Timothy Harkness

Sunny day, wind 8kts dropping to 4kts on return, so had to motor back in.

This was my Yachtmaster Offshore exam. Big thank you to Talan for teaching me to sail, sailing with me, being a great skipper, great friend, and being so generous with the use of his boat, Miura, which I practised on and passed the exam on. Thank you, Talon. Thank you to my amazing crew, Kev, Ivan, Nigel, and Stuart, who were so reliable and skilled, just made me feel like I was in a very safe set of hands. And thanks to Chris, a very fair examiner. Great day. Didn't start smoothly. We had to fix a problem with the foresail, combined crew effort we did. Then we sailed out, a quick MOB, bit of tacking to get across to Whedon Creek, came back, a bit of pilotage, and then home. So all went pretty smoothly. Was not aware of any significant mistakes, and the crew did very well. So great day and feel very happy to be a Yachtmaster Offshore.

Tacks and anchor on blustery day. Sailed back with just genoa with wind behind us, worked well.

Good day out. Nav and sailing worked well. Two snags, tried to short cut the bow spring and have it returned to midships - this didn’t work and almost caused a line snag. The second issue was halyard got caught around thew radar reflector again. Anchoring went well, but we do need to drop the mainsail before dropping the anchor. Felt confident using the lights at night. Remember to change our own lights with each sail/motor change.

Good controlled trip. Enjoyed the nocturnal Bembridge raid, although good torches turn night into day. Successful MoB and sailing into mooring buoy.

Night sail with Kev and Ivan. Went to Chichester through this gap in the submarine barrier, anchored off Langstone near the isolated danger mark, then headed off to Chichester, went into Chichester. With the flood tide, came out again. As we were coming out, lights came on, headed into Langstone, went into Langstone under darkness. All was pretty straightforward. Turned around, wind started to die, and we began to motor, motored around the isolated danger mark, and then headed at 270 degrees, which took us through the submarine barrier gap into the channel, and then home. Leaving the dock and returning to dock was not perfect. Just need to be totally clear on roles and plans, for example, how the midships line is used, and remember when reversing after having gone forward into a bow spring, to straighten the wheel before engaging reverse.