Alderney - Jun 6-8
Great weekend to Alderney and back. A PYRA event - was meant to be Cherbourg but militant striking French fishermen put us all off. So Alderney it was. Cracking reach across to Alderney in 8h45m. Flew spinnaker to begin with until wind picked up and became too close.
I think we were second or third PYRA boat to arrive in Alderney to find all mooring buoys occupied. Rafted up and soon were 4 boats to a buoy. Very bumpy night, lots of creaking and snatching - hardly slept at all.
Hired bikes and rode around the island on Saturday, visited the town and enjoyed lunch overlooking the harbour.
Unfortunately wind went round to NW over Sat night, so a very close hauled sail back in a strong Easterly running tide. The fully crewed race boats were all immediately powered up and pointing much higher than us so we ended up further east than the rest. Eventually I got the boat trimmed and was pleased with how well she was pointing but it was a little too late. About 20nm SSW of the Needles the wind died and we decided we wanted to get home at a sensible hour so fired up the engine and motored the rest of the way.
Came upon Eye 2 Eye tacking against wind and tide up Poole approach channel. Turned out they had engine problems so we towed them into the harbour and up to Parkstone. Going into the harbour at full revs our SOG managed only 2.5 knots!
Superb weekend. Great sailing despite having to motor the last 4 hours. Glad to have been to Alderney for the first time. Been to Cherbourg loads so, frankly, the change of destination was welcomed.
Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/marcus.tettmar/PooleAlderney68Jun2008