Chichester Marina Rally 23rd - 26th May 2014

My first rally and sail of the year....so I was determined to make the most of it.

Scuttling off from work early on Wednesday afternoon saw me shopping in Tesco for last minute supplies and on the boat by 5.00 pm. As usual getting everything sorted took longer than planned and I decided not to head out into the harbour for the night and succumbed to the lure of Chichester Yacht Club for supper...and very nice to.

Thursday

Today saw the arrival of Tony W in Martha, Brad in Siobhan, Chris in Calidris and of course Peter in Siesta, so another day spent in the marina catching up before adjourning to CYC again but this time, having been entertained on Siesta we all settled for a drink.

The marina in the sun

Brad and Tony - note the sparrow on the stay next to Brad 

Friday

The bulk of the boats arrived today - but the sad news is that the crews setting out from Ashlett have been thwarted by the weather and the outlook doesn't look good so I suspect they won't make it this year.

The rain kept it soggy but it was the wind that was the main feature - and some of the people coming from further afield have understandably called off.

The sparrows became a feature of the weekend - landing on the boats looking for food and feeding quite readily from the hand.

When we sat down to our 'formal' dinner in the yacht club the assembled crowd was - one Drifter, one classic wooden long boat cruiser, one Lune Whammel, one Shrimper, 5 Coasters, 3 Luggers and two Dabbers - if my memory is correct we had 20 at the dinner.

Saturday

The day dawned bright and a little breezy, but not too bad at all. We were joined by John in his Long Boat  Cruiser 'Lucille' and held the briefing  at about 09.20. The plan to sail to East Head was explained and I also covered the issues concerning the lock. Armed with that the fleet set off. I had Chris Conrath aboard and we had a very good sail down to the end of Hayling Island before returning to East Head for lunch.

A selection of photos - you can click on them to open them

After lunch we made our way back up to the marina and set up camp for the evening festivities - Brad brought a great tent and Bill brought his 'fair ground attraction' band stand.

The Band Stand

Setting up the BBQ with a little helper

The band in action

Brad's excellent tent

Before the rain...

 The Ashlett crews came over by car and it was great to see them and lovely that they made the effort - as the rain came in the Dunkirk spirit took over and I understand a great time was had by all.


Sunday

Almost too good to be true, Sunday was bright and with slightly more moderate wind. Buoyed up by this and the confidence gain the day before we extended the sail down the harbour past East Head and up to the visitors pontoon at Emsworth.

Various

The tide calmed and we set off for home with a vague plan to stop off at East Head for a cup of tea. However en route Ken and I saw the creek halfway own the Emsworth channel invitingly filling with water so we pushed up and visited the seals basking in the sun at the top.

Seals - basking

 Draggletail towards East Head

Some hauled out that evening but the majority waited until....

Monday

....when in between some quite heavy rain they hauled out and headed home.

The rally went well in spite of the weather and we were blessed with fine weather for Saturday and Sunday in the end.