gave a sense of foreboding, and relief that we only had to get back from Lymington. Predicted winds of F3-6 and that reassuring word, cyclonic, with the option of heavy rain or showers. Nice.... Outside, there was bright sunshine! So off we set, planning to lunch in the Beaulieu river, and then home. So with a huge smile in her sails, Jazzy set off hurtling up and down the Solent and the bright sunshine continued. A trip up the Beaulieu river gave the opportunity for a little bit of nav and a tidal calc... And Rob stayed off the cheese at lunchtime!

And then back to Hamble for a cheeky beer in the evening sunshine... So final result, Met Office 1, RBYC 2, I think....

And thank you to Jellyfish Charters for donating Jazzy for the weekend – she is quite a feisty lady!

Dartmouth in a Force 10

(Past member) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:54:43 GMT

I remember in 2010 the RBYC ran a trip out of Dartmouth and due to the high winds the trip was cut short with the boats only managing a trip up the River Dart.

So, when pulling together the cruising schedule for this year, I thought, what are the chances that will happen again so let’s revisit the idea and have 3 idyllic days cruising the beautiful areas in & around Dartmouth Harbour?

Well, wouldn’t you know it....I watched the week progressively get worse and received a call from the charter company on Thursday advising us not to come that evening & recommending we didn’t sail on the Friday either – it was blowing a F9 gusting 10 in the river itself!

Looking at the weather for the following two days though, it was forecast to settle down on the Saturday and Sunday so we decided not to cancel.

We picked up the three boats at lunch time - Dandelion (weed) skippered by me (Alex); Margarita skippered by Rob Nelson (ask him about the 2011 November trip and understand why he ended up with this boat!) and LeMacq (the boat we have discovered is only given to charterers as a last resort) skippered by Steve Wright.

My first task was to try and remove the boat from the pontoon it was pinned to by the very gusty and very strong winds, watched by the whole RBYC contingent. Thanks to everyone who had an input, advice and opinion into the conundrum of where is a good pivot point! That completed successfully we motored over to Dartmouth Ferry pontoon and tied up for the night. Duly in our wet weather gear and lifejackets, we were asked by a passerby and fellow yachtsman how far we had come & what the weather was like – imagine his surprise when we told him we’d travelled far and wide – across the river!

After a rather lovely meal cooked by Chef Tanya, we made our way to the pub (well several actually), and met up with the crew of Purple Mist who had been stranded in Dartmouth for several days and going stir crazy.

The following day we set off to Salcombe via Dittisham up the Dart. Unfortunately we had to motor sail to Salcombe having wind & tide against us but it was a bright & sunny day so no one minded too much. A learning point for me is ‘don’t trust that the boat GPS is always set up on the correct datum for the chart you are using’!

John completed an excellent secondary port and tidal height calculation for our entry into Salcombe and we arrived with 0.8m of water to get under the bar. Tanya luckily recalled that Salcombe was busy..an understatement of the highest order we were soon to discover and motored straight into several dinghy races going on in the entrance! Alan did a fabulous job of navigating us through them all with the whole crew on alert. A good job too as I'd certainly not seen one or two of them!

We moored up alongside Margarita and having seen the Water Taxi driver Jo quickly requested a trip ashore was required! The other females on board, namely Tanya & Alex both agreed it was a most excellent plan.

Sunday brought back the rain, but with tide on our side we managed a wonderful sail back to Dartmouth in just 3 hours.

All in all a wonderful weekend despite the weather and one I'd certainly like to do again so I can finally get to see all the nooks and crannies of our SW coastline.

Alex.

RBYC Member Lands First's Mate Job on Super Yacht

(Past member) — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:27:30 GMT

If you have been a RBYC Member for a few years, you will recall the excellent cooking skills of Mark Olorenshaw during the Scotland trip a few years ago. Mark spent years working and instructing sail and power with Club Yachting in Tenerife before moving to Mallorca with his partner Marianna, also a RBYC Member. He is also a diving instructor.

