A weekend of firsts!

It was a weekend of 'firsts' for us.....first time we stayed overnight and slept onboard; first time we cooked; first time we used the 'amenities'; and most importantly, the first time we went for a decent sail. We spent five hours out on the wild waters of the Solent, completely comfortable and safe in force 6 conditions with gusts of up to 31 knots. We cracked a relaxed speed of 9kns, averaging about 5.9kns. So we were really happy.

We did have a couple of exciting and dramatic moments while cruising past Cowes, the Royal Yacht Squadron and Osbourne Castle. The most unexpected was when the furling line snapped, powering up our 140% headsail in force 6 winds as we were pushed into the shallows. Craig had to scramble to flake the sail and control the snapping lines while I had to power up, get us back into deep water and hope like hell we didn't end up wth lines tangled in our sail drive or with a 'man overboard' because that would have been Craig with all his scrambling about the deck and I am not quite sure I can as yet be relied upon to save him! Anyway, all was good and just added to the excitement of the trip.

We then found ourselves trying to manoeuvre in a very busy channel and marina without our bow thruster, which had decided to chuck a wobbly on us. So that meant a little more technique was necessary to reverse into our slip. Once safely back in our berth, we then had the first learning experience of re-attaching and re-furling a huge genoa.

With each new experience, however, we fall in love with her just that little bit more. She is feeling like home to us and hopefully, Inelsamo is equally happy with us!