Leg 3 Poole harbour to Weymouth

Date:- 03.o5.11 Name: Morgen Crew: RD (Richard Dempster), From: Poole Harbour To: Weymouth Comments:

Wind Strength / direction: Easterly force 5/6 Sea State:Moderate Distance: 33.6nm Time Taken: 6.5 hours

Another day another attempt to get to Weymouth. I had cast off at 9:40 to catch the outgoing tide My second leg on my own and probably in to some tricky seas. Again I went past the chain ferry at sandbanks and headed out through the swash channel. The waves at this point were not as bad as the previous day but not by a lot. I said to myself “well I’ve got to do it at some point” and headed out to sea. I put the jib up as I thought this would be easier to control in these quite high winds thinking to myself as I get out further I can put the main up. How wrong could I be. As it turned out The jib was the only sail up all day long. After battling through a lot of sea and wind I finally turned to head round St.Alban head and the seas just got bigger and bigger. The only other boats I saw all day was a schooner right out on the horizon and a coast guard rib which blasted past me on the way I presume to rescue someone. When out at sea and everything is down to yourself (no one else to blame) the enormity of what I’m doing really does dawn on me. I have never been out in seas as high as this with this amount of wind and you very suddenly feel very insignificant. Truly scary! My hat goes off to those single handed sailors that have circumnavigated the globe. Bloody brave.

Only the jib was up and I was easily doing 6 knots and a lot of the time 7 & 8 knots and on the way down the face of the waves I was hitting 11.8 knots on the GPS. I fell down the companion way steps and crashed in to the oven, bending the pan guard. I was hooked on via the safety lines all day as it was extremely difficult standing or moving about. But the sun was out! I can’t believe how much more difficult it is to be single handed and how tiring it is. By the end of the day I was completely shot. No energy left and very glad to be back on a pontoon for the night. However once in to Weymouth bay the waves seemed further apart and not quite so steep and the wind was dropping from around 27knots to around 17 & 18knots. I began to relax at last. I remembered the lessons of the previous days and prepared the boat early for going in to harbour. All I would have to do was throw the fenders over the rail. I guessed what side the mooring lines would need to be and put them on the starboard cleats only to find they needed to be on the port cleats. Ahh well some you win some you lose. Suffice to say I am glad now its over that I had that experience it sets me up well for some of the other legs, however I don’t think I would choose to go out in that weather again.

One of the things that came out of the day is my faith in Morgen. It has gone through the roof. The little boat was fantastic it never felt flustered and it never crashed through the waves it just parted them and surfed down the face of the wave truly great. I feel quite safe on her and have a new found appreciation of her talents. The only weak link in this relationship is me and my lack of knowledge and experience. But it will grow.