For the past few years, Mark, a qualified chef and past restaurant owner in his own right, took up the challenge of working on a 120 foot super yacht called Blue Attraction as a chef, travelling between the Med and Carribean, enjoying the challenge of the kitchen, sunshine and occassional trip to Cannes!

Earlier this year, Mark spent three months studying non stop at UKSA in Cowes and other traning establishments in The Solent gaining his commercial qualifications and endorsements to successfully gain his new position as First Mate on a boat called 'Lady Feryal' a 42 Metre ALFAMARINE with 11 crew to help organise and manage.

Mark is currently heading off to be at The Monaco Grand Prix which takes place this weekend. I hope the food on the boat is up to Mark's high standards! Enjoy....

Wind Farms for South East Endland - Have your Say!!

(Past member) — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:30:00 GMT

John Athey, RBYC Member, recently attended a seminar/consultation meeting at the RAFYC in Hamble.

Held by Eneco and its representatives. Although the turnout was a little low, there were some 12 Yacht club/organizations represented.

The 'presentation' lasted some 2 hours, quite informative, but disturbing. There was a time for questions, numerous and some heat.

At the meeting, a representative of the RYA voiced a comment, that they the RYA had received little response, negative or otherwise, about this proposed wind farm.

I have attached a small extract of information, at the bottom is the important bit. The area marked is the area Eneco have a license for (and could develop), the area marked by a green outline is the area they have research and propose to build the wind farm. If you wish to read more, Eneco is the place to go.

Please could you forward this to all members, expressing that, if they have thoughts or feelings about this development, to email the RYA asap.

If we do not respond, construction will begin within 4 years.

Wind Farm Proposal

Red Diesel and Crossing the Channel

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:27:47 GMT

We talked Red Diesel at the March committee meeting and we thought that the members would appreciate an update.

A few years ago the EU made the use of untaxed diesel for propulsion of leisure craft illegal. The way the UK interpreted that EU law was to introduce the need to pay Tax on the propulsion part of the diesel you buy - most boat users do that by making the 60/40 split declaration - though if you live on a non moving canal boat you can still get it tax free. The UK still allowed the use of Red or marked Diesel, but its up to the boat owner to pay the appropriate tax. Ireland, Channel islands, Norway do the same as the UK - Interestingly in Ireland the fuel is Green!

Other EU countries implemented that law by switching leisure boats to fully taxed/ unmarked white diesel. (France, Belgium , Holland) On top Belgium has a National law that totally prohibits the presence of Red diesel in a leisure boats, and fines up to 5euro/ litre tank capacity if red diesel is detected. Holland requires proof (via receipts less than 12mths old) that tax has been paid on the fuel. At the moment the French and the Channel islands have no local rules.

After a botched attempt at getting UK boat owners to declare that they would only use red diesel in UK territorial waters (12NM offshore) which provoked outrage from boat owners and the RYA, yesterday HMRC revised its law and now all UK diesel purchasers have to declare that whilst Red Diesel is completely legal in UK waters, that they are aware that other nations can have there own laws about the use of marked fuel. Therefore before you travel you should be aware of local laws where you are travelling to.

This is no change versus today as despite our lovely harmonised EU laws, the Belgians can if they like have whatever national laws they want about diesel. RYA are still campaigning with the Belgians

Practically this means:

France / Channel Islands: No local rules on Red Diesel, so we are free to cruise there. RYA rang the French only last week and they confirmed no plans to check marking of Diesel. However to be doubly sure its just worth a quick check that no changes have happened since this email. M. Gosselin in St Vaast and Carrefour Cherbourg can stock up with confidence we will be visiting.

Belgium: Despite having great beer and chocolate you risk a big fine with red diesel. The RYA man on this link does suggest that some rallies have got prior permission not to be checked by prearranging with the harbour but I wouldn't be risking a quick pop into Belgium.

Holland: If you are off to buy tulips, then take full receipts to cover the amount of fuel you have, less than 12 mths old

For more details click this link

Di and Pete go solo on the Solent - Pontoon bashing extra!

