Trip on Lady Emma starting 2013-10-12 in BSAOct13
‘Lady Emma’ Solent sailing, 12/13 October 2013-report by skipper Bob Buchanan
Skipper. Bob Buchanan. Crew. R.Hayward, C.Evans, K.Lay, D.Winks, P.Ashbee, C.Mclynn.
On Friday evening we met up at the boat in Haslar marina, then went to the Mary Mouse for an evening meal. The steaks were ok but the fish was not so good, overall we would give it about 5 out of10.
Saturday. We had warm sunny weather with a light N/E wind. With a bit of tide against us we made very slow progress to our destination of Cowes. We had full main and number 2 genoa up and at times our speed was down to less than one knot. We got to Cowes at 14.00hrs to find that Sunsail had a rally and lots of their yachts were going into Cowes Yacht Haven; we tried getting in there as well but found they were full up, so we carried on to Shepard’s Wharf Marina and booked a place there.
That night we had a meal in the BaHar tandoori Indian restaurant, it’s a b.y.o, but if you do run out of beer/wine there are a couple of supermarkets nearby. We left there and went back to the Anchor for a few. On the way back on the pontoon I had to hold both of the girl’s arms so that they would not fall in the marina.
We were all in our bunks about midnight, it was a very calm night until 03.30 when there was a loud crash, Colin jumped up from his bunk next to me and said ‘what the **** was that, Bob I think we have been hit. No we haven’t’ was my reply. ‘Well what was it?’, said Colin. ‘It’s me’ I replied, ‘I am on the floor jammed between the table and my bunk’. The infill latch had come loose and the lot has ended up down here. Kevin, in the bunk above me was still comatose and still snoring, no one else on board had heard a thing either. I fixed the latch, checked it then went back to sleep, no breakages but a cut elbow and a sore back.
Sunday. I woke up, again, to find a very misty grey day, so I decided to stay in bed until breakfast, egg,bacon,beans,etc (thanks Becca) some of the others had gone into town shopping. We left at 13.30 in a N/W F3 so we only put the main up, and with the tide with us we were sailing along at 6Knts. The weather was not very good but the sailing was.
Back at Haslar we packed up and met Gordon Ogden and some of his crew on the pontoon, boarding ‘Spellbinder’. Lady Emma’ is now on the same pontoon as ‘Spellbinder’.
A very good weekend with a boatload of friends.