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Short weekend rally – At Anchor 15/17 August 2025
The Rally seemed to start early for us, we had a rib to pick up and several jobs to do, so we all meet early on Friday morning. With the jobs completed, Babino on the pontoon at Marchwood and a super container ship just arriving, we headed off for Bucklers Hard and the Beaulieu River. Wind was very light, so not a lot of sailing was done, mostly had the motor running. We had a little more wind as we entered the river, but that soon disappeared as we headed inland. Passed Beaulieu Marina, we found a vacant visitors buoy which we picked up. The paddle board was pumped and we had a very quiet evening, with a trip to the pub in the dingy.
Arriving container ship 
Peaceful evening 
Brisk tacking Following morning, we were off around 08:30 to catch the tide to Chichester Harbour and an anchorage at East Head. Well, what a sail, with the wind directly in front of us, we beat our way down the Solent with 20-25 knots of wind and hitting 6/7 knots of boat speed. It was forecast to be sunny all day, but I can’t say we saw any. We entered Chichester harbour around 15:30 and then the fun began. Most of the other boats were already anchored, so we had to pick a spot between them.
Going ashore I have actually forgotten how many times I let the anchor down and brought it back up, it was that many !! It just would not bite in. Eventually we managed to get the anchor to bit and we were off for a short trip in the dingy for our BBQ. The wind was still fairly strong and lighting it was rather difficult, but once lit, the sausages were cooked, with the wind picking up the sand, it was a case of sausages with sand, salad with sand, burgers with sand and it even managed to get into the beer !!
Sandy BBQ Sunday Morning the wind was still there, but not so strong. East head was now quite with a lot of boats gone and only our group left. We brought the anchor in, said a cheery goodbye to everyone and set off back to Marchwood. Well, another great sail back, with the wind at 15/20 knots behind us, we setup to goosewing our way back. I don’t know how we did it, but from the buoy outside Chichester harbour, we went straight through Dolphin point, passed the forts, as we rounded Gilkicker head the wind seemed to shift and we proceeded most of the way up Southampton water still on the same tack. We didn’t have to touch the sails all the way back. Safety back at Marchwood we put Babino back on her buoy and all headed home.
Another great rally with SMSC.
Goose winging home 
2025 – Ready for the new season
Going Afloat Lunch The 2025 sailing season is upon us! The club marked this in our traditional way with our Going Afloat Supper. This year it was held at the Trafalgar pub in Greenwich with over 40 members in attendance. It was an excellent occasion, we enjoyed good food and good company, complete with a raffle and quiz.
Our attention turns to the sailing programme, with our first shakedown cruise over to the Folly on the Isle of Wight. Following this we have our Yarmouth and Beaulieu cruises.
Our weekly programme continues, we’ve had some great talks recently, including the Thames Boat Project, and covering topics from Greenland to Turtles. Coming up we have a talk on the Bark Europa.
Our Round the Island race crew have kicked off their training with a Solent shakedown in good conditions.
We have five members attending the Little Ships Club’s training on practical weather forecasting, we’ll be looking to them prior to our upcoming rallies to provide an accurate forecast!
All of the highlights I have mentioned are down to the contribution of our members and committee, so my thanks to all of them for their work!
If you’re reading this and are not a member, but perhaps browsing and curious about joining, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’re a really friendly club with something for everyone. Drop us an email to know more.
Fair winds to all members and sailors as our season gets under way!
Welcome to 2025
The dark and cold days of January provide a good time to stop and think about the previous year and the year to come, so here are a few reflections from me.
2024 was a great year for the club, highlights for me included the Yarmouth and Beaulieu rally with a fantastic turn out for the club and a whole long weekend of sailing and fun, our first race (for a while) and a superb navigators challenge around the marks and buoys of the Solent. Ashore, we’ve had a superb range of talks, on shipwrecks, Antarctica, mudlarking, first aid, firefighting, sea survival and so many more. The Mariners’ Mates (our very own band) have gone from strength to strength, playing the Carshalton Eco and Frost Fairs, with more planned in 2025. Our pirate themed Christmas social was enormous fun! I have loved the way our members have stepped up to participate so much in organising things afloat and ashore! While the end of last year took a sad turn with the loss of a much loved member Peter, we are thankful for his company and friendship.This year our various committees have been hard at work planning more fascinating talks, a fun social programme, a superb sailing programme, plus more support to members who want to do some training. We’ve got members planning to do the Round the Island race, more chartering, various qualifications and exciting trips. I’m also especially excited to welcome new members who want to become part of our brilliant sailing and social community.
