Maiden Voyage, leg 1: Hamble to Weymouth
DecaDance's Web Diary
Chris White and Jeanna Coleman
Sat 2 Oct 2010 22:42
|
GPS Position: 50:36.26N 002:27.1W -
Weymouth Town Quay
Weather: Calm but raining slightly Saturday the 2nd October
What a difference a day makes. We woke up Saturday
morning to a very unusual sound on a boat - pure silence. The teeniest bit
of wind whistles or howls and rattles halyards and rigging, but this morning
absolutely nothing. No point going out for a test sail so Richard showed
us how to hoist the main and put the 2 reefs in at the dock. We only found
out a couple of weeks ago, when we saw DecaDance for the first time at the
Southampton Boat Show, that she's got an electric winch. Sweating the
halyard? No sweat! (It felt like cheating actually).
Our new crew member, Andy, arrived at 10am and within 15
minutes Chris was reversing us out of our berth and we set off to motor out of
the Hamble. Further out the wind picked up and we hoisted sails and were
on a nice comfortable beam reach in beautiful sunshine. As expected it was
crowded in The Solent with lots of pretty sailboats and pretty noisy power
boats. As we approached The Needles a helicopter came up on our stern
really close to the water and, just as I was wondering whether he was going to
open fire, 4 serious looking power boats shot past us - two either side.
It looks as though DecaDance was on TV on her maiden voyage!
The sea changed as soon as we got past The Needles and the bow
bobbed through waves spraying water over the deck - but the boat is huge - and I
mean HUGE - so we stayed nice and dry. The winds weren't great so we
motor-sailed and I prepared lunch of cheese and tomato sandwiches and quiche in
the cockpit. There was very little traffic so we let our fourth crew
member, the auto-helm, lend a hand as we kept watch and chatted and drunk
tea. It turned out that Andy and I were both at Aston University, and our
courses overlapped so we more than likely passed each other in the corridoors of
the Electrical Engineering Department (or more likely, Einstein's).
By the time we approached Weymouth it was getting dark and
starting to rain. Our only option on the Town Quay was to raft up
alongside Blue Fin, a Jenneau 54DS (nice). Chris expertly brought her
alongside and three chaps aboard Blue Fin took our lines and congratulated us on
our maiden voyage.
We looked for the seafood restaurant Nigel had recommended,
but couldn't remember its name so settled on Perry's where we shared mussels
followed by delicious sea bass. Fabulous food and service. It
turned out not to be the restaurant Nigel recommended, but now we have one to
recommend to him - and you!
We passed our Blue Fin neighbours coming into town as we
headed home, then we detoured to a pub close to the quay for a few
scoops whilst the three of us put the world to rights. All in all a very
successful first trip. |