Midweek Solent Cruise

Hugh and Colin joined Toucando at lunchtime on Wednesday 22nd August.  We agreed on a westerly destination... possibly Lymington, possibly Poole.  We set off down Southampton Water, raising the sails off Weston.  The wind came and went.  The forecast indicated reefing would be required, and this certainly proved to be the case when we came out of the lee of Calshot and turned into the "precautionary area" by the Bramble Bank.  The wind got a lot stronger... we recorded over 30 knots, and the waves rolling up the Solent from the west were quite big.  Unfortunately we let the staysail flog, and sustained a little damage.  We decided to go to Cowes where we found a berth at the yacht haven.  Fortunately it was very quiet (Cowes week having taken place the previous week).  We ate steak and mixed vegetables on board before enjoying a pint at the Anchor.

Thursday was quite a contrast.  Very light winds took us down the eastern Solent.  We had contemplated going out to the Nab Tower, for no particular reason other than it was there, but we weren't going fast enough for that.  Instead we went in to Chichester Harbour, Toucando's first visit, and anchored off East Head.  I haven't done a lot of anchoring in Toucando, and was pleased with how well it worked.  We had lunch below decks.  We became aware of a lot of masts going past at close quarters, and looking out of the hatch found that there were hundreds of dinghies racing about.  It was the week of the combined clubs' regatta in the harbour.  We had clearly arrived while they were all ashore for lunch.  Now they were all out again.  It was crazily busy, particularly so at the junctions of the various channels of the harbour.  While we were at anchor they all had to avoid us, but once our anchor was raised and we were under way we had the interesting challenge of avoiding myriads of small boats scooting around very fast, all of which had "right of way" over us.  We managed to do so, without putting ourselves aground or impeding any of the races, which was quite a feat. We then sailed off to Haslar, where we moored near the lightship. 

On Friday morning we were booked in to Sealift at 0900 for washing and replacement of specialist anodes.  Unfortunately the bow thruster propeller was lost overboard by an enthusiastic member of staff.... fortunately Sealift immediately set about sourcing a replacement (at their expense). This meant that ist was midday befopre the job was finished and we were on our way back to Southampton.  We had a good tri[p back to the Itchen and toucando's home pontoon.