Lou

Our first Round the Island for some 3 years - great to have the old crew back on board and to welcome one new crew member to the group. It has to be said it did not start well, late to the start line but it did mean we had clear air and water when we did finally cross!!! As the track shows the usual tacking down the west Solent a nice tight turn at the Needles and apart from the need to tack to get round St Cats which was very annoying, a pretty straight forward leg to that point. Once round St Cats we got ourselves in clear water to hoist the kite and thankfully pulled back a few places I think. Approaching Bembridge ledge always a pinch point there looked to be some nasty clouds both to the north and south of us so I elected to get the chute down before the turn at Bembridge. Pretty glad I did when the squally stuff came in - there were spinnakers flying free from the top of masts and plenty of hour glass situations going on. Another trouble free leg although the wind did start to die off somewhat which made it slow. Not sure what time we finished but it was a thoroughly enjoyable race and a great crack as always with this motley crew - see you all next year 😊

I was lucky enough to be invited to skipper the first leg of the Portuguese Arc by Pen and Luce on their beautiful 34ft Hallberg Rassy, Seahorse IV. The first leg takes us from Plymouth, across Biscay to Baiona one of my favourite places on the north west coast of Spain, I couldn’t say no!!! We set off from Plymouth on Sunday 12th June with the rest of the fleet across the start line at 0900 all was going well we passed Eddystone light and we’re heading towards the Ushant TSS. It was at this point that one of our crew members began to experience some medical issues and made a call to the coastguard to get some medical advice. After a lot of communication back and forth over a good hour the advice was to evacuate the crew member and we were asked to close the distance so in essence we had to turn around. At 1424 we were 18 miles south of Eddystone Light and we had to turn back towards it. The Plymouth lifeboat was not available so the coastguard had scrambled the Salcombe lifeboat - we were approximately one mile south of Eddystone when the lifeboat came alongside in pretty choppy seas and we transferred our crew member across. We turned straight back round with a mission to try and catch the rest of the fleet. We did indeed manage to catch the rear of the fleet within about 24 hours, Seahorse IV is a thoroughbred on the water!! Biscay was a pretty uneventful crossing, loads of dolphins which was nice. The passage became somewhat more interesting as we approached the Spanish coast. A roll cloud 😳😊 happy days a Southern Hemisphere phenomenon and I never thought I would see one . As we went under it the weather started to change and by the time we got to Finisterre the wind was gusting 35-40 knots fortunately on the aft quarter so we zoomed towards Baiona for some time before it calmed down somewhat. We finally arrived in Baiona at 1252 on Thursday 16th June. Thanks to Pen and Luce for their generosity in letting me skipper and their great company throughout the trip - Seahorse IV has continued her journey towards her Mediterranean destination, sadly I needed to return back to Blighty to work 🥴

The last day of the course! Always sad to depart a boat after so many fun filled days together with the crew. Was a great five days especially practicing doing everything under sail. 😍⛵️

This was fun! Pretty incredible to see the cruise ships close up at night. They are monsters!