Learner driversI woke up this morning with the distinct feeling that I had been sleeping in the middle of a typhoon.
We didn't close any windows or doors last night. Alerted by the feeling of breeze in my hair and much whooooooing, crashing and clanging; I leapt out of bed to check on the boat, who I found happily bobbing about, stretching and snagging her lines.
Later on we went out for a peek at the water. There wasn't a boat in sight, apart from the odd ferry and a working RIB whose helm looked as though he'd lost a couple of inches in height, plus his kidneys.
A couple of years ago, we were sailing home in very similar conditions, in the same area during an unusual Summer gale.
There had been no forecast for bad weather. Not in the least concerned about any deterioration in conditions for our sail home, we went out the night before and were rather worse for wear the following morning, certainly in no fit state to wake up just before 0600 to get the shipping forecast.
We crawled out of our pits at around 1100 and looked the shipping forecast up on Fur's crackberry. SW 4 or 5 , increasing 5-6, perhaps gale 8 later. Time to go. Quickly.
As we set out, we sensed we'd have some good breeze so as not to have to use the engine at all.
Wrong. There was sufficient wind alright, about enough to shift a 50,000 tonne ship up the Solent.
We spent the following few hours looking dead ahead. The wind was behind us and looking astern provoked exclamations of 'shit! big wave! it'd better not get up anymore!' and of course 'whose idea was it to go out and get ratfinked last night?'
We were not impressed and although quite worried, mostly a result of a couple of huge broaches (sort of semi-submarining sideways due to being overpressed) that seemed to last a lot longer than a few seconds, we got home in one piece without breaking anything.
Upon tying up, we went straight home, swayed for the following 24 hours and went back downstairs the following day to put the boat to bed.
We didn't close any windows or doors last night. Alerted by the feeling of breeze in my hair and much whooooooing, crashing and clanging; I leapt out of bed to check on the boat, who I found happily bobbing about, stretching and snagging her lines.
Later on we went out for a peek at the water. There wasn't a boat in sight, apart from the odd ferry and a working RIB whose helm looked as though he'd lost a couple of inches in height, plus his kidneys.
A couple of years ago, we were sailing home in very similar conditions, in the same area during an unusual Summer gale.
There had been no forecast for bad weather. Not in the least concerned about any deterioration in conditions for our sail home, we went out the night before and were rather worse for wear the following morning, certainly in no fit state to wake up just before 0600 to get the shipping forecast.
We crawled out of our pits at around 1100 and looked the shipping forecast up on Fur's crackberry. SW 4 or 5 , increasing 5-6, perhaps gale 8 later. Time to go. Quickly.
As we set out, we sensed we'd have some good breeze so as not to have to use the engine at all.
Wrong. There was sufficient wind alright, about enough to shift a 50,000 tonne ship up the Solent.
We spent the following few hours looking dead ahead. The wind was behind us and looking astern provoked exclamations of 'shit! big wave! it'd better not get up anymore!' and of course 'whose idea was it to go out and get ratfinked last night?'
We were not impressed and although quite worried, mostly a result of a couple of huge broaches (sort of semi-submarining sideways due to being overpressed) that seemed to last a lot longer than a few seconds, we got home in one piece without breaking anything.
Upon tying up, we went straight home, swayed for the following 24 hours and went back downstairs the following day to put the boat to bed.
The Needles
Sea Start - Guardian Angels of all wot stinks
7 comments:
This is the world's best and most exciting blog, and much better than Charlie's and other people's too. I always thought that brooches were rather nice things. Just shows how wrong I can be.
I think you were very brave to go out in those conditions. I only ever sail when the Bowfork scale is at 0-2
Anonymouse/Charlie - LOL and grrrrrrr!
Bead - I no. We'd have turned back if we could have but left it too late.
ERK!
f
Methinks thou art an adrenalin junkie!
I think that Anonymous is the world's best and most exciting comment leaver, and much better than Charlie and other people too.
:)
EC - Hahahaha! You'd have loved it!
Fairscape - What on earth makes you think that? :)
Dan - LOL! Teeheeee!
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