After a few hours sleep & a prawn sandwich - thanks Sam (for both), we the crew (Me, Mayuri, Sam, Ann (Sams wife) and Alex (Ann's sister)) set off from Poole at 2355.
The weather was calm, but forcast for a F7 later. I didn't want to set off, but I hadn't wanted to leave Plymouth the day before either which would have turned out to be the wrong decision, so I went with it. Everyone went to bed except me & Sam.
As we came out of Poole harbour and into the English channel, the wind increased in small steps until we were at 20kts with our first reef in. The sea wasn't very big but quite confused. I dont think we could point within 50 degrees of Cherbourg. 15 miles out at 0440 with the wind at 30kts, we turned back. Sam was dissapointed and said if it was just me & him we would have carried on - I was pleased there were girls on board!
I was sick of sailing and boats by now, and as the conditions sailing downwind with just genoa were nice, I went to bed leaving poor Sam to sail singlehanded back to Poole.
When I awoke at about 0700 that morning, mr die hard was still sailing through Poole harbour, bleary eyed but still refusing to put the engine on. I don't even want to think about his account of the overfalls at Handfast point that he negotiated while we all slept. I called up Poole quay yachthaven for a berth and was suprised that he didn't actually want to sail onto the marina pontoon!
We walked back to his house to fetch the car and wondered if the girls would be suprised how much Cherbourg looked like Poole when they awoke.
Thanks Sam :-)