(Past member) — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 09:23:10 GMT

Diane and I have sailed for 3 years now, but mostly in the Med and Canaries (Diane is a warm bloodied creature who dislikes the cold).

We joined the RBYC to get some sailing experience in the UK and of course meet some like minded people who enjoy sailing and socialising. We did two Solent weekends last year and we booked ourselves onto the” pontoon bashing” weekend. Then I got an offer by email I could not refuse, so I didn’t! Six hundred quid for five days bareboat charter with Fairview on a 37 Oceanis with heating! So why not do it after the pontoon bashing? Our first week our own in tidal waters.

So pontoon bashing completed with Skipper Rob, we picked up “Creme de la Creme” on Sunday night. The chap at Fairview was really helpful and even showed us where the cutlery drawer was (under the chart table), full handover after 9am on Monday which was fine with us.

Funny old blighter Neptune…

We did the handover on Monday morning, went and filled her up with diesel as the previous charterer had not done this. To be honest we could have done without it but the guy from the yard came with us and was really very helpful. We had decided on Cowes for the first night, East Cowes was favourite as the showers are good! Lovely little sail in about 10 knots of wind and a lovely warm 20C, bit of a beam reach and a good practice at getting the sails up and set with the two of us. A few tacks, no reason other than because we could and a had really good play.

Down with the sails (why did I leave the main until we were in the entrance to Cowes and the Sea Cat was blasting across the Solent towards us? Got out the way nicely, but why? We were given berth B4 in East Cowes, we did a “drive past” and then went down river for a conference which involved putting the fender to port, then starboard, then port, then starboard. Eventually we decided to reverse into the bay and then forward onto our pontoon as the momentum of the turn would push us against the pontoon. We had timed it that the flow was fairly slack (thanks Rob for showing us what 4 knots looks like!). We went up and down a few times avoiding a training boat that always seemed to be in the way. So we were reversing towards the gap, about 200 yards away the training boat reversed up to the gap and hovered there. I recon they were a group of French Waiters on a trip, none would give eye contact and they completely ignored us. So abort, abort. Up the river, turn around and back up again. They were now having a séance, they were all sat in the cockpit looking in, even the helm. Diane wanted to get the horn to “give em 5” but I managed to attract their attention by bellowing “ahoy” and few times” and pointing. The helm looked up in disgust and then back to the séance but roared away to the other side of the river.

Back we went into the gangway then forward and turn into the pontoon, 3mrts, 2mtrs, slow down, 1mtr. Thump, the patter of tiny feet and the call, “got it”, the centre cleat was on. A little bit of forward to pull her into place so we could do the bow and stern. I could hear the crowds roaring and the judges holding up the score…”Peter (she rarely calls me Peter), reverse, REVERSE”. One look at Diane’s face and seeing her trying to wrap the diminishing end of the centre cleat rope back onto the centre cleat, where Neptune must have undone it from, was enough to make me put her in reverse to stop the boat then into neutral and chuck the stern rope to Diane, run forwards and do the same with the bow rope. Both secured we stood on the pontoon, leant against the boat and laughed. Had a few quiet moments of reflection , then set about making it all look pretty.

Pete gets his tackle wet.

Tuesday we set off to Yarmouth, has a nice reach to Newton River where we anchored west of the entrance so we could have a good look at the entrance, Diane could play with her watercolours and, best of all, I could try out my new “Ebay” fishing tackle! After 2 hours Diane had a good first painting and I had caught some seaweed. But at least I had got my tackle wet for the first time!

Then off to Yarmouth. We had read the Solent cruising companion which warned of the tide affecting the entrance. Really glad I was ready for it as I announced to Diane “we are going sideways!”. The harbourmaster sent us to one of the yellow finger pontoons, we went in forwards, centre cleat was to go onto the first finger cleat so we could drive forwards carefully and not hit the end! It worked a treat, nice and slow (thanks Rob), Diane was off and secured it and we just put the bow and stern warps on and gently eased her into place.

