Sailing was poetry, but not on my account.

I spent some time on Tuesday, trying to capture the events of a bit of sailing we did on Monday, but the result had no salt, no sole. Let's take the highlights then.

We set out after 9am in a NW breeze, just enough to give us control to avoid hitting the castle on the way out of the Solent with the tide. The water was smooth, disturbed only by the ebb and an occasional boat until, just on the exit of the race, three standing waves spanned the Northern half of the channel. Crossing these almost stopped us by shaking the weak wind from our sails. Going West we were rocked slowly by a faint swell and, over the land, cloud built. In the clear air and with no waves, the North Head buoy was visible from further than usual; it slid by, followed by the Christchurch Bay buoy, but as we bore away to round Hengistbury the soft breeze died and we bobbed, accompanied by the banging of gear, for an hour.

When the wind returned it was more SW and we initially tacked South before turning to the West when it seemed likely that this new breeze would be enough to get us home if we went further. The wind built to force 4 over an hour, amplifying the swell mildly and providing almost perfect conditions for sailing. Though deciding it would be prudent to turn at 14:00, it was 14:30 before, less than 3 miles from Old Harry Rocks, we did turn to find The Needles almost due East and the tide practically slack.

The journey back was swifter with a following wind, a flood tide building and a slow increase in the amplitude of the swell until, with Bridge (The Needles Easterly mark) in view, we were sliding down the side of waves ready to be lifted gently by the next. Aiming South towards St Catherine's Point to cancel the tide and round the South Shingles buoy, the swell became complex; composed of two main parts which cut the sea into diamonds of sink and heave. All the way up the Needles channel to Totland we were rocked and chased by these waves while our fore-sail swelled and collapsed continuously. Just before Colwell we took a starboard tack towards Warden before tacking out again on port to make for a smoother passage.

On this reverse tide the race was doing more familiar dances, with fields of leaping chop on either side of a smooth central flow. Outside of the race and protected once more in the Solent the sea was calmer and the wind slightly ameliorated. Crossing the flow to use time until our mooring would be deep enough, we still leaned far enough to cause difficulty in the comfortable brewing of tea. After about six traversals of the space just West of the line joining Lymington to Yarmouth, we let the sails looser and dropped the main before entering the river. No sailing to mooring today, with no room to spare, we motored, depth alarm crying up to our buoy and reversed to stop with no room to turn.