Sailing 12th & 13th June 2010

We again travelled down down Friday night, my Dad who was helping us for the weekend managed to get there first.  After a couple of drinks at The Spinnaker we went to bed ready for an early start as we had to leave by 08.30 on a good tide and to visit our friends aboard Dizzzy whi were anchored in Chichester Harbour.

Our destination this weekend would be the Riveer Medina on the Isle of White as there was a meeting organised for The Rival Owners Association and as we have become recent owners we thought it would be a great idea to meet other rival owners and share information and experiences.

We awoke to glorious sunshine on Saturday morning with a little more wind than I had exopected, still it was not raining and the increase in wind only meant that we would make the Isle of White faster than anticipated.  In the end we departed our berth around 09:00, the increaed sheer line on Troskala managed to give me a scare as the wind meant I was unable to complete a turn in a tight space within the marina; I am still learning how to handle her.  We stopped to refuel and departed the lock at 09:30.

We spotted Dizzzy off Itchenor Reach and moored along side for a quick cup of tea and cake as it was Kelvin's birthday and then set off again around 10:30.

A quick stop along side Dizzzy in aid of Kelvin's Birthday.

We continued our trip out to West Pole where we were met with force 3 to 4 winds from the NNW, again it felt that we were having to beat into the wind all day but it shifted later to a more northly direction giving us the ability to complete long stretches whitout much tacking.

We had a glorious sail averaging 4 to 5 knots, we had cleared the Forts at Portsmouth around 12:00 aiming for Osbourne bay.  As the wind picked up our tiller extension broke, but this was expected due to the attchement from the tiller extension to the tiller becoming perished, looks like we wiull have to part with £120 for a new one as the tiller on Troskala is failry short.

We reached The Medina around about 15:30 and managed to get a great spot on the end of one of the visitor pontoons.

The rest of the night was spent meeting some very interesting Rival owners sharing a chili-con-carne and a few glasses of wine, and a trip to the Folly Inn later.

The Rival Owners Association Meeting

13th - Back to Chichester:

We awoke fairly early as we had to leave around 09:30 to gain a favourable tide back to Chichester.  We eventually set off at 10:30 with glorious sunshine and good force 3 verging on 4.  Carlotta helmed most of the way to get her practise in whilst I made plenty of tea. 

The wind changed direction to a South Easterly around about 13:00.  We had Portsmouth forts in sight but I wanted to hold the course I was on for as long as possible, that is until our depth guage went from 20 meters to 1 meter, we immediately changed tack and after realised I had held on for too long as we were running onto Ryde Sands; lucky escape and a lesson learned.

We continued on our new tack until we spotted the Winner Cardinal, my concern was now how much water we had to enter Chichester Harbour and get over the Bar.  To make matters worse we were going in on a ebbing tide with a Sourthly force 4 which made the sea quite hectic (see below):

Chichester Harbour looks completely different at low tide, which for made it easier to see where the dangers lie and for future reference.  As we approached the marina lock our depth went down to under a meter and either side were steep mud banks.  We were enetering two hours before low water but we made it with only 0.5 of a meter under the keel.
Safely in the lock we could relax, but in future I doubt we will leave it so close to low water in future.
We arrived into our berth around 17:00 and after a clean up, some soup and a glass of wine we could reflect on our second trip to the Isle of White