21st March 2026

Spring has arrived at last! Cody Sailing Club had a very spring like sail from Itchenor to Dell Quay in lovely sunshine on 21st March. The forecast was for sunshine all day but possible light winds. Four boats sailed: Mel and Steve (Comet Trio), James and Sandy (Comet Trio), Simon C (Gp14), Adam and Simon M (Comet Trio). The sail is a relatively short one compared to other Cody SC sails but is in a lovely scenic part of Chichester Harbour. We set off on time about 11 am from Itchenor slip way to take the flood tide up river. The wind was an ideal force 3-4 but was head on so was a beat most of the way. There was slightly more wind than anticipated; we were expecting light winds and there were the odd fruity gusts to keep us awake.

We arrived just after 12pm at the beach near the pub by Dell Quay Sailing Club. Initially we were intending to go to the sailing club for lunch but we found that they were not serving food as it was the club yacht lift in day. They were doing breakfast earlier but not lunch so we went next door to the Crown and Anchor instead. It was a lovely sunny stop sitting outside on the terrace.

We attempted to download the app and set up a food order only to find it didn’t work so we had to go inside the pub to order but they didn’t mind us going inside in wet sailing gear this time unlike a previous time. It was a lovely lunch stop chatting in the sunshine.

On the way back we planned to extend the sail a bit by first going up the Bosham channel and maybe stopping at Bosham briefly for an Ice Cream before heading back to Itchenor, but ensuring we avoid a landing/launching charge at Bosham by keeping the boat afloat. When we set off from Dell Quay, we noticed that the wind had switched from South East to South West so was more of reach or close haul back instead of an expected broad reach. The wind was forecast to die later and as we were just getting to Itchenor we could feel the wind reducing significantly so we decided to stop there rather than risk doing the extension to Bosham, where we would need to go against a strong ebb tide for the last bit. The water was still quite high at Itchenor so was nice not to have to haul the boats up very far.

When we were launching earlier from Itchenor there were a few dinghies launching about the same time and they doing a cruise going in the opposite direction to us sailing initially down river then up the Thorney Channel to Prinstead. This is a great sail to do also but it is against the tide for the first and last bit. The other group arrived back a bit after us but just in time before the wind dropped completely. They said they had difficulty getting back against the but just made it, so we were wise not to go on. By the time we had packed up the boats the water was now like glass with wind dropping to nothing.

It was a great sail with lovely company to start the sailing season and we hope for some more great sailing days like these to come.

Simon

A video of this cruise has been made by Simon Conway, go to

https://youtu.be/OmUMIf7ld40?si=dwYHa5Od9OcQeLGy