A night in Portland was probably enough to say that we had been to an Olympic venue, and it was off to Poole Harbour...about 30 miles along the coast . The day started overcast but this time with a F3 /4 breeze which would be good for sailing, but with a slightly choppier sea.

 

We had a lie in , since a noon departure would catch the tides we needed to push us along to Poole, and around St Albans Head, which was today's headland of choice where tides and wind could create havoc. The pilot books all recommend giving it a 5 mile clearance, so this is what we planned to do.

 

First job...fill up with fuel. We could have left this until Poole, but reasoned that at present Portland ( with Olympics coming soon ) would have the cleanest fuel on the S Coast, and there was no risk of a queue with 4 pumps and no other customers.....Then off into the harbour to find the very keen Japanese windsurfers already practicising, together with assorted sailing schools and random Olympic trainees. We took British sportsmanship to the max by wishing a lone Argentinian Laser sailor good luck for the Olympics rather than running him down as we hoisted sails, and then left the sheltered harbour.

 

The wind was quite brisk with some modest chop, which the crew took well. After two days of still airs it was good to have a bit of spray flying around. We then radioed in to the Coastgaurd our route for the day as normal, and were swiftly called back by the Lulworth Firing Range patrol boat, to advise us to stay 3.5 miles offshore south of a certain track, to avoid firing taking place on the Lulworth Range out into sea. That was all fine, until we heard from our old friends HMS Lancaster and HMS Illustrious that they still had some pocket money left and were going to be firing away at sea at various points. It became apparent that we would be threading our way between land and sea firings. The range patrol also wanted us to go inshore near St Albans Head ( which we would reach in about three hours), which we were certainly not going to do because of rough water.

 

This trip started to turn into a VHF practical exam as we listened to the various warnings, 'chopping' between channels ( this seems to be the latest navy jargon....apparently we no longer change channels ; we chop channel.). During the next three hours we noted various positions that the warships would be firing from, and they were now joined by a very energetic new friend, HMS Sutherland, that was particularly keen on shooting things. During the course of this we spoke to both Illustrious and Sutherland to check that they would have finished firing by the time we got too near....fortunately they confirmed that this would be the case. The pic shows ( we think) HMS Sutherland.

 

Illustrious confirmed that she would have used up all her bullets by the time we got near St Albans Head, so we could stick to our plan of giving it a good distance off, which was much appreciated by the crew, who were not relishing much bigger waves and chop. As we came abeam of St Albans we were able to turn North towards Poole and get a better wind angle, which enabled us, at last, to turn off the engine and have a real pure sail in a good F4....'proper sailing' at last. It has to be said that so far the prevailing SW winds of the channel have not been particularly prevailing at all.

 

It was then an easy trip into Poole , dodging the chain ferry and looking at the multi million pound houses of Sandbanks, and then into the marina, right next to the old quay. 

 

 

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