Couple of beers on the sun terrace Salties and watched the other boats come in sideways. What a day!

Follow the amazing bouncing ball

Wednesday was another glorious day, we set off about 10am. Neptune had a smile and moved the tug with the crane into the exit from yellow bay and the gap looked like we could just about make it. We could have gone through sideways, but it just seemed narrow when you are not expecting it. Off to Newtown River. A short sail but we made it long by having a play for a couple of hours in the 7+ knot wind. We went into Newtown River at HW -4 on the flood, just like the good book said. We were down to 0.7 a few times as made our way into Clamerkin Lake and picked up a visitors buoy (no2). Diane did a fantastic lasso job on the big white buoy, then we had a funny five minutes trying to get the red pickup buoy. It just kept floating out of reach. Lots of laughter and eventually we had it on board and secured

What a lovely place, decided to get a boat, fill it with food and just go there for a month and paint and fish and write stuff, or learn the bagpipes!

We then had an afternoon of painting and fishing, Painters 2 Fishers 0.

Bit of a panic when working out the water we would need. Then I remembered to take off low water so you get the range and it all fell into place. However we did an hourly reading and used the lead line to make sure Neptune was playing nicely. But of course as the boat moved around the buoy, so the depth changed. At 9pm we went to sleep having got past low water without going aground. Thanks Neptune.

What a nice man!

Another sunny day and a 10 knot breeze. We came out of Newtown River and were heading for the top of Southampton water by the container terminal and the turning circle where Rob had shown us some moorings. We had Folly Inn as our alternative. As we came out of Newtown we realised we were going from the sublime to the ridiculous, so went for plan B, the Folly Inn. Again a lovely sail and a play about not wanting to get to Cowes before 3pm as I wanted to get to the Folly when the main part of the flood was over.

As we motored into Cowes, was there was a smell of rubber? Then it was very quickly gone, the engine was spitting out water, all seemed well. Anyway we moored up OK at the Folly and were enjoying a well earned cup of tea following the applause from the crowd and judges holding up the score cards, when Diane asked if I had checked the engine. “But we do engine checks in the morning”, as I was saying it I realised how stupid it sounded and must have enraged Neptune, so I lifted the engine cover to find some fine black powder where there was none earlier in the day. Also the main belt had some white webbing hanging from it…Oh dear, that was the smell of rubber in Cowes. The belt was just starting slip and shred. Quick call to Sea Start and a very nice man turned up and put the spare belt on for us. What a nice man! Quick call to Fairview just to tell them what was happening.

This helped me not worry too much about low water, I had done the sums and we would have 0.6m plus a shopping trolley so we would be fine…9pm, 0.4m plus Rob’s shopping trolley (thanks mate!). Phew, bedtime!

The fat lady sings.

Up at 6.30, off by 7am to get back for 9am on the fuel pontoon in the Hamble. All I can say is good plan well executed except the gas bottle ran out and we did not get that cup of tea on the crossing.

The guy at the fuel pontoon looked familiar, was he on the training yacht at Cowes? We buzzed up and down the Hamble for half an hour while the other boats on the fuel pontoon drank tea and had a lovely chat. Still, chill out man. We had a great play at going nowhere and doing turns, so hey, no problem.

So we refuelled and called Fairview, and a nice chap came and mooring the boat in an impossible location, he checked for holes in the hull, then we were done. Deposit intact we hugged! Fantastic team effort.

My goodness this skipperin lark in harder than you think with all these flippin tides, and Neptune chuckin his hand in! But how did we pick such a great week, the last week in March was like a week in August (but no rain!).

I know we have mentioned Rob a few times but all the skippers, Gary, Les, Neil and Richard that we have had the pleasure of sailing with have been great in sharing their knowledge and skill. So a big thanks to them and we are both looking forward to meeting some more like minded members of the RBYC!

