The club's new Speedbird, a Bavaria C38, came on to the pontoon at Mercury in the spring of 2026, taking over the name from the Beneteau Oceanis 37 that had carried it for years. She is the sixth boat to be called Speedbird. This was her first proper season, and most of it was spent where the club does most of its sailing, which is to say the Solent. July set the pattern: hot days, little wind before lunch, and a swim stop at Thorness Bay on the Isle of Wight before sailing back up Southampton Water in the afternoon. The same destination came round twice in three days, once with the Solent full of boats honing their tactics for the Round the Island race. August was less gentle. The passage to Seaview during Cowes Week ran into strong to stronger winds, gusts around thirty knots and two reefs in the main, with the racing fleet, the hovercraft, the forts and, improbably, a trial of driverless boats all in view at once. Twenty-nine miles, and the crew came home pleased with themselves. Later that month came two nights aboard and a trip west to Yarmouth, with the harbour so busy that boats rafted three deep. There was a lift ashore for sunset drinks at The Hut and supper at the newly reopened Salty's, then a gentle sail back by way of Osborne Bay for a swim. In among it, the crew were shown a year-old scuppered wreck and a yacht freshly aground off Calshot, which is its own kind of lesson. September finished with twenty-nine miles to Portsmouth and back in a force 5 to look at the two aircraft carriers, in sunshine that nobody had been promised. None of this is far from home. That is rather the point: a new boat kept on the Hamble, a crew assembled from whoever signed up, and a different day out most weeks of the summer. Her specification, and that of her sister ship Concorde, is on the boat page.
Jane Wiggins
Jane WigginsMore photos
