Graham Sykes

Sailing with West Lancashire Scouts. Alison, Liz, Rachel, Neil, David with Mike Banner

Early start from Cowes only turned on sail tied at South Bramble. I was cooking breakfast - scrambled eggs smoked salmon and sauté mushrooms with home made bread. Great voyage taking the route through the submarine barrier.

Great sail out to Nab tower SE gusting 27 Knots apparent. Radar fixing position Blind navigation onto Northside Ryde Middle

Stewart Scott, Chris Tarling and Graham Sykes sailed to Hasler but didn’t log it and back to Northney. UsedCruising Chute in both directions. Outward bound we used the small ships channel through the submarine barrier. Returning we went to blind navigation between Horse Sands Fort and West Pole. Brilliant exercise for both Stewart who was navigating and Graham on the helm. Followed 5m contour.

Departed Northney 23.00 sailed through moonlit and starlit night. Fun dodging 12 large vessels. Slightly threw us off track. Also we sailed at about 2knots greater than plan so had to do some dodging about of Cherbourg to grab a bit more westing. Stewart’s nav plan was brilliant. Execution went awry because of ship dodging and skippers confusion between BST and UTC. Arrived 14.57 BST.