International Guild of Knot Tyers - Surrey Branch

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:51:37 GMT

Last night at club night we enjoyed a very interesting talk from Howard Denyer from the International Guild of Knot Tyers - Surrey Branch. We learnt new ways to tie on fenders more securely and quick and easy ways to tie bowlines. Howard showed us how rope was made, and we had a close look at a real chunk of HMS Victory anchor warp. Thanks to Pauline for organising and Howard for such an enlightening talk.

For more details on the knots: http://www.surreyknots.org.uk/

RBYC Skippers Trip Feb '12

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:31:35 GMT

Last weekend the intrepid skippers of the club set off on their annual jaunt around the Solent. Nine of Berkshires finest sailors aboard Note Bene a 47' Beneteau Oceanis. Chief Skipper of the skippers for the weekend was Captain Lidl (Gary). His motley crew were Thruster Hammond (Rob), Kipper Skipper (Steve), Snow Kite (Alex), Auntie "Teddy" Les, Dr Crouton (Ian), Zen (Neil), Musto Man (Mike) and Bob (Kate)
Friday night we did a quick trip over to East Cowes, weather was.... well .... er cold and dark ! However the cockles were soon warmed up with Snow Kites Jamie Oliver Chili, a few small glasses of cold tea and some very tasty sloe gin from Teddy Les.
Saturday the weather turned very windy with gusts up to 36kts, but the skippers were not put off .... at least it wasn't raining. They bravely fought the wind and waves to arrive at Lymington Town quay just after lunch.... though for some I think the motivation was more the thought of the Musto shop. Then it started raining! ... but it was a downwind run back to Shepards wharf in Cowes. Most of the skippers diligently stayed on deck though Teddy Les snuck downstairs and flipped on the heating under the pretense of making some mulled wine for arrival.
Saturday evening we were joined by Javelin with another 2 club skippers - Liz Hurley (Peter) and Captain Tetley (Richard). We ate in the Portuguese restaurant at Shepard's wharf - highly recommended.
Then it was back to Note Bene, watching very carefully for the icy pontoons. The wind had turned northerly and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Unfortunately Kipper Skipper chose to have a little kip whilst coming down the ramp and the ice tripped him up.
Sunday the sun was shining brightly, not a cloud in the sky but the north wind was absolutely freezing. Despite double thermals, 2 fleeces and 2 jackets I was still a quite chilly. Another trip down the Western Solent this time non stop. When it came to lunch it was a fight to get out of the wind and go down below in the warm.
So the club skippers are now all refreshed and raring to go taking out the club trips... so get signing up folks so you too can join in the fun.

15 Mexican Top Tips - November RBYC Trip

(Past member) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:58:01 GMT

1. In Mexico it is always sunny so ensure you have packed your sunglasses

In case we should experience some of your lousy English weather, the sunglasses will come in useful to protect your eyes for the garish colours of Roberto's 1973 poncho.

2. The Mexican men are very proud of their distinctive moustaches. They have to be.

They wear them in the hope of distracting you from their very suspect paper table cloth ponchos

3. Mexicans Love Blue Peter

Nothing is more satisfying to a boat load of Mexicans than to get out the scissors & glue sticks to while away the hours in a marina decorating their aforementioned paper ponchos.

4. Mexicans like to follow a clearly defined process

Tequila slammers work best when done in the correct order - salt, lemon, tequila. Please do not snort the salt – it is a waste of salt.

5. You cannot get a hangover with Tequila

FACT!! Just ask Rob Nelson.

6. You can feel a little jaded if you drink too much fluorescent drink

Everyone knows E numbers cause hangovers. Just ask Les.

7. Mexicans love company

Preferably lots of it in very close quarters. 25 people on one boat feels homely.

8. Mexicans don't like being in deep water

25 people on one boat ensures that there is very little water under the keel in a marina at all times.

9. Mexican voices can break at very inopportune moments

First Mate Frida sounded uncannily like Skipper Roberto during some crew manoeuvres. Learning what a tw*t really is can make the first mate's voice drop an octave.

