Nothing’s quite the same. New (to us) boat with strange things on board – like cutter rig, chartplotter, radar, AIS, bow thruster, wheel steering, calorifier, shower, (unused) holding tank and a grey water tank (bit of a scunner because it’s too small).
Owing to poor weather it took longer than expected to complete the rigging update for the insurer, so it was with some trepidation that we eased “Telo” away from the pontoon at Port Solent yesterday. With a full length keel I was expecting some difficulty going astern, particularly as the pontoons are quite close together. While the bow thruster was helpful, I found that she handled better than “Shard” while astern. Seems to be less prop walk than “Shard”, which means I’ll have to refine my coming alongside technique – took two goes to get into the fuel berth.
This was our first time actually sailing the boat and TBH getting used to the wheel after the tiller felt a bit strange – I kept on pushing the top of the wheel left when trying to turn to starboard.
My opinion of Solent sailors has risen considerably. Lots of very shallow water, some very fast tidal currents and some pretty nasty shifting banks and breakers, very different to what we’re used to.
We had motorsailed from Portsmouth with the main up, but, once clear of the Solent we opened up the high-cut yankee and the inner jib. She sails well.
No seahorses were knowingly killed or injured while anchoring in Studland.
