The calendar said Lymington to Bucklers Hard, the plan was changed to Lymington the Newtown Creek, and in the end we went to Keyhaven and then failed to get to Newtown Creek.

5 boats took part, in Trios, Edmund and Stephen, Steve and Mel, Simon and Jeremy, and in the versa Martin and James, and in the Sport 14 Keith and Sandy. We launched at about 9am.

With the wind in the NE and F3-4 getting the Newtown Creek directly would have got us there too quickly, and Keyhaven is a nice location to sail through, so we went there, in one end, stopped on the shingle spit to reef, and then set off for Newtown Creek. The wind was variable in 10 minute blocks, from F2 to top end of F4.

If we were pulling the reefs out and putting them in we’d have been at that activity all day. The wind against tide made the sea surface a confusion of steep-faced waves. We very much bobbed about. We kept the reefs in. As it happens, the Sport 14 is particularly slow when reefed, and just short of Hamstead Ledge the tide from the the North Easterly direction arrived in a swirl of upwelling water and all hope of reaching Newtown Creek was lost. We immediately sailed close hauled to the North shore to avoid being swept beyond Lymington and arrived at the slipway at about 2pm.

This track (not created live) has a length of about 17 miles, although some of the distance was helped by the flood tide driving us fast towards Newtown Creek, and others sailed a lot further.

Diagram of the rough track of the cruise on Saturday 20th

So, what did we learn – the Sport 14 is very slow to windward when reefed, we need to remember to change from Channel 16 when discussing matters, the Versa is a great boat in waves and Martin openly admitted that he enjoyed the sail despite taking sea over the bow of the Versa a few times, when the tide arrives from the other direction is arrives very suddenly, and the Mayflower PH are generous in feeding a whole group if some get orders in before the kitchen shuts and then others arrive a couple of minutes late.