The weekend of the 21st May saw glorious weather and we sailed from Lymington on the Saturday morning in 10 kts of easterly out past the needles and then along the south of the island. The wind increased to 18kts and we reefed as we sped past St Catts on the tide and into a dense fog bank. Fortunately this did not last long and we rounded Bembridge ledge around 1600 as the wind dropped. After a short wait for the tide we crept into Bembridge and enjoyed a quiet night in splendid surroundings.
On Sunday we returned to Lymington on the tide using the spinnaker and practising Man Over Boards including with the spinnaker up. A great weekend with the best weather so far this year.
We came 3rd in Class in the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s De Guingand race on 15/16th May. Not as good as our 2nd in the first race to Cherbourg but racing round marks in the Channel is always a tough one as the race committee may set a course taking account of wind and tide which is designed to split the fleet. I was in Serbia so Trevor Sainty (No 2 on last year’s Fastnet) skippered Wild Spirit with a comparatively inexeperienced crew to achieve a creditable result.
The May RYA course was agreat success, everyone had a good time and passed.
The May Bank Holiday race to St Vaast saw winds of up to 30 knots and after a spinnaker run from the Start down to the Forts we were under white sails all the way to the finish line. The tides off Cap Barfleur are notorious and we were at springs so likely to encounter up to 5 kts. The crossing was faster than expected and like several others we sailed below our normal line, this required correction as we neared the finish and the wind dropped spreading the fleet and assisting the corrected times of the earlier finishers. Our ‘make sure we can drift across the line’ tactics were paying off when the wind returned helping those competitors who were further off shore to tack home. We finished 10th out of 21 in class—not bad but I had hoped

For several years we have sailed between Boxing Day and New Years Eve and enjoyed comparatively mild weather plus lots of space to sail in. To end 2009 we had a combined Competent Crew and Day Skipper course but due to sickness and travel problems 2 of the participants dropped out at the last moment so there were only 4 of us setting off on the 27th as we left Lymington and headed east. We had looked at the forecast and decided to get the miles in early just in case it rained later in the week. The run up to Cowes was fast and easy, then after anchoring for lunch we set off to round Nab tower, knock off some night hours then head into Haslar for the night. The wind was cold but the rain held off and we covered 44 miles on the first day.
The rest of the course saw sufficient wind to sail for all but a couple of hours and the only real precipitation was at night. Phil, who is also a RYA Instructor and Karen were just sailing so with Andy as the only Day Skipper candidate we had plenty of time for pontoon bashing, MOB etc.
Most courses have a low point and for me this was when I saw the dismantling of the 3 marks in Southampton Water which were used to guide in Flying Boats. For years I have asked students what they were and received very few correct answers. The other low point was the amount charged by Ocean Village and this was made worse by the lack of Hot Water, quite a contrast to Hamble Point which is run by the same company where an overnight was less than half that charged by Ocean Village.
The high points included a splendid run down to the Nab at times over 9 Kts SOG in 25 kts of wind, a good meal out at Toninos in Cowes plus Andy passing with flying colours.