The Hamble Scramble



Ramsgate gave us the shelter we needed, a pleasant restaurant and, joy of joys (to Rosie) a Waitrose supermarket.

Ramsgate Under Cloudy Skies

After two days in the slightly bouncy marina, the wind eased and freed into the north and we were off, round South Foreland, past Dover and down Channel.  We waved goodbye to the East Coast, having sailed straight past all the lovely bits, pressed by our need to use the favorable winds.  Next time perhaps?

Progress was fast until we came close to the Solent, where an adverse spring tide slowed us painfully.  As dark fell, navigation lights shone in all directions.

Westward Ho - Approaching the Solent
We tied up in Haslar Marina at 01:00 in the morning but then had to move again, so crawled into our bunk at 02:00.  The marina is being dredged, which is good because at low water our keel was well buried in soft mud.  It had been kind of them to let us in anyway and next morning we again moved out the way of the workmen.

Haslar - Keel in Mud!
We’ve come to the Solent to see old friends and for Rapport to be measured for a new mainsail.  The social side is going well but the Solent itself is a forest of boats in endless marinas.

Haslar to the Hamble was a short breezy beat to windward, taking us past the most popular yellow buoy in the country.  We dipped past one racing fleet, beating up to the mark and almost simultaneously, zig-zagged around another, running down to the mark with carbon sails and spinnakers.

Here we are at Universal Shipyard on the Hamble, paying extreme fees to moor among thousands of other yachts.  It’s great to see friends and our old stamping ground but what a contrast to the wide open spaces up north and even to the south west, which we now call home.

Hamble Forest
The instruments (echo-sounder, wind, speed etc.) work fine, except for random back-lighting, shining on and off.  This is very irritating at night, so in between friendly mealtimes (reunions seem to all involve lots of food and drink), I found time to pull apart the electrical panels, trying to trace a poor connection to the instruments.

Chart Table Electrics
The instruments seem to be working fine again but we’ll see if they still do at sea, when voltages are being gobbled up by the fridge and by George, the self-steering.

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