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Report from Dartmouth
Evening All
I hope you all made it back safely from Littlehampton, just a quick report on the Dartmouth run, Only one boat left from Lymington and that was us, the forcast was F4 - F5 and increasing through the day. Paul bay was not at its best and proved to be very bumpy with steep short waves and no real way of picking through them, St Albans head was very rough with 5mtr waves breaking, This was the 1st real tes of the journey, those who went to Weymouth 2004 will remember the wall of water here last year, these waves seemed to be much bigger, Managed to get very wet on the way through but the boat coped very well, Lyme bay was horrible with big waves but not a great gp between them, still managed to average 32knots through it the weather was getting worse and 10 miles out of Dartmouth was realy horrible, For the 1st time we did damage the boat, a wave took the VHF arial of the A Frame, the radar refector disintigrated , 2 bildge pumps snapped off the mounts and te trim tab computer box snapped of inside the console. The entire journey took 3.5hours door to door so we were impressed with that in those conditions.
That night we went out for several beers and a curry to help numb the pain. Saturday we met up with Andy Micklewright and family with an exta member of crew in the form of Brian Elliot. Good to see them all, I spent 2 hours repairing our boat then we set of dwn the river to the Ferry Boat in pub for a nice lunch and a few beers. We all climbed on Andy's boat and headed to Salcombe fr the afternoon which was very nice, nice hot day and a relaxing afternoon. Brian I hope your back is ok.
Sunday morning we left at 10.30 for the return to Lymington, started off very well , crossing Lyme bay in just under an hour in a F3 - F4, Portland Bill had some big breaking waves but these were easy to drive through and great fun, St ALbans again thre w up some huge waves and again we got wet, Poole Bay was now blowing a F5 in a following sea with some big waves but very manageable, We arrived back in Lymington after 2hrs and 45 mins again in sea conditions that were far from ideal.
We had a great weekend and it was good to meet Andy and Brian again. I am arranging the next cruise at the moment to Fowey in July so if your interested and if my back stops hurting it will be a very good event. Please let me now in advance for this one as we allready have 7 boats going from Lymington.
I hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did, I bet your bruised as well.
See you soon
Julian
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Julian Lyas
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