10. The Environment is key to Mexicans

Tom, Dick & Harry are very supportive of other people recycling - especially the sheer number of bottles taken off Tragedy on Sun morning. N.B Tragedy is a brilliant name for a boat!

11. In Mexican cruising chutes = la discordia matrimonial

Skipper Roberto has direct control over the first mate's marriage by deciding whether to put the happy couple together on the foredeck to launch, gybe or pack the cruising chute.

12. Mexicans are particularly proud of their National Anthem

'I got the moves like Jagger, I got the moves like Jagger ooooh ooooh oooh oooh ooh oooh o ooooh' is firmly ensconced in the heads of all the crew, passing boats & the entire population of the Isle of Wight thanks to Frida the first mate.

13. Mexicans are less proud of their dancing skills

The Mexican Hat Dance is best done on a boat alone.

14. Mexicans don't sail at night.

It makes the lines twist like chilli peppers.

15. Mexicans don't cook Mexican food half as well as the RBYC

Javelin sets sail around The British Isles

(Past member) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:13:16 GMT

Javelin is off on a brand new adventure starting on Friday 15th July. We plan to do a 6 week clockwise circumnavigation of the UK.

There will be crew changes every Saturday and this site will be updated daily whenever possible. Last year was very eventful with warship firing, coastguard helicopter practicing and saving a sinking yacht in the English Channel so we are hoping for more fun this year. You can see our latest position by copying this link into your browser. Http://www.shipais.com/showship.php?mmsi=235080757

We are raising money on this trip for the RNLI who bravely save many lives each year. To encourage you to donate there will be a prize of a weekend's sailing on Javelin for the winner of the competition. Please be generous and donate to a worthy cause. http://www.justgiving.com/Peter-Hurley

You can read our own blog as we work our way around the UK

Peter Hurley

Purple Mist - Yachtmaster Week

(Past member) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:19:18 GMT

Last week, 3 RBYC members (Professor B, The “Hof” and myself) took on the challenge of Yachtmaster, aided by another taking on Day Skipper (Dad!) . The good news is we all passed – but as the event was not without its highs and lows I thought I’d share them with you all.

We started with a 5 Day YM prep course organised via Southern Sailing. Highly recommended for those of you planning for YM. Purple Mist was ready to go , she’d had a bit of an incident 2 weeks earlier on the way back from Eddystone when she’d lost her prop – silly girl! Luckily my clever boat had managed to keep her prop tightly attached whilst we motored 20hrs in a F6 back from Eddystone and only managed to shed it on the Port Hamble Fuel pontoon with no tide running, the wind blowing her on and our very own diesel course instructor ready to investigate the engine – so no damage done. A quick tow from Sea Start (also highly recommended), a diver recovered the prop and it was fitted on again ready for the course.

Our Instructor joined us Sunday and we set of for the delights of Southampton water. First task was picking up the mooring buoy under sail at the end of Ashlett creek with about 3kts of tide and a fair amount of wind – lots of practise on that! Next highlight was the retrieval of an undamaged Fisher Price plastic garage - very handy as the “return from my trip” present for the 2 kids of Professor B. Then it was onto man overboards, Maybe Purple Mist was a bit on edge like the rest of us, maybe some underwater gremlin who had been hiding in the Hamble river 2 weeks prior had swum down to grab the prop again but – oh dear – no propulsion – Prop was lost again….. and this time no chance of a diver picking it up.

Interesting with a YM instructor onboard I expected we’d at least sail back to the Hamble – but oh no – his first thoughts “you said you were in Sea Start – better give them a call! “ So Monday night we were back where we’d started.

Monday I spent the morning with the marina with them justifying how carefully they had fixed on the original prop. Then its was the pros and cons of feathering versus folding and decided to switch to a feathering prop – mostly because the Danish flex-o-fold was on a 10day lead time and the British feathering prop could be finished up that afternoon. Professor B did a sharp bit of negotiating with Hamble Point and mid afternoon we switched boats to Dumbledore – she’s like the older sister (maybe Mother???) of Purple Mist. Then it was off to Cowes for dinner. Outside Cowes was a very nice looking boat that I recognised from one of my quizzes as the Danish Royal Yacht. We just called it Lurpak for the rest of the week. ……. I bet that has a Danish Flex-o-fold prop on it!

