A wet and windy weekend welcomed an indomitable fleet of nine wanderer ‘teams’ and a support boat crew (John Talbot and Jean Whittaker generously standing in for me this year so I could get my own boat wet in home waters) at the Poole Harbour cruise over the 18 and 19 August.

Dire weather forecasts before the weekend went a good way to cause four boats to withdraw from the cruise - as the general expectation was that no sailing would be possible at all over the weekend, with gusts of 31 mph promised.

Saturday morning dawned wet and windy as promised, but with the wind from the SW, a limited fetch across the harbour and some small lee offered by the Purbeck hills, a modest plan was agreed to venture out under engine to the north shore of Brownsea island and see what we found when we got out there.

Many hands made light work of launching the boats down the treacherously slippery concrete slipway in the RNLI depot – but only after we had all run up our outboards in a fresh water bin beforehand – it would have been disastrous to launch off the slip into the strong wind and flooding tide only to have the engine fail to start and get blown onto the inhospitably rocky lee shore to the NE of Holes bay.

A well timed departure had the 7 boats that had launched, and the support boat crewed by 3 more Wanderer crews that thought better of going out in a small dinghy in fresh winds, ready to transit the lifting bridge between Holes Bay and Poole Town Quay.

Not many other boats joined the small fleet as we worked our way out past the many millions of pounds worth of Sunseeker hardware being prepared for the hyper wealthy along the shores either side of the bridge.

The short passage from Poole Quay to Brownsea was sloppy but uneventful, with all outboards buzzing away happily punching into the headwind and short sea down a well marked route following the port side poles across Wills Cut.

Brownsea offered a deserted little sandy cove ideally placed on the north west shore, hooking round to create a perfect lee from the fresh SW wind and chop. Nestled close under the trees the boats lay happily anchored just off the beach, whilst owners explored the island, discovering red squirrels, chasing pesky peacocks away from packed lunches and sampling the National Trust tea shop in the couple of hours we allowed ourselves shoreside.

Mustering again on the shore at 13:00 in more squally rainstorms we all agreed to make for the 14:30 bridge back into Holes Bay while we could still see the destination and completed a fast but uncomfortable return journey up Wills Cut under genoa and engine with a lively quartering sea lifting outboards from the water and pushing bows alarmingly down into the backs of the preceding sea.

All made it safely back to the Quay to await the bridge lift and buzz back to recover to the RNLI depot and seek out warm showers, dry clothes and more relaxing ways of spending a Saturday afternoon – such as loafing in the Lifeboat College bar.

Lots of discussion was heard about outboards and steering after the morning’s exploits, with some favouring sitting on the buoyancy tank in the stern and ‘driving’ the outboard (good low speed control but poor fore and aft trim), and others locking the outboard to drive forward and steering with the rudder (Good trim but poor low speed control), some employing a mixture of the two.

One note of caution is to ensure the outboard is sufficiently tightly locked if driving using the boat’s rudder. One wanderer in the tight confines of the Poole Quay turned abruptly right and luckily bounced off forgiving mooring lines when the outboard developed a mind of its own and swung hard over when not expected.

Sunday promised slightly better weather, the morning forecast predicting the F5/6 Northerly would reduce to a civilised F3/4 ‘later’.

Setting out with a staged plan to allow us to retreat if anyone felt overwhelmed and expecting conditions to moderate we initially made for the south shore of Brownsea, round the West corner beyond Pottery Pier.

Departure from the narrow slipway proved challenging as it was bounded by unforgiving steel and concrete piling, with the northwesterly wind blowing diagonally across and into the slipway, pushing many boats down onto the leeward wall before they could gain enough way to drive clear. Having some board down helped the boat grip the water and improved steering allowing the boat to pivot around the fulcrum of the centreboard and drive away.

Running easily under engine and then genoa, the fleet made light work of the first downwind leg, mustering on the beach by the Scout camp on the south shore of Brownsea in a very comfortable lee offered by the island to raise reefed mainsails for the first and last time all weekend and start a lairy beat up to Shipstal Point to the North West of the harbour.

Under reefed main alone the short distance into the teeth of the fresh and gusty wind took the fleet around an hour and half, all shipped a good deal of water over the foredeck and we were happy to haul up on the beach under the cliff at Shipstal to dry out, warm up and rest our weary stomach and thigh muscles. Even the trusty crew of the heavy diesel engined support boat found the conditions wet and sloppy, rolling the boat heavily and shipping spray regularly over the high bow.

The wind, far from reducing to a comfortable F3 was building and several nasty squalls had the crews fully stretched even under reefed main without headsails. Many experienced the strange sensation of sailing slower and slower in the freshening wind, luffing constantly to keep things on an even keel, steadily dropping away to leeward, with halyards ringing strongly against the mast and listening to the increasingly urgent whistling of the wind in the rigging.

It was noticeable how it became harder and harder to force the bow through the wind without the help of the headsail, getting ‘caught in irons’ and having to reverse the tiller to back the boat onto the new tack once she started being blown backwards. Things could easily have got beyond many of us had the beat been much longer or the conditions deteriorated further.

It was obvious that planned phase three of the day – continuing up the harbour towards Wareham would have been unwise in the prevailing conditions, so a leisurely lunch was followed by a relaxed return to the 14:30 bridge, once again under genoa alone, crossing through a fleet of racing X boats under full sail and spinnakers on the way – exciting for them maybe, but we all looked far more relaxed.

A ‘well timed’ arrival at the quay gave most of the fleet a very good close up view of a Condor fast-cat departure and then a quick transit of the bridge back to the depot for a wash down and pack up before the fleet broke up and went their own ways home.

Though no great distances were travelled and the weather gods were against us throughout, a very pleasant weekend was enjoyed by old cruising hands and new arrivals from near and far, made possible by the ability of the Wanderer dinghy to look after its crew in marginal conditions and the friendly people who seem to be drawn to this class.

My thanks to all that made the weekend a success despite the weather and especially for the kind donations, I forwarded a cheque for £40 to Poole Lifeboat Station upon my return.

Attendees:

W900 Ray Tennant and Sue Humphries (Aletes)
W992 Mike and Alyson Hamilton (Orinoco)
W1451 Jamie, Alison and Jack Cordery (KeriKeri)
W1416 Mike and Lesley Bennet (Y Knot)
W1501 Jonathon and Julia Hilton (ImpTrois)
W1447 Niall Doherty (crewed by Richard, new Owner of W80 from Poole)
W980 Lorraine Kindley and David Hewett
W1038 Tim Niamh and Max Robertson (Joshua Slocum)
W1527 Graham and Wendy Davis (MissT)

Support Boat kindly crewed all weekend by John Talbot and Jean Whittaker.

Tim Robertson August 22nd 2007  Photos by Dave Hewett