End of Season. Already?

It doesn't seem like yesterday when we launched our boats and looked forward to a summer of fun and excitement afloat. And now it's all but over, with just a single FF in the water and most of the cruising boats fled to their winter quarters.

There are still things to look forward to, not least the end of year party on the 17th December, tickets on sale soon.

It has been a year of living dangerously, with near misses and worse, together with some spectacular sailing and a few firsts for the club, notably the Flannan Isles expedition. But the full round up will have to wait for a while.

Racing over, the commodore skipped south to the land of his birth, to sail in The Solent aboard a couple of classic yachts, notably Suhaili but more successfully Sabrina, a Harrison Butler design which cleaned up in both races in the Hamble Classics Regatta.


The difference with sailing down south and up here is that, although the winds were strong to near gale force, the spray was warm and the waters a chalky shade of greeny/grey/blue, not the dark, scary black we get up here. And, contrary to our belief, despite the benign if breezy conditions, these guys know how to sail.

If you ever get a chance to sail or race in The Solent, grab it. You will come away a better sailor, albeit a poorer one. Membership of the Royal Southern Yacht Club in Hamble, who ran the regatta, is £600 or more a year and the same to join. Makes the (R)LBSC look even more of a bargain.