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The Voyages of Richard and Amanda
Mon 19 Jul 2010 19:46
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POS: 50:49.98N 000:57.98W
Spent Sunday with our friend from the Jester
Challenge, Bill Churchouse. His ocean going yacht is Belgean, a 40 year
old Westerley 22 (the 22 being the length
i.e. 22 ft.) His emergency backup boat is a small wooden tender that he stores
on the foredeck of Belgean. As you can imagine the foredeck of a 22ft boat is
not very big, so the tender is pretty small. Bill is pretty extraordinary; we
met when he sailed Belgean down to the Azores in 2008 and have kept in touch
ever since.
Bill is living on his boat in Poole Harbour and we
arranged to met him in Studland Bay where he would sail out to meet us. Our
mistake was not setting a time, so when Amanda glanced out of the window at
7am and saw a small boat with blue coach roof and yellow tender on the foredeck
we realised that Bill probably doesn't have a clock on board. So there was a
frantic dressing and tidying up session before Bill arrived.
Anyway we had a great day, despite the early start,
catching up on all the gossip of other friends from the Jester Challenge and
what everyone was up to.
Bill had started to sail this years Jester
Challenge to Newport RI in the States, but shortly after leaving fell overboard
while trimming his sails. Fortunately he was clipped on otherwise Belgean on
self-steering would have just carried on without him. He got himself on board,
but was so shaken by the experience that he retired and sailed back to Poole. He
is now preparing to set off again next year.
We had a quiet night at the anchorage and in the
morning (Mon), after fortifying ourselves with bacon sandwiches we set off on
the final leg of our jouney back to Chichester. Initially the wind was very
light, so for the first two hours we were motoring, then the wind picked up
enough to set all the sail and switch off the engine. We then had a great sail
through the Solent. We had got the tides just right so ended up with a
favourable tide all the way home. In the Solent getting the tides right is
essential, especially as in our case where the winds were quite light initially.
Get them wrong, and for every mile you go forward you will go two
back.
The wind died around Cowes for about an hour, but
because we still had the tide with us we were still moving towards Chichester at
nearly 4 knots. Eventually the wind strengthened from the East and we were
tacking till we reached Portsmouth where a wind shift allowed us to sail
directly towards Chichester Harbour. The final 4 miles up to our marina was
under engine and we tied up just after 6pm. We had been blessed with a fantastic
sail to wind up what has been a fantastic two months and 1900
miles.
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