Lymington to Weymouth

Yes, the weather was good, the tides for a morning departure were in our favour and the captain thought that he knew enough about the new Furuno kit to venture out beyond the well trodden Solent area.

A little run to Weymouth was called for. Why? Well, Weymouth harbour is a lovely place to stay, Andrew and Linda (you should know them very well from this blog) live there and it is a good jumping off spot for Guernsey and fuel too.

Departure with our third crew member was a civilised just after nine affair. The wind was a kindly F3/4 but sort of on the nose. So nice after days of gales.

The route is simple, except for needing to avoid the firing range at Lulworth which was active. However the safety patrol guys always help by telling you how far south you need to go to avoid becoming a target. This time it was 50 degrees and 33 mins N. That does mean you have to cross the race over the St Alban's bank but in gentle winds it was not a big deal even for Izzy: It looks like:

The new navigation gear all fired up OK:

You can spot the other critical "on passage" items in the picture. The rhubarb and custard sugar free drops have become a favourite and get a serious pasting on overnight trips.

We went down the Needles channel with ever increasing tidal help. The Needles looked a bit mean and moody as usual:

This plotter pic shows how we could cut several miles off the trip by following the 50 33N line rather than heading to the waypoint shown which clears the southerly extremities of the entire firing range:

Sorry about the reflections, it was getting brighter outside. On the final part of the trip approaching Weymouth, Izzy seemed keen to keep a good lookout:

Some anchored ships were successfully warned off by barking. Amazing really.

We were given a lovely spot just outside the harbour office in Weymouth and were also greeted by a dinner invitation from Andrew and Linda. What more could you ask for?  Nice trip with loads of tidal assistance, happy third crew member, nice spot and Linda's famous curry to look forward to. As we prepared to dock, Izzy wanted to help the crew on the foredeck. Hint - Izzy is not showing her bottom in this picture:

Izzy did disgrace herself on the walk up to Andrew and Linda's house though by finding some rancid fish smelling gunge on the harbourside to semi roll in. She had another new experience afterwards - a clean up session in their bath.

As for the trip - a nice run of only just over 5 hours. The nav kit behaved well, just have to play with the autopilot setup as it is responding much too quickly to the new fast feed from our old satellite compass and oversteering terribly. So much so that we reverted to the internal rate compass for most of the trip. Must read the manuals and figure out how to adjust the old Simrad autopilot so it behaves better. If only humans and dogs came with one too.