Still waiting for a weather window but Tuesday is looking promising for a move
Sunday 21st May
Day 3
Position – Royal Clarence Marina, Gosport
It has been another very wet and miserable day in Gosport today. Unfortunately the weather does not seem to be improving either. Looking ahead to the weekend the weather seems to be taking a turn for the worst and the window we have been watching and hoping for is slowly getting swallowed up. Tuesday is still looking possible, but will the weather hold for the fleet to return later in the week? Will we get away at all? We hope so? Stay tuned.
Keeping our spirits up, MBM’s Chris Brace and Richard Poat took the new RIB ‘Time Flies’, a Ribquest 6.3m for its first shakedown blast out into the Portsmouth swashway. MBM’s Calm Voyager followed them out to take photographs. The entrance was quite lumpy with poor visibility across to the Isle of Wight. We re-fuelled both boats on the way back through at Gosport Marina.
There is currently a Force 6 in the channel. Listening to Portsmouth QHM VHF channel 11 the delayed BT Global Challenge Yachts are coming in one by one, exhausted and sombre in mood due to the death of a crewmember earlier in the week.
MBM Cruise Leader, Neale is due to update the fleet soon with a verdict on the weather and the possibility of a crossing to Cherbourg on Tuesday. Decisions must be made. “We have never had this situation before on an MBM cruise, where the fleet has been so scattered across the south coast, unable to reach the start point in time because of the weather” Neale comments. With only three boats in Royal Clarence, the fleet remains spread as far as east as Brighton and far west as Poole, but the majority are still in the Solent.
