50 42.3N 001 30.1W
We are now on deployment!
We departed yesterday just before 1100 with Anna and Lizzie onboard for the RNSA Yarmouth Trophy rally event. Our good friend Rachel Dunn was on hand at Fort Blockhouse to make sure we didn’t turn round and sneak back up the harbour – and there were other witnesses on the Round Tower (a wonderful Navy tradition of welcoming ships home and sending them off safely).
Escapade outbound (with a bit of Rachel’s thumb for authenticity)
The grey skies rapidly melted away to provide a beautiful afternoon, with a fresh south westerly breeze and a turning tide to give us the sailing shakedown we needed. Three hours later we joined a throng of yachts entering Yarmouth Harbour – a glorious mix of Junior Offshore Group (JOG) boats, Yarmouth Trophy boats and the Navy Inter-Command Regatta, the Victoria Owners Association and a clutter of other craft. Many old friends and some new ones too, ending up in the Royal Solent Yacht Club for sundowners and supper looking out on the Solent over Yarmouth’s Victorian pier and across to the New Forest, Lymington and Hurst Castle.
That’s us with the Mount Gay flag – a taste of things to come?
The Young People… and Alice’s itinerant mug!
Up early on Sunday morning to get the girls away with the Yarmouth Trophy boats – Anna onboard Moby J with Martin Pound and his dog Jack, Lizzie onboard Swordfish with the Shrives family and Theo Stocker from Yachting Monthly.
Peace descended. Not for long: phonecall from Lizzie – handbag stowed away onboard Escapade with life inside it. Had the last RNSA boat sailed? A fast recce of the harbour unearthed the stoically calm John Stoy and Charlie Colbeck aboard Wild Heron bound for Fort Blockhouse. Day saved… by a Cavalry Officer of all things!