To name everyone who’s made such a contribution to the club last year and into the New Year would mean a lot of scrolling….. so to all members I want to say a big thank you, the people are our club, so Happy New Year all and here’s to a fantastic 2025, ashore and afloat!
Ruth
Photographic competition 2024 results
We had a wonderful display of photography last week at our annual Photographic Competition, thanks to all who entered images, it really was a wonderful display.
Derek did a great job as usual of organising and displaying the prints, as well as securing the knowledgeable and talented judge Graeme Wales (Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, longtime judge for many camera clubs and member of Kingston Camera Club) who gave an interesting and informative talk about some of his own images.
The results of the competition are
Amusing Incidents
Winner – It was that Big! (Marianne Wood) 
2nd – The Waterman (Rowena Barton) 
3rd – On the Trolley! (Rowena Barton) 
Highly Commended – Cocktail Sir? (Paul Hart) Club Event
Winner – Bye Carissa (Ruth Grainger) 
2nd – Three in a row (Chris Dukes) 
3rd – Light Airs (Marianne Wood) 
Highly commended – Happy Crew (Paul Hart) Best overall
Winner – Capstans (Roger Evans) 2nd – Bye Carissa (Ruth Grainger) 
3rd – Kinish Harbour (Geoff Balls) 
4th – Pushing Boundaries, conquering the Elements. A young Sailors journey (Valentyn Shamchuk) Images worth a mention
Hello Sailor Buy! (Bev Hart)
Just Chilling (Chris Dukes) 
Fishing boat (Roger Evans) 
Crystal Waters (Martin Mitchell) 
Harbour (David Quine) 
Cloudy Skies but the Spirit is High (Valentyn Shamchuk) 
Sunset (Roger Evans) 
Zadar Rainbow (Andrew Wood) AGM nominations forms are available
With next AGM scheduled to be on 31st October 2024, the nominations forms are available in the member’s area. The forms need to be in by 3rd October 2024.
Cowes Rally
The 2024 rally season is off to a very successful start!
This weekend, six boats and 21 crew took part in the Cowes Shakedown Rally to Cowes Yacht Club. It was great sailing with imaginative entertainment in the form of a St George’s Day quiz and a dragon boat challenge, a lovely meal out at Island Sailing Club followed by dancing the night away at Cowes Corinthian. Two yachts continued the fun on Sunday with a lunchtime stop in Newtown Creek where they rafted up for lunch.Many thanks to Rear Commodore Gary Eversfield and his team, with special mention to Rally Organisers Garry and Janice Mackie.Thanks to Cowes Yacht Haven for finding a space for all 6 boats, the Island Sailing Club for a fantastic meal, and Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club for letting us join the party.Don’t forget, every Thursday you can find us at the MBA Lounge, VBS Community Stadium, Gander Green Lane, SuttonPhotographic competition 2023 results
We had a wonderful display of photography last week at our annual Photographic Competition, thanks to all who entered images, it really was a wonderful display.
Derek did a great job as usual of organising and displaying the prints, as well as securing the knowledgeable and talented judge Phillip Quarry, who gave an interesting and informative talk about some of his own images.
The results of the competition are:
An Amusing Incident
Winner – A Right Pair (Bev Hart)Club Event
Winner – Neptune’s Beard – Ruth Grainger
2nd – Vanishing Point – Ruth Grainger
3rd – Mirror Image – Gary Eversfield
Highly commended – I’m Sorted – Chris DukesBest overall
Blue Solent – Roger Evans
2nd – It’s not so windy when they switch those big fans off – Roger Evans
3rd – Sunrise Spinnaker – Danny McDonnell
4th – Dartmouth, Nova Scotia – Roger EvansMini photographic competition 2023 results
Thank you to the six members who submitted 17 entries for my mini photographic competition. I particularly liked the night and sunset images but the one that stands out for me is Garry’s ‘Gone in a flash’ because ‘it does what it says on the tin’ Garry nicely captured the dipping sun between his blue ensign and the lifesaving gear, but it also has an interesting sky, to boot! See following image.
A close second is Ruth’s (see below) but I think it would have been better had the yacht been on the right rather than the left. The reasoning being that we read from left to right so it would be better for the lights (and reflected lights) to take the viewer across the photograph from left to right ending at the yacht.
I’m having to take a very critical approach to my photographic work at present so it was good to have the opportunity to review other peoples’ images.
Regards
Derek
