Arrived Lymington
Summer 2022
John Andrews
Thu 3 Aug 2017 17:39
| We arrived at Lymington Yacht Haven this morning at 7.30. It’s been a fairly brutal last 24 hours - winds of force 6 to 7 with gale force gusts to spice things up. In order to time our arrival in the Solent we needed to do no more than 5 1/2 knots, but try as we might, with the wind nearly behind us, we couldn’t slow down. In the end we were down to a reefed stay sail, but still going too fast. We decided to heave to in Lyme Bay, for an hour to lose some time. The sea was pretty lumpy and with hardly any sail up, it wasn’t the most successful of manoeuvres, but it did save us the necessary amount of time. There was a little let up in the wind over night, but it came up again with a vengeance as the sun rose, peaking at 38 knots as we were making our way into the Lymington River. To add to our woes, the instruments decided to play up, constantly moving out of self-steering mode without any warning and the old drifting heading syndrome started up again, making keeping the boat on track very difficult, particularly in the heavy seas. Tucked up safely now - Suilven being lifted out of the water on Monday until September when we plan to take her to Southampton to over winter and for a much needed sprucing up, having been out of the UK for four years.    |