x
Friday 6th July, saw me driving down to the Hamble river to join Troubadour a Nautor Swan 46 Mk1. Arriving shortly before midday, I met up with the Owner Andy Roy and we were shortly joined by Chris Williams-Jones. We offloaded the dinghy and outboard and waited the arrival of Jeremy Owen before repairing to the pub for a late lunch, where Ian Kirkton and Andy’s son Stefan joined us.
We cast off and motored down the Hamble heading for Cowes, the winds were not favourable for spinnaker training however lines where set up and we had some tacking and gybing practice, with mainsail and headsail, off Cowes, before motoring up river to our berth. We were entertained at the Cloudy Bay village, by an Old Pangbournean, before returning by water taxi Troubadour.
Saturday dawned bright and early, sunny with a light northly. Our start time was 0710 so we headed down to the sea and worked out where we planned to start. The tide was running from the south, which caused us addition stress as we were nearly swept across the line,
Beating up the Solent towards the Needles against the flood tide was a laborious task generally keeping out of the channel, skirting the sandbanks.
Once at the Needles we were able to hoist the spinnaker and set course for St Catherine s Point. We chose to sail a direct line, whilst others headed inshore to make use of more favourable tidal streams.
Off St Catherine's a log jam of boats formed as the wind and tides cancelled themselves out, however we spotted a slight wind direction change, Gybed the spinnaker and were slowly able to get under way again.
Once back into the Solent we started to make gains by avoiding holes in the wind which becalmed many yacht.
We spotted yachts speeding along on the Island shore and made our way through sandbanks to join them and be rewarded by good sailing conditions allowing Troubadour to show some of her power.
Coming to the finish, we miss judged the speed of the tide and the position of the inshore line, this resulted in having to turn away to avoid boats laying the line. Our second attempt was also quite hairy as we bore away to avoid the committee and find a slot and then hardened up to cross the line.
Troubadour- 201st overall 7th in class
1204 Entered
657 Finished
472 Retired
4 Disqualified
Overall a great days racing, perhaps a little bit to much sun. Unfortunately, Andy had to return to the IOM so missed the celebratory meal ,where we joined up with Peter Kewish and family.
Sunday morning we had a lie-in before motoring back to Elephants Boatyard on the Hamble River, where we tidied the boat.
I left the yacht just after 1100 nad had a hot and tiring journey back home.
Thanks Andy
David Ogden
