The day started cold and overcast, and we gathered at 8am to decide what to do. We planned to sail round Brownsea, Roy in his radial-sail Laser and Steve and Mike in Mike’s Lymington Pram. The Lymington Pram is a handsome boat, and Mike’s is fully dinghy-cruising ready, We reefed one slab on the main. Roy returned from a whizz to say that the wind was too strong for him to make it at speed upwind so we all jumped in the Pram for a perambulation around Brownsea Island, clockwise.
The waves were short chop, the sun full, the wind NE F4-5 with a touch of F6 in the gusts. The ebb tide against the wind was raising short chop and for about an hour either Roy or Steve were drenched in seawater as every large wave doused us – while Mike hid behind his human splashguards and enjoyed a dry beat to windward. Drysuits, we both discovered, only in name.
The broad reach past the landing jetties turned into a dead run home in variable wind from F4 to a quite big gust which briefly buried the bow, and we turned briskly upwind to drop the main and arrived in controlled calm bare-poles back at the launch site two hours later. There were no cobwebs left on any of us.
The rest of the day was a holiday on the field or off-site. Simon C joined us at dinner time to set camp and boat up.
The Lymington Pram onshore – I was too wet or busy to take a photo while we were sailing.