Parade of sail

We had a slow start to Sunday after the hectic race day, spending most of the morning messing about in rowing boats on the very shallow boating lake at Brightlingsea. Julian carved a new end for the flagstaff over lunch time so we could fly the ensign during the parade of sail, and we cast off the pontoon with Worm astern at 1400.

The parade of sail was due to start from Bateman's tower at 1430, and we were all ready with fully reefed main and stay sail to follow Victoria up river. We kept up with the first section for a long time, taking careful note of where people were tacking. It was only an hour after low water, and the Colne up to Wivenhoe gets very shallow on the edges!

As we beat gently up the river we kept seeing boats going aground. They all got off again quite quickly, either with the motor, or as the tide came up.

Our GPS kept telling us we were not in the centre of the river, while the buoyed channel we could see told us we were, so we could not trust the GPS to be accurate enough to stop us going aground. I engaged my land form reading brain and concentrated hard. I know I annoyed Julian with some of my tack calling from the helm, but we only touched bottom once, when I already had the helm over to tack. A good result.

Once we got up river, and into a narrower channel the larger boats drew ahead, and since the wind was dropping with the shelter we shook out all the reefs and unfurled the jib before we reached Wivenhoe. Julian took the helm for the last mile, and managed to sail nearly all the way to the Sailing Club pontoon where we rafted up between Random and Quintet at 1615 before heading to the promised Hog Roast.

The weather now was in total contrast to yesterday, or even this morning, with bright sunshine and hot still air. Perfect eating outside weather!