On Friday 4h November, 4 club members met at Waterloo for the last journey to Portsmouth Harbour of the season. The train journey down has always been entertaining, but since we were traveling a few days after the annual dinner there were a few stories to tell!

The aim of the weekend was for general boat handling - even though most on board had spent quite a lot of time with Lutine this season, there hadn't been much time spent actually maneuvering her in small spaces and the like!

Saturday brought bright sunlight and a light wind with a forecast that it would build during the day. After possibly the longest and most thorough safety briefing (thanks for that Charlotte!), Isy took the boat out of the mooring while the rest of us busied about for the first maneuver of the day - parking. Once this had been practiced a few times, we navigated our way across the Solent towards Ryde where we picked up a mooring buoy and stopped for lunch.

After lunch was man over board practice. By now the wind had built to 16 knots and working the mainsail was beginning to be hard work, but all great practice! Let's face it; a man is unlikely to go overboard in 3 knots of breeze on a sunny day!

As the light was beginning to fade, we headed back into Haslar where we quaffed a bottle of champagne (there was one for the first time the boat went out this season and one for the last time! One must do these things in style!). After dinner and a view of the fireworks along Portsmouth Harbour, we headed back to the boat as we were all shattered.

Waking up on Sunday morning and switching the instruments on showed that there was a steady 19 knots of breeze in the marina, gusting up to 28 knots at times. It was at this point that we decided it was going to be very hard work if we took the boat out, so decided instead to have a tidy up on board and in the shed so that equipment could be packed away for the winter. Taking the sails off the boat was certainly interesting in that much wind and rain. Needless to say, all work was augmented with workmen like tea breaks....

With Lutine coming out of the water the following Friday and Mike heading off to the Caribbean soon after, we said our goodbyes and headed for the train station - only to get drenched by the rain.

Looking back, it was a bit silly really when we all had our offshore oilskins in our bags!

Liz Lotz, Sue Ephgrave, Isy Peterkin and Charlotte Cross