Cruising News 04

This years cruising has been dogged by bad weather, but a few boats managed to get off to some of the venues. Spirit of Eirann headed off to Padstowe in April. Predator braved the cold and drizzle to Newport to enjoy their evening shindig and take part in the cruiser rally. Jacona went on a motoring holiday to Ilfracombe, Lundy and Swansea, catching a slight breeze off Barry on the way back.

Rhiannon, Jacona, Spirit of Eirann, and Xanadu all fought it out in the 50 miler ending up at the Portishead Docks Rally. The rally was very well organised with stalls, entertainment, barbecue, and is highly recommend it for the future. Rhiannon was the eventual winner in a tightly fought contest.

Preceptor and Genevive disappeared off to the Watchet Carnival then on to Dale and Fishguard. Hidden Secret and Illusion had a tour of Barry, Ilfracombe, Tenby and back to Watchet. Pepsi II nursed a sick engine to Watchet, Ilfracombe, Tenby, Dale and Neyland. The highlight being an engineless sail into Watchet in the Dark. Peapod was spotted in Dale. Maelstrom and Jacona headed off to the Scilly’s stopping at Padstowe. Maelstrom had a whistle stop tour of St Mary’s and rushed back to to Padstowe followed closely by hurricane Alex. Jacona missed the Scilly’s completely and ended up in various South Coast ports listening to forecasts such as Westerly 3 to 4 gusting 9. They got halfway across the channel but could not resist the magnetic attraction of Dartmouth tugging them back to their homelands. On the way back to Cardiff they popped into Ilfracombe at 2.00am to sit out the tide, only to find too many anchored boats crashing around in a confused sea. They ended up inching slowly past Aberthaw cooling tower with a big following sea and a speed over water of 7 knots.

The September trip to Bristol was attended by Hidden Secret, Jacona and Baltic Wanderer (an infiltrator from Weston) A fantastic downwind sail on Friday evening in the patchy rain, followed by a lovely day enjoying the street entertainment of Bristol. Then an interesting sail back with wind on the nose and that lovely wind over big spring tide effect that we all know and love. NUSC wimped out completely and stayed at home whale watching. Spirit of Eirann braved the cold and took a trip up to Bristol in November. Light winds meant they put their engine to good use.