Finally we could do a bit of night sailing, prop intact - Professor B found the Bramble post in the dark and “The Hof” took us into Newtown Creek.

Next morning more of the same – Dad took us to Beaulieu, I blind Nav’d round to Calshot, Someone to Cowes – past Lurpak again, then it was off to Haslar in the dark (via a few spots we needed to find) – key learning the channel bends to Port on the way in – turn with it or you end up in the middle of the channel.

Wednesday was mooring buoys under sail again then a blind Nav into Wooton Creek. (via a few more spots to find) then it was back up the Hamble to rejoice in the relaunch of Purple Mist. Key criteria was that the fridge had been kept on so the home made and frozen Fish Pie that I was

hoping to charm the examiner with Friday was still intact. Quick boat swop and then up to Marchwood in the dark – short tacking up the narrow bit.

Last training day was over in a flash, an explore of the River Itchen, quick wave to Javelin, final practise of MOB the RYA way (under power, pick up on the windward side) as this was a definite in the exam. Dad got his Day skipper so it was off to the Jolly Sailor to celebrate.

As the week went on the nerves built and certainly that evening all three of us were nervous. However we agreed a few tactics – no war stories – only tales of competency to be mentioned with the instructor and to try and help each other when we can.

John Goode rocked up at 3pm and did his best to put us at ease. I was first on with a trip to Cowes – It was a less than slick leave of the pontoon, then wind got up to 25kts on the way over and 2 goes on sailing onto the buoy but overall not bad. At least I was in charge of the vessel – which earned me a new nickname. I won’t repeat the nickname John gave me but apparently although completely unacceptable to most ears from him was a compliment.

Then Professor B took us to Wooton Creek again, this time at low water and other than trying to go over the shallow bit at 6kts where it was suggested he better slow down, and a few touches on the bottom avoiding the ferry all was well. “The Hof” took us into Portsmouth and Camber dock. Funnily enough the Helm ensured we never went out of the small boat channel and other than the “Hof” turning the boat in Camber dock like it was a car (plenty of side slip!!!) it was another good performance. Professor B took us into Royal Clarence ( I can get it cheap and its very easy!).

Next morning it turned from examination to tuition. Although we were supposed to be doing Mooring buoys in Portsmouth harbour, it turned into John showing us a very cool manoeuvre involving tying the opposite bow to the pontoon and reversing hard – apparently he’d once had to do this on some knackered ship with a dodgy engine when the captain had been arrested. Once we’d all done that it was time for morning tea and no time for mooring buoys. Professor B then took us out of Portsmouth and after a close shave with a green buoy went through the gap in the submarine barrier - that’s the gap just off Southsea Pier – not the one in the middle. Sun was shining, wind was blowing and we could have been in the Med. We moored under sail - quite honestly I don’t think the anchor was dug in but I didn’t like to say… after all it was John Goode !

We went down to Lymington and en route did a few MOB’s and despite what the instructor said John wanted to show us how to do under sail – so we all got a go at that even Dad. By this time we had also worked out another distraction tactic – Dad kept John busy with tales of Fergusson tractors, bantum chickens and dog breeding whilst we got on with sailing the boat. On the way back I decided to squeeze every bit of tuition we could and given John is the expert on chutes with his boat show masterclass out came Purple Mists news stripy number and that kept him busy with tuition for another couple of hrs.

By this time the weather was chasing us down the Solent, so we just got back to Universal before the big blow.

Sunday morning was finished up with some theory, few calculations and then the big reveal that we had all passed. By this stage I think we were all so dog tired that we were beyond caring if we passed or failed but we were all successful.

Net a great week, not one I’d want to repeat in a hurry but we all ended up better sailors.

Kate Cope