Snork Maiden Voyage

On Tuesday, we cast our lines off the pontoon and headed out of the marina. But then something happened that has never happened before since Milestone has been in our ownership: we turned right. Yes. That’s correct. We turned right, joined the small boat channel, and passed through the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour. Then it started getting a bit rocky. Then we turned right again, up the inner swashway.

We had left Portsmouth Harbour and were bound for Cowes, IoW.

It was fantastic weather for our maiden voyage on Milestone: bright sun, really warm. When sailing I’m always the first to become cold, but this time, I ended up taking my oilie trousers off and putting shorts on. Me! Shorts! Sailing! April! Another first.

We decided to hoist our mizzen, then uncurled our jibbanoa (main out of action as we need to cut the boom down first). It was beautiful. Engine off, and we were still making ~5.8knots, albeit SOG with the tide (we have no log). We’d calculated that we’d have enough depth for the inner swashway, but even so, it would have been nice to have depth in metres not the feet shown on our Star-Trek style Echopilot.

An hour or so later I asked James if he’d like to take a 3-point fix. We both know the Solent like the back of our hand, but I love navigation and chartwork and this was our maiden voyage, so why not take our time and do it all properly? Whilst James took his fix I made us a chicken, salad & red pepper sandwich in the fresh baguette we bought just before we set out. Shorts and t’shirts (and sexy Spinlock lifejackets!), sun, warmth, wind, sailing… it was just perfect, especially for our maiden voyage.

Neither of us could wipe the smiles off our faces. It was amazing. At one point we were both in the cockpit and James just turned to me with a smug look on his face and said “So I suppose this is what cruising’s like, then?”

At some point during our outward leg, it suddenly occured to me that I had never thought to myself before leaving if I was competent enough to be doing this. It was weird because in this sense it felt totally natural - I knew exactly what I was doing and felt confident enough to take our home out to sea with James - but at the same time it was incredibly surreal. 99.9% of all the sailing I have ever done has been on coded boats with an RYA Instructor guiding us along, showing us the ropes, and being there to fall back on if something goes wrong. Apart from going out with James on his parents’ Etap 28i once or twice last season (which didn’t count because James always felt like the responsible one), I have never been out on a boat where I feel really, totally, completely and utterly responsible. And guess what? I loved it. The freedom of being out there with just the two of us, making decisions for ourselves, not having an instructor to fall back on, and feeling so much love towards our boat, our home… it was just breathtaking.

James took us alongside in Cowes Yacht Haven. We radioed ahead and they allocated us the most awkward berth in the marina - round a corner, with another boat already ahead on the long finger, and being blown off by about 13knots of wind. James gave it his best shot but if Miley doesn’t want to go somewhere, she really doesn’t want to go there. A long fin keel and lots of windage make for a very stubborn Milestone, especially on our maiden voyage with very little practice handling vessels like Miley. James then reversed into another berth, which was slightly easier but Miley is still very unresponsive given the best of times, let alone in reverse. I jumped off with my bow line and we walked her back along the pontoon. James didn’t appreciate me talking to Milestone like this: “Miley, come on Miley! Good girl. Walkies! Come on Miley, just a few more feet… goooood girl Milestone.” luckily there was nobody around to hear.

We went up to the office to settle up, apologised for our inability to end up in the berth they gave us, picked our eyes up off the floor after they asked us for £25 - April 1st, start of summer rates, just our luck - and stumbled across the road into The Anchor. A pint of the good stuff down our necks, and off we went in hunt of some food.

After an abnormally uneventful night in Cowes (last time we went in The Anchor a couple were eyeing up James’ sister, and a group of guys were doing the same to James), we went to bed and arose early the next morning to have some breakfast and walk around the shops. Well, early by my books is anything before 9am. I managed to save £37.50 by making the agonising decision not to buy an awesome sailing smock thing, and we cast off at 1110 bound for our home port.

We passed the Prince Consort cardinal just off Cowes and raised sail, engine off. Visibility wasn’t as good as our outward leg - we could only just eyeball Gilkicker. We took another 3-point fix when we were just south of Ryde Middle, and soon after had to turn our engine back on as the wind dropped, leading us to slightly lose steerage (!) and being unable to point where we wanted to go under sail alone. As we approached Gilkicker we sighted sail training vessel John Laing on our port quarter, and I did a quick calculation to work out we’d have to go for the main Swashway channel.

The rest of the return journey was uneventful, and we tied up back in the marina at 1330. We spent the rest of the afternoon scrubbing down her decks, installing the stack pack on the mizzen, and taking our main boom off for Jerry The Rigger to collect and cut down for us. One of the Clipper staff also came aboard and helped James winch me up the mast to sort out a few things, then swung me across to the mizzen, which was good fun.

I know I keep saying it, but it was all so perfect. We couldn’t have wished for any better from our maiden voyage.

And why ’snork’ maiden voyage, you ask? Well, James thinks I’m a Moomin. A Snork Maiden, to be precise. It’s my ‘pet name’. During our sail to Cowes and back, I did all the entries in the log book. James’ only contribution was the addition of the word “snork” before “maiden voyage” in the first entry. Boys.