16 July 2014

Quick sail in the sun (18nm)

I grabbed a day off to enjoy the sun afloat. Notting spectacular. Went down in the evening, got in the way of a dinghy race and in avoiding it, went aground near the ferry terminal. I was clearly going to be there for an hour or so, so cooked my dinner there. Wind quite strong from the west, so once afloat, I sailed over teh Shipstal point. Sheltered and only one other boat there, so had a peaceful night.
Absolutely beautiful morning, so I was up with the birds and off sailing by 7:00. Noticed the large ferry from Spain had anchored outside the harbour overnight. Don't know why, but the tides are very big, so maybe they had to wait. Certainly it finally came in as the tide was rising, very slowly and cautiously.

Anchored of Redhorn Quay and rowed ashore to hike around Studland peninsula. Then sailed out into the open sea under reefed main and no mizzen. I had a double reef in at first, but shook one out. I find the boat handles best when reefed if the mizzen is stowed. Otherwise it can be hard to tack. The long low sail plan seems to want to just go in one direction.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Julian, not sure what day this was but the Barfluer may have broken the chain on it's way out yesterday morning.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-28324420
    Sounds like like you saw the LD lines ferry but if that was coming in it probably had to wait until the chain ferry was secure. A big oops all round :)

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  2. I hadn't heard about the chain breaking, must have been after I was there. It was the LD lines ferry at anchor, and the tides were very low, down to 0.4m at one time.

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