Wednesday 6 April

We woke up early morning to find blue skies but the wind had eased considerably.  We left Queenborough  at 09.35 and hoisted main sail at Queenborough East cardinal.  A gentle sail out of the river Medway resulted in us passing the Richard Montgomery which is a Second World War wreck still fully loaded with explosives on board.  We found this fascinating but not at all frightening.

The wind increased to a steady SW 2 and 3 which gave us fantastic reach down the Thames.  Crew took it in turns helming the boat for the first time.  A leisurely sail till lunch time when the wind dropped passing the old forts and windfarms.  Rounding  the North forland we had the tide against us and we had plenty of time to practice our new found tacking skills.  All the crew enjoyed being able to tack in fairly good conditions and enjoyed putting a reef into the main sail as the wind increased towards Ramsgate.  When the wind came round to the south, we reached Ramsgate lowered the mainsail for the first time and entered Ramsgate port on a falling tide with not much water and moored alongside the visitors’ pontoon looking forward to a nice warm shower.

Tomorrow it is intended to make a small hop down to Dover to practise  tacking gybing and MOB skills.  The forecast weather is to be fair as a high pressure moves over us;  hopefully the wind will be turning in our favour towards the weekend.