Most club cruising goes west. This one went the other way: a two-day, 141-mile round trip to Eastbourne with Mallory, Matt, David and Nicky aboard, exploring the coast east of the Solent, which the club sees far less of. The passage out ran through the night, and the reward for that is the part nobody photographs well: two sunrises and two sunsets inside two days. The wind obliged on the way home, holding at around 270 degrees for hours on end, so both sails were pinned out: a preventer on the main and a pole on the headsail. The boat simply ran. The rest of it was food, as a good passage usually is. A lot of coffee, homemade fruitcake, a meal in a Thai restaurant in Eastbourne, and Nicky's bacon butties coming back. Maximum wind force 4, which is the sort of forecast that makes a long trip east sensible rather than ambitious. Sussex has the Rampion wind farm to sail past, and an arrival in the dark into a harbour the crew did not know, which is its own kind of practice.
Jane Wiggins
Jane WigginsMore photos
