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After
arriving at Haslar marina in the warm spring sunshine, those of us who
knew anything about sailling (counting myself out of this one...)
looked at the clear blue skies and noticed a lack of something fairly
important for sailing: wind.
Though perfect for sunbathing, chatting or a quick beer, the weather
meant that the tide was really dictating where the Lutine was going on
our New Members weekend! We were fairly sure that the boat was
drifting backwards at one point! Our plans to make it to the Nab
tower were shelved by noon and we decided to stop for a lunch of
sandwiches, value sausage rolls and copious amounts of chocolate.
After a quick circle of the 1,100 ft US aircraft carrier "Theodore
Roosevelt", anchored rather photogenically in the middle of the Solent,
the wind started to pick up and we were able to really enjoy the
sailing back to the marina.
That evening, we had a fantastic tour of the highlights of Gosport
marina, deciding against the fish and chip shop and "Authentic Chinese"
and finally settled on the Castle for a few cheeky beers and a portion
or two of scampi. After hearing endless tales about trousersocks
(patent pending - see Simon Vayro for further details) and many more
nightcaps back at the Lutine, we all hit the sack.
Sunday morning looked much more promising, with flags actually
fluttering in a slight breeze! After persuading one of the crew
that Ugg boots were not suitable footwear for sailling, we tacked and
jibed over to Cowes (after a bit more aircraft carrier-teasing) and had
a lovely lunch and beer in the sunshine. I thought that sailing
was perhaps always this easy with sunshine, light breezes and calm
seas...
However, after finally getting fed up of squinting into the sun I made
the mistake of buying a cheap pair of sunglasses and instantly, the sun
we'd had all weekend decided to disappear!
On the way back to Haslar we noticed a very eerie band of fog rolling
across the far end of the Isle of Wight. After a bit of a joke
about the poor boats caught up in it, we quickly realised that it was
actually moving towards us at high speed! Before we knew it, we
were down to very limited visibility with the sound of ferry fog horns
coming at us from all directions! Thankfully, we were able to
follow a ferry all the way into the harbour, and moored up safely.
A few glasses of champagne ensured we all kept fantastic memories of
the weekend and had a perfect introduction to sailing with LLYC.
I know many of us are already looking forward to our next club
event. Many thanks to Simon for a great weekend and ensuring that
we actually emerged from the fog in the right place!
Rob Warren
New Member
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