Both Lutine and the soon to be re-named Lutine Belle (707) were out this weekend.

 

Some of the Fastnet crew arrived in Gosport on Friday night after work, whilst others arrived first thing on Saturday morning:  At about 1000 we got together for our elongated safety brief.  It was certainly useful to cover every aspect of safety and where equipment could be located - we have all recently completed our first aid, Sea Survival and ISAF Offshore racing courses, so what with that and the events of Hooligan V on our minds, everyone concentrated fully whilst Hookie (the Fastnet Skipper) ran through all aspects of safety on board. 

 

Soon after the safety brief had been completed, we went sailing!  The airs were fairly light (2-3 occasionally 4, but it was so occasional that I don't think we saw it!).  The main aim was to head west in order to make our berth for the evening at the Royal Southern on the Hamble.  WIth the wind coming from the east, it was a perfect time for spinnaker practice.  With the sun shining down on us, we managed to gybe our way along the Solent and by lunchtime were close to the entrance to the Hamble where we saw the Lutine Belle crew out for their practice session.  Photographs taken, it was time to push on towards the Needles before the tide took us too far out.

 

The 707 crew, Skippered by Commodore Peter Young, had a great practice session -  with two new members on board, they also practiced spinnaker handling and also getting the know the boat!  Another 707 out on the water was soon challenged to a race by Peter and they took it - as we looked back to see them disappearing into the distance we only hoped that they could get back in time for dinner that evening!

 

The Fastnet crew were moored up alongside by about 1800, and were kindly welcomed by the Commodore of the Royal Southern Yacht Club, Annette Newton, as she had spotted Hookie's Rear Commodore's pennant.  We were soon welcomed into the bar and with the two crews combined, decided that the best option for food that evening was a curry in the local curry house - of course, a few ice-breaking beers were consumed, but not many as we're a fully honed racing crew of atheletes!

 

Sunday saw a reasonably early start for Yacht Club skipper Kevin Milligan,who skippered the racing on Lutine Belle and new member Alastair Lauder, for the Warsash Spring Series' final race.  There were also other club members out on two other 707's, so there was likely to be some competition on the water! 

 

The Fastnet crew waited until about 0900 (until there was enough water to allow us to leave!) and then headed out, picking our way through the many other yachts that were heading out to race - you certainly realise how big Lutine is when alongside an SB3!  We motor sailed over to Cowes, where we had our fitting of crew kit in the Slam shop and by 1130 were back out on the water.  However, the wind had dropped off almost completely and although we managed to get the spinnaker to fill for about half an hour, it all became a little tedious.....a couple of the crew were also on the 2005 campaign, and the lack of wind, sun and dead calm waters brought back memories of drifting in the Irish Sea.  We dropped the kite, and then decided that the best thing to do was to head over to the small boat fleet to see whether they had finished and to collect Kevin.

 

It appeared that even the 707 fleet were close to finishing their race so after taking some photographs, we found Lutine Belle and with Isy's expert sailing, came alongside the smaller boat whilst they were still flying their kite - there were a few looks of amazement from people on the other boats whilst Kevin easily stepped aboard!

 

The 707 fleet had completed three races that day - Lutine Belle had been raced well that season, and were overall 13th (out of 20) which included a couple of DNC's.  An excellent start to her campaign!  The other club member's boats were 4th and 1st.  Well done to everyone involved.

 

With the wind still very light and very fluky, Lutine motored back to Gosport where after tidying up we all headed in our separate directions - the first race is the Myth of Malham Cowes to St Quay in France (160 miles) on the 26th May, when we will all be back together again for another instalment of the Fastnet adventure!