Solent Area

 

Home
Up

Solent Area:  Sunday 27 April  - Friday 3 May 2002

C & N Marina, Cowes, Lymington, Newtown River, Beaulieu River, Nab Tower, Chichester Harbour, C&N Marina

(Click on any of the photographs below to see a larger image)

The plan for the trip was to spend five days in the Solent area with a crew consisting of the two owners and a novice, John, who was a friend of Malcolm's.  We boarded Bagadeus on Sunday evening with 35 knot winds blowing and high winds forecast for next day.  We waited until Monday afternoon and then made the short eight-mile trip across the Solent to Cowes Yacht Haven, still with 30 knots and lumpy seas, conditions which were not a good introduction to sailing for John.  We spent the next day in Cowes Yacht Haven waiting for the cold front to pass.

 

By the morning of Wednesday we had post-cold-front blue skies and cumulus, with 25 knots of wind.  We took a brief trip up the Medina River as far as we had water, waiting for a fair tide in the Solent, then had a splendid three-reef beat with a fair tide under us to Lymington.  John took video footage on this leg but, sadly, we have no photographs.

Medina River,
Helming instruction for John

Medina River

Medina River, Ferry ahead

We stayed overnight at Lymington Marina, then had gentle airs next morning (Thursday) across to Newtown River for lunch.

Light airs, Lymington to
 Newtown River

Lunch in Newtown River

Goose-winged, Newtown River to Beaulieu River entrance

  With the skies darkening again we ran across to the Beaulieu river, spending the night at Bucklers Hard Marina.

Concentration in the
Beaulieu River

Rain in the Beaulieu River

 

Snug in Buckler's Hard Marina

 

On the final day, Friday, we departed Bucklers Hard at 05:00 in order to have water at the the river mouth.  In fine sunny conditions we ran across to the gate in the Horse Sand obstruction wall, then sailed down to the Nab Tower and back to Chichester Harbour, anchoring for lunch in the anchorage behind East Head.

Osborne House from the water

 

Goosewinged,
John inspecting the bows

On a run to the Nab,
John and David in the cockpit

A final motor-sail took us back home to Camper and Nicholson's.

It had been a varied set of conditions to introduce John to Solent cruising.  He seemed to enjoy it - we hope so anyhow, and we hope to see him again sometime.

horizontal rule

Some details of parts of the rig at that time are shown below for interest.  On the left is the boom end with preventer line rigged.  Centre is detail from the bows showing the preventer line running through the starboard cleat and the spinnaker pole downhaul line goes through a deck-mounted pulley.  On the right are details of the the pole uphaul and downhaul lines.

Boom end with Preventer Line

 

Bows, Preventer line and
Spinnaker pole downhaul

Pole uphaul and downhaul
 

[ Home ] [ Up ]

Email webmaster@bagadeus.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2007 Datepower Limited
Last modified: January 15, 2013