TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

It is just getting light as we pull out into the river and join the flotilla of yachts heading over to Cowes, but still dark enough to need the navigation lights on.

Several of the boats astern of us have some weird ideas of the lights they should be showing.  Port and Starboard but no steaming light, are they actually sailing down the river in the twilight? Masthead tricolour and a steaming light, I can see a green over white are they trawling?

As we reach Southampton Water we can see the cruise companies are doing their bit to avoid causing chaos at the start, four large cruise liners slipping in to dock in Southampton between 04:00 and 05:00. 

Then it is down to the “holding zone” just south of the Bramble Bank, and safely out of the main shipping channel while we wait for out class to be called to the start line.

Sunrise, and the ebb is just cutting in so we have to make sure we stay the right side of the line. Doing a loop around the extension of a two mile start line to restart if we drift over is not an option. We have a light NNE breeze so the wind is also trying to take us over.  

Mainsail up and ready, we are drifting down so fly the genoa as well.

Two minutes to the start, get ready, one minute, go for the line…

Didn’t quite get the timing right, we are at the back of our group but we will have clear air, at least until the next group starts.