15th August Brightlingsea to The Orwell.
Was an odd day.
0600 UTC Inshore forecast was E veering S later 3 or 4, inc 5 or 6 for a time.
1200-1800 UTC Coastal Thames was E becoming S 4-5 becoming 3-4.
HW Brightlingsea was 10.35 BST.
We had a good crew:- James Anderson and his son and daughter Finbar and Maddie. James’s eldest daughter Nina was with us and had done a lot of sailing too but probably not as keen as her siblings. Very capable none the less. Nina had a friend from Cambridge who was not a sailor…
We were underway at 1100 BST and half an hour later we were sailing with a reefed main and small hanked on jib.
The wind was building and by the time we started up The Wallet it was NE6’s with seas building. I was hoping for more E in the wind.
Nothing much was uncomfortable but Nina’s friend was not feeling great. I just felt things were wrong.
James A suggested another reef in the main and continuing. With everything grey I aborted the trip and we returned to Brightlingsea entering the Creek just after 1430.
Baring in mind what happened a week later it is pretty certain we would have had steering failure on this trip. See the next blog..
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