Brightlingsea Rally 2009

Brightlingsea 29th to 31st August 2009 - reports from Neil Walters and Charles Hessey

Cathala heads east…..

For those of you who may not know us Sharon and I joined the club late last year after buying our first yacht (Cathala) last July having spent nearly 20 years playing around with motor boats. I must say the transition has been incredible, Sharon has taken to sailing like a duck to water and is a little more confident than myself but we have both found it almost a revelation! We have managed to clock up a little over 1000 miles in our first year including 2 channel crossings although I would not want to bet on how many miles were spent with the engine off….

After some hesitation I decided to join the club (wasn’t sure it was really for me), however, everybody we have met have been genuinely friendly and offered loads of advise.

For all of this I owe a debt of gratitude to Barry & Sue (Lucia), not only for introducing us to the club, but for all of their help and coaching over the last year. Thank you.

Any way I digress….

For no reason in particular we had never before ventured to the East coast, and seeing as though Barry had politely informed me that  it simply wasn’t done to cross the channel without first serving our apprenticeship on the East Coast we thought it an ideal time to join the Rally to Brightlingsea.

After a loose invite to join Barry, Sue, Stephen and Ken who would be spending Friday night aboard Lucia in Stangate Creek we started to plan our weekend….and then the wind arrived, I arrived at Chatham at lunch time to meet Jean-Pierre from Hadlow Marine who was just putting the finishing touches to our new windows, after nearly being blown from the pontoons (I am not as small as I look) I decided to abandon the Friday night departure and hope things would settle in the morning as forecasted. I returned home to a message from Barry saying they would be staying at Hoo and not going to Stangate as planned, so I rang to thank Barry for saving me a phone call….

The next morning we arrived at the marina just after 7.00am and were greeted by much more amiable conditions, as we were about to slip our lines and head for the lock I caught site of Tony Chamberlin  on the opposite pontoon who sadly told me they would not be going due to the forecast, with some in trepidation I decided to continue and see how things turned out, thankfully the Gods must have been smiling on us, as we motored out of the Medway the sun came out and we had a cracking sail all the way up to the Colne where I decided I wasn’t going to tack again and needed my fix of Diesel fumes, with all sails down on went the engine, then the kettle and all was right with the world.

Now, after being informed by Barry that there were shore side moorings at Brightlingsea I decided that we would join him on these pontoons as it sounded like a good idea being able to go for a number 2 without boarding a ferry!

We found Lucia at anchor when we arrived as the HM had informed him they could not enter waterside marina until around 3.30pm, I promptly called on CH68 and was told that we would now have to wait until  4.00pm, this was due to the lack of water over the sill, so  whilst Barry, Sue and friends enjoyed drinks at anchor we decided to have a potter up river. How very pleasant it was, I never realised how pretty it would be compared to the Medway.

Sometime later we managed to get moored at waterside and were now officially ‘Aloof’ according to the Rear comedy…sorry Rear Commodore J

That evening we enjoyed a very pleasant meal in the Colne Yacht Club, organised by Tony whose efforts are much appreciated.

We also enjoyed great company and friends including the honour of accommodating for the night  the Commodore himself Mr Richard Cassem, who I must say was the perfect guest. Although I got the feeling he may have expected a cup and saucer when I offered him tea back on the boat, mainly because he went from “One sugar please” to “ oh, can I have another sugar” when he realised it was a rather large mug!

So up went the Commodores burgee shortly after midnight and off to bed we went………..(The Commodore having his own double berth of course)

The following day was spent milling around, walking to the shops etc etc. In the afternoon we were invited to Mitoi for drinks, where we found Barry and Stephen who obviously had been quenching their thirsts for most of the day, Stephen maybe a tad more than Barry. But watching them climbing off Mitoi and walking in a straight line was pure entertainment!

We had a great evening with Tony, Pam and Jamie which included “Credit Crunch Fish & Chips” as advertised, were we also bumped into Martin & Celia and Martin & Ann. The rest of the night was spent with the five of us in the Yacht club were Tony provided the entertainment in the form of his hilarious joke telling.

