Breeze

Poole to Cherbourg

Quick hop across to Lymington after deciding that 25 kts on the nose across Poole Bay wouldn’t be an awful lot of fun, with added rain showers to boot.  Took a wrong turn coming past Berthon and missed the turn to port.  Won’t make that mistake again 😬!

Newtown Creek to Lymington Town Quay

Left a very quiet Bucklers Hard with a short sail across to Newtown Creek, hitting several rainy squalls and arriving to an almost deserted line of moorings!  Never seen it like this before, benefits of sailing out of season I guess…… downside is that it’s still raining several hours after I arrived 🤷‍♂️!

Bucklers Hard to Newtown Creek

Recording stopped after 15 minutes or so.  Arrival was on 19th October, not 21st, so 4 hrs 40 minute passage.
Motored across Poole Bay with wind dead behind and a big spring tide beneath me so apparent wind was non-existent.  Motor-sailed once I entered the Solent up to Bucklers Hard, ready to shelter from the forecast wind and rain the next day.  Really quiet on the visitors pontoons; 3 other boats, reduced to just ‘Breeze’ by Sunday night.  Never seen it so quiet!

Poole to Bucklers Hard

Changing wind directions made for an interesting race back to Poole.  New foulies had a good workout early on!

PYRA Race; Weymouth to Poole

Lazy Sole

PYRA Race - Poole to Weymouth

Cracking solo sail home in a fresh NE’ly.  Sailed all the way after exiting Portsmouth Harbour, with the spring ebb carrying me all the way to the Poole Bar Buoy.  Hit the outgoing tide here and wrestled the boat down the main channel back into Poole Harbour; 2-1/2 kts OTG increasing to 6 or 7 kts as I surfed down the small wave faces.  Good fun but hard work!  After 5 hrs covering the first 35 miles, the last 5 took 1-1/2 hrs!

Gosport to Poole

Wind over 20 kts at times.  Sailing to windward with one reef in the main

Bucklers Hard to Haslar Marina

Beautiful sunny day.  Cracking sail across Poole Bay until I hit the tide in The Solent, as the plot shows……. and this was motor-sailing, without which I’d probably have been going backwards coming past Hurst Castle.  If I’d departed an hour earlier I would probably have saved 3 hrs off the trip!  Ended up heading into Bucklers Hard YH up the Beaulieu River in the heart of the beautiful New Forest.

Solo sail - Poole to Bucklers Hard

Fun day sail out into Poole Bay, dodging showers in a fresh NW’ly wind.  Excellent work by new helm Matt with first rate support from First Mate Mark.

Day sail from Poole

Straightforward motorsail across the Channel with a moderate NNE’ly leaving the sails doing most of the work and the engine just keeping a reasonable pace up, to avoid arriving home after dark.  Shipping lanes were interesting with Breeze plus two other vessels converging on the same area right in the middle of the E-going shipping. 
On approach to Poole spotted a yacht I had been trailing from France appearing to be drifting in the dying wind with its AIS now switched off.  Motored 2 miles to their location to find the Sigma 38 with engine and electronics failure.  Offered them a tow into Poole Harbour which they gratefully accepted.  Had the RAF display Typhoon displaying for us then the Shieldhall escorted us down the Maun Channel into Poole and 5 Marines RIB’s came screaming past us too.  Quite an adventure with a successful outcome.

Chris Monk