SchoonerSail’s 1st Sailing Weekend In The UK
SchoonerSail’s first group of guests joined Trinovante to get under way on the water last weekend.
The weather was fantastic, with sunshine and initial gentle breezes developing into fine sailing winds as the weekend wore on.
All our bank holiday sailing holiday weekends for this 2011 are now full.
We still have availibility on our other tall ships sailing holidays in Norway (sailing into the Arctic circle and visiting the Lofoten Islands), the Netherlands and UK this summer.
Rob keeping a careful watch on the wind direction
The First Evening
On the first evening we dropped down the river Orwell under engine and had an alfresco evening meal on deck. It was the usual mixed bunch of people including Rob who, amongst other things, is an ex-army fitness trainer for British Military Fitness. Later in the week he demonstrated, on the marina pontoon, some challenging new types of press ups we never realised existed!
The Offshore Wind Farms
On the Thames Estuary there is currently a lot of activity surrounding the building of two big wind farms. One on the Gunfleet between Harwich and Brightlingsea and one on the Gabbard Bank about 25 miles offshore of Harwich.
The following morning we spotted this huge tow was bringing what looked liked like windturbine bases.
Wind turbine equipment being towed near Harwich
Learning to tie a marlin spike hitch
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The weekend was turning into a fairly leisurely, gentle
cruise as we headed to anchor off a beach in the Colne on
the second night.
In the warm evening breeze the new crew sat around
watching the sun going down over a couple of beers.
The following day we sailed back to Half Penny Lynne getting the hang of steering
Pier in Harwich with everyone having a go helming.
Everyone learnt a few new basic seamanship skills
such as tying a marlin spike hitch.
Homeward bound
It was soon time to head back to Ipswich but we managed to squeeze in a sail out into Harwich Harbour and a fast sail on the tide up the Stour and back. Lynne steered a steady course for this last leg amongst lots of anchored boats even with the wind fine on the bow and lots of wind shifts to contend with. Afterwards she said
The taster weekend for me was an eye opener as you don’t need experience to be part of the crew and get involved. Glad I had the experience.
We’ll leave you with photos of a few interesting boats we spotted over the weekend.
Rory, a local sailor out for his first sail of the year in his spray The Pelican of Hamble, what looks like a home built catamaran. We spotted her sailing quite nicely to windward amongst the moorings on the Orwell A local traditional boat - a bawley from Leigh on Sea, near Southend.
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