We’ve been fortunate to experience some really good late September weather and I’ve lately enjoyed two trips with extended family. The first trip was with my parents and the second with my father-in-law.

My dad is an experienced sailor, so my parents were keen to come and see Molly for themselves. Taking advantage of the UK’s unexpected bank holiday for the Queen’s funeral, Niki, myself and my parents set out on an almost windless but wonderfully sunny day. It was a great pleasure to show them our local patch. We put the sails up, despite the lack of wind, drifted on the tide towards the Island and put the anchor down in Priory Bay for some lunch. Later, the wind filled in a little and we blew the chance of getting home early in order to enjoy the breeze and sail a little.

The next trip, only a few days later with just myself and my father-in-law, Jeff, was an overnighter. A moderate northerly breeze and a mid-morning tide gave us the chance to sail over to Chichester, just as I had done with Niki the previous weekend, but this time staying in a marina.

In complete contrast to the previous trip, it seemed as though we had the sea and Chichester harbour almost to ourselves and saw only a few others out sailing. We weaved our way into the harbour against the falling tide, past a practically empty East Head, passed through picturesque Itchenor and crept up the shallow straight channel to Chichester marina. I had wanted to visit Birdham Pool, but we were too late for the tide (on the list for another time!).

Chichester marina is nestled far up in the tidal reaches of the harbour and is accessed by a lock. I was told my 2.5m draught was too much for the marina, so I lifted the plate. However, this made manoeuvring rather tricky, especially astern, so I compromised on half-plate.

Jeff and I were soon ensconced on our berth and repaired to Chichester Yacht Club for a meal and few well-earned pints of beer.

The following morning was breezy and we worked our way out against the last of the flood, though the fleets of boats on their moorings and the armadas of dinghies rallying for their Saturday racing.

It was a reach through the harbour and a dead run out of the mouth. As it was high tide, we did not run all way out to West Pole but bore away west after we had passed the bar. I had a reef in, to make sure things were relaxed and Molly swept along beautifully with the ebb under her and the wind on her beam.

As we passed Langstone entrance. Jeff lost his cap. I immediately decided to practice man overboard. I started the engine, threw off the sheets and we reversed course. We made it back to the hat, but the jib was flogging and I could not furl it. I took my eyes off the hat for only a moment and then sadly we could not find it again I went forward to sort out the tangled lines and got smacked in the face by a sheet for my troubles. Now we had lost a hat and my glasses were smashed!

I finally managed to furl the jib, sort out the lines and we resumed our course. A few important lessons learned. On the positive side, I was pleased to be able to start engine and reverse course accurately back to the casualty. However, I’m not sure how we would have recovered the hat – Jeff is not too nimble and has no sea experience. I hadn’t had time to grab a boat hook and I don’t think I’d have had time to fetch it before the hat sank. The hat disappeared from view quite quickly, but a human casualty would at least have a life jacket to keep them afloat. I have a sling available but getting a human casualty aboard would be a daunting prospect. The experience also showed the importance of at least one crew having the sole job of keeping eyes locked on the casualty. It would have been much less dramatic if I had been able to furl the foresails, probably it would have helped if I furled the jib whilst turning through the wind, but there is an enormous amount of friction on the jib furling line – I need to look at ways to improve this situation.

On the recommendation of a comment to my previous post, which mentioned passing through the boat channel off Southsea, Jeff and I made for the tiny gap of the small boat channel, which is much closer inshore.

“Steer towards the shore, aim at the shore end of the pier”, I told Jeff. “Are you sure it’s deep enough? – there’s only 5m here!”, he replied. In fact, as we approached the beach, the depth changed little, and we bore away to pass through the narrow gate, only a biscuit toss from the shore. Our course took us close by the end of the pier and along the shore to the head below Southsea Castle, where the shore turns north into Portsmouth harbour. We carried straight on though, so as to cross the shipping channel at right angles and have space to drop our sails.

It was an interesting passage – I always enjoy passing close to the shore and seeing the goings on, but there is little navigational benefit going that way and the wind was more fluky that close to the shore. I’ll save it to amuse guests on the boat in future.