The following day we set out at around 8.00am to what was a rather gloomy start as we motor sailed until we crossed the spitway and towards the Blacktail after which the sun came out and we managed some leaning over practice although we were punching the tide nearly all the way, Lucia of course passed us before the spitway and left us behind but we did manage to keep up with Aurai until almost the Blacktail. After a cracking sail we passed Garrison Point at 5.00pm at which point Ernie Slogrove passed us on Comus, Ernie maybe slow by name but certainly not slow by nature……..I was too scared to ask what time he left the moorings! After sailing past Thames Port we decided to pack away the sails and get another  fix of diesel fumes so on went the engine & kettle and all was right with the world once again.

As we passed Hoo we could see that the crews of Aurai and Lucia were still on board so we passed by slowly to say hello, when we reached Lucia we were greeted By Sue with a bottle of Margarita for Sharon, what a perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Neil Walters

Cathala

More photos

• by Neil Walters

Aurai Brightlingsea:

After several 24 hour w/e sails recently, that inevitably lead to a night in Stangate, we always look forward to the Club Bank Holiday trips and we improved our average for attending on schedule with this one.  We get a great chance to actually link together some of our skills and if I can collect a crew with people who have been before, that cheers me up.  So weather, check; crew, check; let us go.  Our crew included Craig, UN Rep from Birmingham, Ian UN rep from Rochford in Essex and Tamsin UN rep from across the water the other way who all had experience of Aurai and one new boy Julien, our UN rep, from France.

No messing to start with, just battery charge down river to get in sync with the tide, and at the Montgomery, we had 20 Nm and 4 hours, so tried the sails.  Wind then picked up nicely and we kept station with Chica, who had been very nervous that we were catching up (Will was relieved to know we had used our engine).  You know it is calm, if we try to hoist our spinnaker, but we gave it a go.  Some very good bits and some not so good, but I see why people use them. Just need a few bits of string and a pole for Christmas!  In fact we were enjoying ourselves so much, we did not bother with much navigation and ended up admiring the wind farm close up.  Note to Sunny Bryan, depths of 1.4 below our keel kept us keen.  Anyway, we turned for Brightlingsea and found all the boats that we had left behind were now in front of us.

Sunday was an indulgent day, Tamsin went up the mast and tried the bosun’s chair to replace a light bulb, Julien fixed an electric socket and we gave the front half of Aurai a coat of varnish.  Best of all we took time to put the Self-Steering gear together, not easy to put the rudder in except in harbour.  So shore leave was restricted to late afternoon, I had let the crew attend the dinner as a special treat, sorry Avenir and Aurai’s magnetism brought El Commodore to see us, but no room at the inn and he had to slum it on Cathala (only joking Neil, great pictures).  Crew also sorted passage plan for the return and got to grips with a) getting Aurai out of B’sea nd b) getting Aurai across the Swin, in fact we seemed to have loads of water both ways.

After listening to the wind howl all night on Sunday and expect F5 plus on Monday, it was quite bizarre to set off fully reefed and then run into F 0.5.  Our timing had meant we would push tide, but with F5 no problem, with little wind more battery charging.  Then Holy of Holies, sun came out wind shifted south and increased and we sailed home.  Tried the Self Steering, excellent, trimmed the sails with minor tweaks found improvements and had time to check speed at different angles of heel.  We definitely sail faster more upright.  Then, what could be a better sight than a similar yacht cutting us up from port at Garrison Point – Race ON!  They left us for dead to start with, with one better tack, then we did one better than them, catching them up, eventually neck and neck at Folly Point, we put in one more tack, they pinched and guess what, ran aground, convincing victory for Aurai.  What a wonderful finish to a wonderful club event and thanks to all for organisation and kindness shown.

Photos from the w/e before as well, those with a long memory back to mid 1970s may remember a guy called Mike Best RE who sailed a sponsored multihull Croda Way, from Upnor, including 1979 Fastnet!  Well, that was my first introduction to sailing, [not the Fastnet, Croda way] and the w/e before last I caught up with his youngest daughter, who came out on Aurai to revisit her long lost sailing haunts.  Michelle Best, who used to be a sailing instructor, as she was then is the blonde lady!

Chas

Photos from Aurai's trips

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102520&id=562791107&l=6f9bfe836c

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102517&id=562791107&l=13c26e0e79

Date Published 3rd Sep 2009